Utah's medal winners are roll of amazing heroes

Improbable heroes.

The handful of Utahns — soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines — who have received the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, are ordinary men who performed with extraordinary braveness.

Here is a brief look at Utah's Medal of Honor recipients.

Photos of these Medal of Honor recipients from the Deseret News archives and other sources have been collected by photo researcher Ron Fox and can be viewed at deseretnews.com.

George Wahlen

Wahlen, 85, who lives in Roy, was a 20-year-old Pharmacist's Mate Second Class in the Navy when U.S. Marines launched an assault on the small island of Iwo Jima south of Japan. He went ashore as a medic.

"Well, I'm sure glad a pill pusher finally made it here," President Harry S. Truman said when he presented the Medal of Honor to Wahlen on Oct. 5, 1945.

During the 13 days he spent on Iwo Jima, Wahlen was wounded three times.

The first occurred when a grenade "exploded within a foot or so of my head when I was laying on my stomach trying to help a Marine," Wahlen said in a Nov. 11, 1976, Deseret News story by Joe Bauman.

Shell fragments damaged Wahlen's face, but it didn't stop him from using a grenade to knock out the Japanese emplacement so he could evacuate a wounded marine from the area.

Then he went ahead of the front lines and treated 14 wounded soldiers before returning to his own platoon.

Later, Wahlen was wounded as he dragged a wounded Marine off a hillside when a mortar shell landed behind him, striking him in the back and the right shoulder.

He remained on the island to treat the wounded. That's what he was doing when a shell went off near him, killing several Marines outright and breaking Wahlen's leg. He crawled 50 yards to administer first aid to still another fallen fighter.

Author Gary W. Toyn retells Wahlen's story in the 2006 book "The Quiet Hero: The Untold Medal of Honor Story of George E. Wahlen at the Battle for Iwo Jima."

William E. Hall

Hall, from Hiawatha, piloted a Douglas Dauntless scouting plane, armed only with two 50-caliber machine guns, during the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.