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William G. Fournier
William Grant Fournier [1] (June 21, 1913 – January 13, 1943) was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II. BiographyFournier was raised by his aunts and uncles in the town of South Kingstown, Rhode Island and enlisted in the Navy in 1931, at the age of 18, where he served for nearly a decade before retiring.[2] Fournier re-enlisted in the military before the beginning of World War II, this time in the Army, from Winterport, Maine in September 1940,[3] and by January 10, 1943, was serving as a Sergeant in Company M, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. During a Japanese attack on that day, at Mount Austen, Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, he refused an order to withdraw after many men in his unit had been killed or wounded and, with fellow soldier Technician Fifth Grade Lewis Hall, stayed behind to man a machine gun. Hall was killed at the gun, while Fournier was badly wounded and died three days later. Both men were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on June 5, 1943. Fournier, aged 29 at his death, was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. Medal of Honor citationSergeant Fournier's official Medal of Honor citation reads:
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