This Day in History: William R. Caddy's Medal of Honor

On this day in 1946, a hero is awarded the Medal of Honor. William Robert Caddy left his life as a milkman’s assistant to join the Marines late in 1943. What a drastic change for the Quincy, Massachusetts, native?

Yet the move from milkman to Marine doesn’t seem to have fazed the 18-year-old. He buckled down, soon qualifying as a sharpshooter. By January 1945, he had completed training, and he was a rifleman with the 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division.

He was headed for Iwo Jima.

Pfc. Caddy was in the first wave of Marines to hit the shores that February 19. For twelve long days, he was right in the thick of it, but his Medal action didn’t come until March 3, several days after the famous flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. 

Caddy was then fighting in an isolated sector of the island along with his platoon leader and another Marine. They’d been making determined progress, even in the midst of what Caddy’s Medal citation describes as “shattering Japanese machine-gun and small-arms fire.”

The three Marines dropped into a shell hole, seeking cover from the persistent enemy fire. Unfortunately, their move was spotted by a concealed Japanese sniper. Our boys were pinned down, unable to move forward.

Would you believe they ended up in a grenade fight after that? Caddy’s citation describes the “fierce exchange of hand grenades until a Japanese grenade fell beyond reach in the shell hole.”

His platoon leader, Sgt. Ott Farris, later spoke of what happened next. He remembers Caddy looking straight at him as he hurled his body atop the grenade. “I’ll do anything for you,” Caddy said to Farris, just before that deadly weapon exploded.

His action saved the two Marines who were with him. In fact, Farris would eventually make it safely home and name one of his sons for the young Marine who’d saved him. But William Caddy Farris isn’t the only person to carry this hero’s name, as one local journalist discovered several years ago.

His nephew is William Caddy Bevans. His grandniece is Kaitlyn Caddy Holleran.  Another of his nieces married a Marine, then had a son who became a Marine. That son named his own son Jackson Caddy Morse.

“Caddy never had children,” Boston Globe journalist Kerry J. Byrne concludes, “and his story might have ended there. Instead, the life of this local hero lives on in a family and a city that wears his name like a red, white and blue badge of courage.”

Indeed, his hometown has a Marine Corps League Detachment named for him, as well as a park.  Byrne reports that the community has held annual observances of “Caddy Day” for decades.

Fitting tributes to the “Stouthearted and indomitable” young Marine who sacrificed himself that others might live.

Rest in peace, Sir.

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  Primary Sources:

• Brothers Pay Honor to Marine Hero (Birmingham News; July 4, 1963) (p. 58)

• Caddy, William R., Private First Class, USMCR, (1925-1945) (Naval History and Heritage Command)

• Kali, Martin, Profile: Private First Class William R. Caddy's Medal of Honor (National World War II Museum; Feb. 19, 2022)

• Kerry J. Byrne, How a Milkman Became a Quincy War Hero (Boston Herald; April 11, 2010)

• Medal of Honor citation (William Robert Caddy; WWII)

• Medal of Honor Presented Mother of Quincy Marine (Boston Globe; Sept. 9, 1946) (p. 13)

• Private First Class William Robert Caddy, USMCR (Deceased) (U.S. Marine Corps website)