330-PS-2757  (USN 706607):   Heroic Navy Hospitalman Presented Medal of Honor Posthumously.   During ceremonies at the Pentagon, the nation’s highest award, the Medal of Honor, was posthumously presented to Richard David De Wert, Hospitalman, USN, of Tauton, Massachusetts, by Secretary of the Navy Dan A. Kimbell (left).  Mrs. Evelyn De Wert Jones received the medal for her son.  Mr. Joseph C. Jones, husband, looks on.  Mr. Albert G. Doherty, brother, and high-ranking officials of the Department of Defense and Navy were present.  The Medal of Honor citation, in part, follows, “…as a medical corpsman, attached to a Marine Infantry Company, First Marine Division, in action against enemy aggressor forces in Korea on April 5, 1951, when a fire team from the point platoon of his company was pinned down by a deadly barrage of hostile automatic weapons fire and suffered many causalities, De Wert rushed to the assistance of one of the more seriously wounded and, despite a painful leg wound sustained while dragging the stricken Marine to safety, steadfastly refused medical treatment for himself and immediately dashed back through fire-swept area to carry a second wounded man out of the line of fire…he bravely moved forward a third time and received another serious wound in the shoulder after discovering that a wounded Marine had already died.  Still persistent in his refusal to submit to first aid, he resolutely answered the call of a fourth stricken comrade and, while rendering medical assistance, was himself mortally wounded by a burst of enemy fire…” Photograph released May 27, 1952.  (5/19/2015).
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