High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! William Deane Hawkins (April 18, 1914 November 21, 1943) was a United States Marine Corps officer who was posthumously awarded the United States' highest military honor the Medal of Honor for heroic actions and sacrifice of life during the World War II Battle of Tarawa. Hawkins was born on April 18, 1914 in Fort Scott, Kansas. When he was a baby, he suffered an accident which scarred him for life. A neighbor upset a can of scalding hot water over him and it was a year before his mother was able to cure the muscular damage by massage and he could walk again.