Medal of Honor: David E. Hayden, World War I, September 15, 1918

David E. Hayden
World War I – September 15, 1918

The fields of Thiaucourt, France, were torn with machinegun fire on that September day in 1918, as American Marines and their Navy medical corpsmen pushed forward during the St. Mihiel offensive. Among them was a young Hospital Apprentice First Class, David E. Hayden of Florence, Texas. He had no rifle in his hands that day — his weapon was courage.

As his battalion advanced, Corporal Creed was struck down, mortally wounded in the open ground, a place swept relentlessly by enemy fire. To go to him meant almost certain death, but Hayden did not hesitate. Ignoring the bursts of bullets that tore the earth around him, he sprinted forward into the storm. Reaching his fallen comrade, he knelt in the open, exposed to the guns, and began dressing Creed’s terrible wounds. Every second was borrowed time, but Hayden kept working.

When the dressing was complete, Hayden hoisted the stricken Marine onto his shoulders and carried him back through the same fire he had crossed moments before. Somehow, miraculously, he made it to safety. In that act, Hayden embodied the sacred promise of the Navy Corpsman and Marine bond: no man left behind, no comrade abandoned.

For his extraordinary heroism under fire, Hayden was awarded the Medal of Honor. His actions that day reflect not just valor, but the quiet, unyielding devotion of a man who saw another in need and chose to risk everything to save him.

Hayden survived the war and lived to see peace, carrying with him the memory of a single desperate act in a field of fire — the act that forever inscribed his name in the roll of honor.

Medal of Honor Citation

For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. During the advance, when Cpl. Creed was mortally wounded while crossing an open field swept by machinegun fire, Hayden unhesitatingly ran to his assistance and, finding him so severely wounded as to require immediate attention, disregarded his own personal safety to dress the wound under intense machinegun fire, and then carried the wounded man back to a place of safety.