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Fascinating and Lesser Known People Who Changed American History

Khalid Elhassan May 5, 2020 33 min

Normandy landings - Operation Overlord — Men of the 320th in Normandy. YouTube

6. D-Day’s Heroic Medic

Waverly Woodson, Jr., one of the 320^th Barrage Balloon Battalion’s medics, performed prodigies of selfless courage on D-Day. Although seriously injured and burned when his landing craft was hit by an artillery shell, Waverly ignored his wounds to help others. Repeatedly and often recklessly exposing himself to enemy fire for over 30 hours, he saved the lives of dozens of GIs that day.

He was nominated for the Medal of Honor, but never got it. For that matter, no African American soldier received the Medal of Honor during WWII. It would be another half-century before an African American received a Medal of Honor for his service during WWII.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.