Category: July 2024

CHEROKEE SERGEANT ROY W. “BILL” HARMON KILLED IN ACTION-EARNS MEDAL OF HONOR

Born on May 3, 1915*, in Talala, Oklahoma (OK), raised in Yale, OK, Bill moved to Pixley, California, in 1939 where he worked on the family farm. Harmon enlisted in the Army on November 17, 1942. His 91st Infantry Division trained for 18 months in the U.S. and Algeria before joining General Mark Clark’s Fifth Army north of Rome. Assigned to Company C, 362nd Infantry Regiment, Near Casaglia, Harmon, acting as squad leader in his first day of combat, single-handedly attacked three German machinegun positions which were firing on a friendly platoon. He destroyed one position and, despite being wounded on his approach, continued to silence another. Despite being hit, knocked back and mortally wounded while attacking the third position, he still managed to hurl his grenade destroying it. For these actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on October 2, 1945. Harmon was buried at the Florence American Cemetery in Florence, Italy.

Source:  “Roy W. Harmon,”  Medal of Honor recipients – World War II (G–L), United States Army Center of Military History.  Retrieved 7/6/2019, https://history.army.mil/html/moh/wwII-g-l.html

Photo:  U.S. Army, circa 1941-1944.  Public Domain.  

*   Sources differ on whether he was born in 1915 or 1916.