Stories Of Seven Aggie Medal Of Honor Recipients Told For First Time In New Book

Of the 20,000 Aggies who served in World War II, seven received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for bravery.

Years later, Col. James Woodall ’50, a former Commandant of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University and a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, embarked on a personal journey to locate the five medals not on display at the Sam Houston Sanders Corp of Cadets Center.

His dedicated search of archives, family collections and scores of other resources gather, for the first time, the complete stories of these seven courageous men:

• Lloyd Hughes Jr., who completed his critical bombing mission at Ploesti at the cost of his own life.
• Thomas Fowler, who continuously exposed himself to enemy fire in order to reconnoiter his unit’s advance, at the same time clearing a path through a minefield, personally capturing enemy combatants, and rendering aid to wounded comrades.
• George Keathley, who crawled from foxhole to foxhole while under a vicious enemy barrage, gathering ammunition and rendering aid to the wounded and later leading his platoon in holding off an attack, even as he was bleeding to death from a mortal wound.
• Horace Carswell Jr., who took heavy fire while persisting in his bombing attack on a Japanese fleet, then sacrificed his own life by refusing to abandon his damaged aircraft in order to save as many of his crew as possible.
• Turney Leonard, who despite being wounded and under withering fire, moved ahead of his troops to effectively direct anti-tank weaponry and reorganize confused and leaderless infantry units.
• Eli Whiteley, who charged through enemy mortar and small-arms fire in a fierce house-to-house attack, personally killing nine enemy combatants and capturing 23 others while sustaining severe injury.
• William Harrell, who, unaided, held off an attack on his lonely command post, killing at least five enemy combatants and sustaining wounds that cost him his right hand.

“Texas Aggie Medals of Honor: Seven Heroes of World War II” is available through Texas A&M University Press at http://www.tamupress.com or call 1-800-826-8911.