Beyond Valor by Jon Erwin

Author:Jon Erwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2020-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

On one of his first days as president, Harry S. Truman approved the recommendation for Red Erwin’s Medal of Honor. Truman had epic decisions ahead of him, on monumental issues affecting America and the world, but Red’s medal was one of the easiest decisions he ever had to make.

Truman was to personally present Medals of Honor to many American servicemen during his seven years in office, often in Rose Garden ceremonies, and his awe and respect for their deeds of courage was so great that he often told the recipients, “I’d rather wear that medal than be president26 of the United States.”

Red Erwin had no way of knowing this, but Truman would also soon be responsible for showing Red what he would do with the rest of his life, what his destiny would be, and what he was put on earth for.

Word quickly arrived from the Pentagon that Red’s Medal of Honor was signed off on by the president. In the meantime, General LeMay’s staff had canvassed the Pacific, trying to find a Medal of Honor to present to Red before he died. None were available except for one in a display case in the office of Maj. Gen. Robert C. Richardson, commander of the US Army, Pacific (Hawaiian Department), at Hickam Field in Hawaii, nearly four thousand miles away.

LeMay dispatched a B-29 to Hawaii with orders for the crew to get their hands on the medal. When they arrived at Hickam, the glass case was locked and the general and the key were nowhere to be found. So they smashed open the case, seized the medal, and bolted back to Guam.

Red lingered at the Iwo Jima field hospital for three days while doctors frantically labored to stabilize his grave condition. Sections of his scorched skin were removed, multiple units of plasma were administered, and he was wrapped from head to toe in sterile gauze. He resembled an Egyptian mummy.

The job of informing Red’s family of his injuries fell to a Roman Catholic chaplain on Iwo Jima, Capt. George Lehman. On April 16, just after Red was evacuated to the larger hospital at Guam, Lehman wrote to Betty: “It is my duty to inform you that your husband, Henry E. Erwin, was admitted into our hospital for the treatment of third degree burns of his head, face, neck, hands, forearms, and legs.” After some reassuring words on Red’s progress, he added, “He was a remarkable patient. In spite of his intense discomfort, he was unusually considerate, concerned less about himself, really, than about you. His first request when I came to his side was that I write you.”

On April 19, at a brief bedside ceremony in Fleet Hospital 103 on Guam, with the officers and crew of the City of Los Angeles looking on, General LeMay and Maj. Gen. Willis H. Hale, the commanding general, Army Air Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas, and deputy commander of the Twentieth Air Force, presented the Medal of Honor to Sgt. Henry E. Erwin.

General LeMay

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