Remember our Heroes – Dean Hawkins

If you don’t know about William Dean Hawkins, you should …

The first to disembark from the jeep lighter, 1st Lt. Hawkins unhesitatingly moved forward under heavy enemy fire at the end of the Betio Pier, neutralizing emplacements in coverage of troops assaulting the main beach positions. Fearlessly leading his men on to join the forces fighting desperately to gain a beachhead, he repeatedly risked his life throughout the day and night to direct and lead attacks on pillboxes and installations with grenades and demolitions

At dawn on the following day, 1st Lt. Hawkins resumed the dangerous mission of clearing the limited beachhead of Japanese resistance, personally initiating an assault on a hostile position fortified by S enemy machineguns, and, crawling forward in the face of withering fire, boldly fired pointblank into the loopholes and completed the destruction with grenades.

Refusing to withdraw after being seriously wounded in the chest during this skirmish, 1st Lt. Hawkins steadfastly carried the fight to the enemy, destroying 3 more pillboxes before he was caught in a burst of Japanese shellfire and mortally wounded.

My uncle remembers Dean as a boy in El Paso. His father left when he was very young. He was a sickly kid who was seriously burned by a nursemaid when he was only a baby. The story goes that his mother wouldn’t give up on him then, even after being told by the doctors that he would probably die. He wasn’t a big kid at all – maybe 5’6 or 5’7. He went into the Marines as a private, and was promoted through battlefield promotions, receiving a battlefield commission to become a first lieutenant.

Tarawa was a vicious battle. An island in the Gilbert Islands, it served as a strategic base for the Japanese. It was situated such that the American island hopping campaign was dependent on it being taken. Thus, it was an early opportunity for America to take the offensive in the central Pacific.

The landing area was flanked by a long pier which was fortified with pillboxes and machine gun nests. The pier is in the middle of the picture to the left. The black dots below it are landing craft … when the marines hit the beach, they were exposed to withering fire from the entrenched troops in the jungle and the troops on the pier.

After taking the pier and moving into the jungle, Hawkins took a round in the chest. They offered to evacuate him, but he refused, returning to lead his men the next day. He died November 21, 1943.

God bless him.

In memory of my father.