Rank First Lieutenant | Years of service 1915 - 1918 Name William Turner | |
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Allegiance United States of America Place of burial Somme American Cemetery and Memorial Similar People Benjamin Kaufman, George Price Hays, William Sawelson, Alan Louis Eggers, Thomas C Neibaur | ||
William Bradford Turner (1892 – September 27, 1918) was a United States Army officer who received the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in World War I.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Turner lived in Garden City, New York, and attended St. Paul's School there for one year. In 1907 he transferred to Trinity-Pawling School, which had been founded by the former headmaster of St. Paul's, Dr. Frederick Luther Gamage. He was a graduate of Williams College, class of 1914, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He joined the Army from Garden City in 1915.Turner is a direct decendant of the Europeans who settled New England in the early 1600s, including Massachuttess Governor William Bradford, and Dorothy Quincy, the wife of John Hancock.
By September 27, 1918, he was serving in France as a first lieutenant with the 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Division. During an attack on that night, near Ronssoy, he and a small group of others became separated from the rest of their company. Turner led the group forward despite intense artillery and machine gun fire, several times personally attacking machine gun positions which were firing on his men. Although wounded three times, he continued to lead the group forward, capturing and clearing three lines of trenches. After reaching their objective, a fourth line of trenches, Turner was killed while defending the position from a German counter-attack. For these actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor the next year, in 1919.
Aged 25 or 26 at his death, Turner was buried in France at the Somme American Cemetery.
Medal of Honor citation
Turner's official citation reads:
He led a small group of men to the attack, under terrific artillery and machinegun fire, after they had become separated from the rest of the company in the darkness. Single-handed he rushed an enemy machinegun which had suddenly opened fire on his group and killed the crew with his pistol. He then pressed forward to another machinegun post 25 yards away and had killed 1 gunner himself by the time the remainder of his detachment arrived and put the gun out of action. With the utmost bravery he continued to lead his men over 3 lines of hostile trenches, cleaning up each one as they advanced, regardless of the fact that he had been wounded 3 times, and killed several of the enemy in hand-to-hand encounters. After his pistol ammunition was exhausted, this gallant officer seized the rifle of a dead soldier, bayoneted several members of a machinegun crew, and shot the other. Upon reaching the fourth-line trench, which was his objective, 1st Lt. Turner captured it with the 9 men remaining in his group and resisted a hostile counterattack until he was finally surrounded and killed.