William Deane Hawkins (April 18, 1914–November 21, 1943) was a United States Marine Corps offi­cer who was posthu­mously awarded the United States’ high­est mil­i­tary honor — the Medal of Honor — for heroic actions and sac­ri­fice of life dur­ing the World War II Bat­tle of Tarawa.

Hawkins was born on April 18, 1914 in Fort Scott, Kansas. When he was a baby, he suf­fered an acci­dent which scarred him for life. A neigh­bor upset a can of scald­ing hot water over him and it was a year before his mother was able to cure the mus­cu­lar dam­age by mas­sage and he could walk again.

When he was five, the fam­ily moved to El Paso, Texas; when he was eight, his father died and his mother had to seek out­side employ­ment. She was employed as the sec­re­tary to a high school prin­ci­pal and, later, as a teacher in the El Paso Tech­ni­cal Institute.

An excel­lent stu­dent, he skipped fifth grade at LaMar and Alta Vista Schools and grad­u­ated from El Paso High School when he was 16. He won a schol­ar­ship to the Texas Col­lege of Mines, where he stud­ied engi­neer­ing. Dur­ing sum­mer vaca­tions, he deliv­ered mag­a­zines and sold news­pa­pers, and worked as a bell­hop, ranch hand, and rail­road laborer.

When he was 21, he went to Tacoma, Wash­ing­ton, to work. At 23, he was an engi­neer for a Los Ange­les title-insurance company.

After Pearl Har­bor was attacked, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve on Jan­u­ary 5, 1942, and was assigned to the 7th Recruit Bat­tal­ion, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. He had tried unsuc­cess­fully to enter both the Army and the Navy Air Corps, but his scars pre­vented his being accepted. Now, as a Marine, he joined the 2nd Marines, 2nd Marine Divi­sion, com­pleted Scout Snipers’ School at Camp Elliott, San Diego, and on July 1, 1942 embarked on board the USS Cres­cent City for the Pacific area.

A pri­vate first class when he went over­seas, he was quickly pro­moted to cor­po­ral and then sergeant. On Novem­ber 17, 1942, he was com­mis­sioned a sec­ond lieu­tenant while tak­ing part in the Guadal­canal cam­paign in the bat­tle for the Solomons. On June 1, 1943, he was pro­moted to first lieutenant.

Less than six months later, he was killed in action lead­ing a scout-sniper pla­toon in the attack on Betio Island dur­ing the assault on Tarawa. Dur­ing the two-day assault, 1stLt Hawkins led attacks on pill boxes and instal­la­tions, per­son­ally ini­ti­ated an assault on a hos­tile posi­tion for­ti­fied by five enemy machine guns, refused to with­draw after being seri­ously wounded and destroyed three more pill boxes before he was mor­tally wounded on Novem­ber 21, 1943. For his actions above and beyond the call of duty, 1st Lt. Hawkins was posthu­mously awarded the Medal of Honor.

In Sep­tem­ber 1944, the Medal of Honor was pre­sented to Hawkins’ mother by Pres­i­dent Franklin D. Roo­sevelt in a White House ceremony.

Lt. Hawkins’ remains were even­tu­ally interred in the National Memo­r­ial Ceme­tery of the Pacific in Hon­olulu, Hawaii.