Valor Friday

Of the more than 3,500 Medals of Honor that have been earned, there are some unique edge cases. I’ve previously talked about the handful of chaplains and dentists to have received the award. I’ve also talked about the lone Coast Guardsman to have gotten one. Today’s case is another of an “only.” Despite being in the thick of battle in every military operation in the last century, only a single combat photographer has received the Medal of Honor.

William T Perkins Jr was born in 1947 in Rochester, New York. As a child he moved to California, where he graduated from high school in 1965..

As a teenager, Bill Perkins had a passion for theater and photography. He planned to attend the UCLA Film School. In his junior year he befriended Craig Ingraham. The two shared a love of rock and roll music, theater, and offbeat comedy. The two would listen to Jonathan Winters and Bill Cosby records, memorizing the legendary comedians’ acts.

Both Perkins and Ingraham attended the local junior college after high school, before Ingraham was shocked one day when Perkins and a mutual friend announced to him that they had enlisted with the Marine Corps.

At a party just days prior to his shipping out, the two men had a falling out over a girl. Their last contact was a fight in which Perkins stormed off. Perkins would be one of the more than 58,000 American servicemen who would never make it back from Vietnam.

Perkins’ father had been a B-24 heavy bomber pilot during World War II, so it was unsurprising that he too went into military service. He attended boot camp at MCRD San Diego, then was stationed at Camp Pendleton.

He must have been a solid Marine, because he was promoted to private first class at the end of recruit training. By New Year’s Day, 1967 he was made a lance corporal, only six months into his enlistment.

Perkins was trained as a photographer and was assigned to the Headquarters Battalion, Marine Corps Supply Center, Barstow, California. He found the life of a military still photographer boring. “All I do is take photos of the general in parades,” he told his family, as his father recalled years later. Later in 1967 he attended the US Army’s motion picture photography course before returning to Barstow.

Learning how to take motion pictures wasn’t UCLA film school, but it was close. The only downside was that a commitment to attend the course meant a voluntary tour of duty in Vietnam. Perkins’ orders for the war would come in July 1967.

It is said of the combat photographer, “The brave ones fought with weapons. The crazy ones fought with cameras.” Their job is to document the service and sacrifice of the common troops. Their good times and bad. The casualties and the triumphs. The job requires putting oneself at great risk in the most harrowing of circumstances.

Perkins, just more than a year into the Marine Corps, was promoted to corporal in August. On October 12th he was the combat photographer for Company C, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division during Operation Medina.

The 1st Marine Regiment had been organized early in World War II. They saw service in the Battles of Guadalcanal, New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa. They again saw service for three years during the Korean War, were deployed to Vietnam from 1965 to 1971, saw action in the Persian Gulf, the Invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, and numerous deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. They hold 11 Presidential Unit Citations (the unit-level equivalent of a Navy Cross), two Navy Unit Commendations (unit-level equivalent of a Silver Star), and one Meritorious Unit Commendation (the unit-level equivalent of the Bronze Star Medal).

From 11 October 1967, 1/1 Marines was part of a search and destroy mission known as Operation Medina. The nine-day operation would see 1/1 Marines, joined by their brothers in the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines and the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines in the H?i L?ng Forest Reserve south of Qu?ng Tr?, South Vietnam hunting for Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces.

The operation began with a helicopter assault by 1/1 Marines and 2/1 Marines on the morning of 11 October. 1/3 Marines were to be a blocking force as the other two battalions moved in a northeast sweep.

On the 11st, Company C 1/3 Marines were hit by mortar fire and small arms in a ground attack they were able to repulse. The next day, Company C 1/1 Marines would embroiled in heavy combat.

On the afternoon of the 12th, Company C engaged a force of enemy soldiers. Taking heavy fire, several Marines were wounded, and the company fell back. They created a perimeter and cleared a landing zone to prepare to airlift out their wounded.

In the improvised landing zone was Corporal Perkins. The LZ was also the command post for Company C. As they were finishing evacuating their casualties, the company was attacked from two sides by an estimated three companies of North Vietnamese Army regulars.

Greatly outnumbered, the besieged Marines at the landing zone were the focus of the enemy action. As the afternoon turned to evening, Company D was sent in to reinforce them. With their help, they were able to repulse the NVA force.

During the close-quarters battle, grenades figured heavily into the fight. One such grenade came into the midst of the Marines at the command post. Perkins yelled “Incoming grenade!” to his comrades, then jumped on the grenade.

Perkins and three Marines were in the immediate vicinity of the bomb. Perkins’ unhesitating and decisive action to muffle the explosion with his own body saved the lives of the other three Marines. Unfortunately, Perkins would die as a result of his sacrifice. He was still holding his Filmo 35mm film camera when he died.

Back home, his friend Ingraham was distraught. Years later, haunted by the valor and loss of his best friend when he was only 20 years old, Ingraham accessed hours of footage Perkins shot in Vietnam and dozens of photos. Some of the film had been shot during Operation Medina, just before the battle would claim him. In 2006 he completed a documentary film on his friend called ABOVE AND BEYOND: The Story of Cpl William T Perkins Jr. USMC.

After his death, Perkins was recommended for a posthumous Navy Cross. Upon investigation, the recommendation was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. President Nixon awarded the nation’s highest honor to Perkins. His parents accepted the medal on his behalf in a ceremony at the White House in the summer of 1969.

Here is the last video shot by Corporal Perkins. This film was shot on the day before and day of his death. It includes the Marines’ preparations to enter battle and their airlift into the jungle. The final few minutes of the video is of the Marines’ preparing the landing zone and evacuation of the wounded. It would be just after those helicopters lifted off that the battle for Perkins would have begun in earnest.

Perkins’ mother Marilane appears to still be alive. She and the elder William T Perkins divorced in 1980 with the latter dying in 2006 at the age of 82. Bill Perkins left behind one sibling, Robert Brian Perkins. He was only 14 when his brother died in Vietnam. Sadly, he too would be taken far too young. Robert died in 1978 from cancer. He was only 25. The two brothers are buried together in the same grave, forever together, in a Mission Hills cemetery in Los Angeles.

In June 2015, Marilane Jacobson (formerly Perkins) donated her son’s Medal of Honor to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. The Marilane Jacobson Collection is exhibited in the Division of Armed Forces History at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC. In addition to Perkins’ Medal of Honor is displayed his Purple Heart, some of his photography, and the battle damaged camera he was holding at the time of his death.

For more on Bill Perkins’ story and his legacy, see the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History article here and here.

Category: Historical, Marines, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember