Valor Friday

William Crawford

The humble looking enlisted man you see before you with a CIB has a distinctive little ribbon just below that among his fruit salad. Even without the photo being in color, the brilliant light blue ribbon with its five white stars stands out among the other awards on display.

Bill Crawford was a young private in the 36th Infantry Division, fighting in Southern Italy, when he twice charged into heavy enemy fire to take out enemy machine gun nests. In the aftermath of the battle he was presumed dead, and his father was presented with his Medal of Honor. Several months after he was “killed” in action, it became known that he had instead been captured by the Germans and was alive in a PW camp.

After retiring as a master sergeant in 1967, he took a job as a humble janitor at the Air Force Academy. Shy, quiet, and unassuming, he blended into the background of academy life, until a cadet discovered his past record.

It’s September 1943, and American and Allied forces are advancing up the Italian Peninsula. Army Pvt. William Crawford is the squad scout for I company, 142nd Infantry Regiment, near Altavilla, Italy. As he approached the crest of Hill 424, he ran into a wall of machine gun and small arms fire. Crawford, armed with just his rifle and some grenades, destroyed the enemy dugouts and scattered the defenders.

Crawford was declared killed in action that day and was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, which was presented to his father. The only problem was that Bill Crawford wasn’t dead. He had been captured by the Germans when he stopped to help a wounded fellow soldier and spent almost the rest of World War II in a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

After a brief try at post-war civilian life, he reenlisted and would end up making a career out of the Army, retiring as a master sergeant in 1967. After leaving the U.S. military, he went back to his native Colorado and took a job at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. There, he lived a quiet and unassuming life as a janitor. Cadets described the man cleaning up after them as “unimpressive” and someone “you could easily overlook during a hectic day.”

Then one day, a cadet stumbled upon the story of a Pvt. Crawford in Italy during World War II.

When Crawford came up over the ridgeline of Hill 424, he was alone and unable to alert his comrades that they were walking into an ambush. There were three dug-in enemy positions that he needed to take out, and the first was a machine gun right in front of him. Taking the initiative to the enemy, he advanced and tossed a grenade into the nest, killing the crew and destroying the weapon.

Crawford continued straight on, between two enemy machine gun nests, both of which were pouring bullets at his position. He then tossed a grenade into the machine gun on his left, which destroyed the weapon and killed the crew. With another grenade, he killed one of the men manning the machine gun on his right and scattered the rest of them. He then turned the gun around and mowed down the retreating Germans. His platoon was thus free to advance.

In 1976, a cadet named James Moschgat, now retired from the Air Force, was reading a book on World War II. He read about Crawford’s Medal of Honor action and told his roommate, “Holy cow, you’re not going to believe this, but I think our janitor is a Medal of Honor recipient.” They all knew their custodian was in the Army during World War II, but they didn’t know he’d received the nation’s highest award for valor.

When they asked him whether he was the same William Crawford, he said: “Yep, that’s me.” They also asked why he never told anyone about it, and he simply replied, “That was one day in my life, and it happened a long time ago.” After they realized who their janitor was, no cadet ever walked by him without paying their respects ever again — they even started cleaning up after themselves.

After his Medal of Honor became widely recognized around the campus, Crawford mentioned to friends that he had never actually been presented the medal. His father received his Medal of Honor citation, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on May 11, 1944, at a time when Crawford was still in a POW camp. At the 1984 Air Force Academy commencement ceremony, President Ronald Reagan presented Crawford his Medal of Honor, 40 years after his first, “posthumous” presentation.

“I was just glad that I was doing my part,” he said in an interview later in life. “I figured it was just a normal call of duty. I happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

Bill Crawford finally receiving his MoH from the President

Moschgot spent 30 years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot, retiring as a colonel. He’s the current commandant of the National Security Space Institute, part of the Space Force. Read his treatise on Master Sergeant Crawford, Lessons on Leadership from a Janitor, here. It includes a list of ten things that Crawford taught him on leadership. It’s definitely worth reading.

Bill Crawford died in 2000 at the age of 81 at his residence in Palmer Lake, Colorado. He’s buried at the Air Force Academy.

If you’d like to hear Bill’s own words, the Library of Congress has a video interview with him late in his life. Watch it here. After going through all of that, I can see why he preferred to live a quiet, nondescript life doing something simple like cleaning up after cadets.

Category: Air Force, Army, Historical, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember, WWII