William James Bordelon (1920-1995)

Medal of Honor recipient, William James Bordelon, was born on December 25, 1920, in San Antonio, Texas. He was the son of William Jennings and Carmen Josephine (Pereira) Bordelon. As a youngster, Bordelon attended the local schools and served as an altar boy at Mission San José. In 1938 he graduated from Central Catholic High School where he had served as the top-ranking cadet in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. On December 10, 1941, three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bordelon enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

Bordelon excelled in his military training in 1942 and 1943. During recruit training in San Diego, he recorded a score of 214 in rifle fire to qualify as a Marine “marksman.” Following recruit training, Bordelon was assigned to the Second Engineer Battalion, Second Marine Division, in San Diego where he underwent additional training, achieved rapid promotions, and attained the rank of sergeant on July 10. On October 20 his unit departed San Diego for New Zealand for six weeks of additional training in late 1942. Sergeant Bordelon witnessed his first combat on Guadalcanal during the period from January 4 to February 19, 1943. After the brutal Guadalcanal campaign, Bordelon returned to New Zealand for additional training and was promoted to staff sergeant (SSgt) on May 13, 1943.

With members of his Assault Engineer Platoon, First Battalion, Eighteenth Marines (attached to the Second Marines during the invasion of Tarawa), Staff Sergeant Bordelon landed on the beaches of the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on November 20, 1943. Taking intense enemy fire, Bordelon was among only four Marines from his LVT (landing vehicle, tracked [also known as amphibious tractor]) to survive the landing. Along with a comrade, Bordelon moved out of the vehicle and immediately found himself caught in barbed wire while under heavy fire. After extracting themselves, the four men found some safety behind a four-foot-high seawall.

Having lost most of their equipment, Staff Sergeant Bordelon took charge of the desperate situation. He secured two packages of dynamite, made demolition charges, and then eliminated two pillboxes. Bordelon threw a charge at a third pillbox but was hit by machine gun fire in the process. Wounded by enemy fire and from the backlash of the charge, he secured a rifle and provided cover for a number of men attempting to climb the seawall. Hearing two wounded Marines in the water calling for help, Bordelon proceeded to rescue them in spite of his own serious injuries. Though injured from multiple wounds, the Texan assaulted a fourth Japanese position that he managed to destroy with a rifle grenade just before he was killed by a burst of hostile fire. Against enormous odds, the wounded Marine had destroyed four Japanese machine gun positions and rescued two Marines.

Bordelon’s actions at Tarawa were described as “valorous and gallant.” His heroic effort came “during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead [and] was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island.” In a ceremony at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio, William and Carmen Bordelon were presented their son’s posthumous Medal of Honor by Marine Maj. Donald Taft on June 17, 1944. June 17 was proclaimed “Bordelon Memorial Day” in San Antonio, and Governor Coke Stevenson designated the week “Statewide Bordelon Week” in Texas. A destroyer, the USS Bordelon (commissioned in 1945), Veterans of Foreign Wars William J. Bordelon Post 4700, and American Legion Post 300 were named in honor of the Texan. The San Antonio native was the first Texas Marine to earn the Medal of Honor during World War II and the first man and only enlisted man to earn the Medal of Honor at Tarawa. He was also the first native-born San Antonian ever to receive the Medal of Honor. His other posthumous awards included the Purple Heart, Presidential Unit Citation, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. In 1994 the Navy-Marine Corps Reserve building in San Antonio was named in Bordelon’s honor.

Bordelon was first buried at Tarawa in the Lone Palm Cemetery. After the war, his body was reburied in Hawaii in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu in 1947. In early 1995 Bordelon’s surviving siblings Robert Bordelon and Carmen Bordelon Imhoff, assisted by San Antonio Express-News staff writer J. Michael Parker and others, sought and were granted permission to return Bordelon to San Antonio. On November 19, 1995, the Texas hero’s flag-draped casket flanked by two Marine honor guards lay in state for public viewing at the Alamo - the shrine of Texas liberty. He was only the fifth person to lie in state in the Alamo up to that time. An estimated 2,500 people or more came to view the casket. On November 20, Rev. George Montague of St. Mary’s University concelebrated with Auxiliary Bishop John Yanta and nine other priests a funeral Mass in Mission San José. Sgt. William James Bordelon was reburied with full military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery exactly fifty-two years after his death at Tarawa. In 2007 Central Catholic High School in San Antonio dedicated a new memorial in the lobby, and in 2009 a section of Interstate 37 that ran between IH 35 and IH 10 in San Antonio was named to commemorate Bordelon.

CITATION

For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but 4 of the men in his tractor, S/Sgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put 2 pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machine gun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall. Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and single-handedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machine gun position but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. S/Sgt. Bordelon's great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout 3 days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

Section AI
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

29° 28.588, -098° 25.976

Alexander Purnell "Sandy" Horton (1810-1894)

Alexander Horton, early settler, local official, and aide-de-camp to Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution, the son of Julius and Susan (Purnell) Horton, was born on April 18, 1810, in Halifax County, North Carolina. In 1823 he moved with his widowed mother and other members of her family to Texas. With his brother, Sam W., and his brother-in-law James Whitis Bullock, Horton crossed the Sabine River into Texas on January 1, 1824. The three built a cabin on the Attoyac River, where Horton, aged thirteen, was left in charge, while the other two returned to Louisiana for the remainder of the family. In 1827 Horton participated in putting down the Fredonian Rebellion, and on August 2, 1832, under Bullock, he fought in the battle of Nacogdoches against José de las Piedras. From 1831 to 1833 he served as sheriff of Ayish Bayou and in 1835 represented Ayish Bayou (or San Augustine) in the Consultation. When Sam Houston was appointed commander-in-chief of the Texas army in 1836, Horton was named his aide-de-camp and fought as such in the battle of San Jacinto. He was chairman of the board of land commissioners in 1838 and collector of customs of San Augustine in 1838–39. Horton was again sheriff of San Augustine in 1844 and played an active part in arresting the leaders of the Regulator-Moderator War. After 1844 he was mayor of San Augustine for several years. His last public office was as representative of San Augustine and Sabine counties in the Fifteenth Legislature. He died on his farm near San Augustine on January 11, 1894. Source


Horton Cemetery
San Augustine

31° 32.679, -094° 05.837

Owen Shannon (1762?-1839)

Owen Shannon, Texas pioneer and farmer, was born around 1760 in the province of Georgia. He was the son of Ellinor and Thomas Shannon, Sr. On May 24, 1784, Owen Shannon received a Revolutionary War bounty land grant from the state of Georgia in Franklin County for 287½ acres of land. Whether he actually fought in a military capacity in order to receive this bounty has been called into question in recent years as Revolutionary War bounty land grants were also available to non-military citizens of Georgia who did not flee Georgia and who did not side with the Loyalists during the American Revolution. He married Margaret (Margit or Marget) Montgomery in Wilkes County, Georgia, on October 22, 1792.

The first record of Owen Shannon’s presence in Texas was a memorial he signed with his son, John, and his sons-in-law, Charles Garret, James Miller, and Jonas Harrison in 1821. The memorial was addressed to the president of the United States and complained of the Treaty of Doak’s Stand. These men signed the memorial as citizens of the Arkansas Territory. At that time, they were living in the neighborhood of the Pecan Point and Jonesborough settlements south of the Red River in what was actually Mexican Texas in today’s Red River County.

By 1824 Owen Shannon was residing in the district of Nacogdoches. On February 10, 1824, he along with his sons, John and Jacob, signed a petition addressed to José Antonio Saucedo seeking information regarding the procedure for obtaining land in Mexico. On September 9, 1825, Shannon and his sons signed a resolution in the Ayish Bayou District (later San Augustine) binding themselves to support the Federal Constitution of Mexico and to support the laws of the Mexican nation. On January 9, 1826, Owen Shannon’s name and those of his sons, John and Jacob, appeared on a list of free males residing in the Ayish Bayou District. His name and those of his son, John, and son-in-law, Jonas Harrison, also appeared on a muster roll for the Ayish Bayou District in 1826.

Having received no Mexican land grants since arriving in Texas in 1821, Shannon left the Ayish Bayou District in 1830 and traveled down into Stephen F. Austin’s colony. In October 1830 his name and that of his wife appeared in Austin’s Register of Families. He was seventy years old at the time of his arrival in Austin’s colony, and his occupation was recorded as farmer. Margaret’s age was entered as sixty. Shannon received a land grant for a league of land (4,428.4 acres) in Austin’s second colony on April 8, 1831. He could not pay the closing costs and fees to clear his league out of Austin’s land office. A land speculator named Thomas Taylor paid these sums on Shannon’s behalf. In return, Taylor received half of Owen Shannon’s league (2,214.2 acres). Shannon’s land grant was located in what became known as the Lake Creek Settlement in present-day western Montgomery County.

Owen and Margaret Shannon had six children. Daughter Ellinder married New Jersey native Jonas Harrison in whose honor Harrison County was later named. Daughter Ruth (Ruthy) married James Miller, and their names were listed in the 1826 Atascosito census. Daughter Nancy married Charles Garret, a member of Austin’s Old Three Hundred. Garret received his land grants from Stephen F. Austin on July 15, 1824, in what is today’s Waller and Brazoria counties. Son John married a woman named Charlotte and received a league of land in Austin’s second colony on April 8, 1831, in today’s Walker County. Son Jacob married Catherine Yoakum and received a league of land in Austin’s second colony on April 30, 1831, in present-day western Montgomery County. Daughter Polly was the wife of John Hauk and did not come to Texas. Owen Shannon was a farmer and owned six slaves at the time of his death. He died in the Lake Creek Settlement in 1834. The exact location of his burial is not known, but a cenotaph to his memory has been erected in the “Old Cemetery” in Montgomery. His widow Margaret Shannon died about 1854 and is buried in the Jacob Shannon Evergreen Cemetery near Dobbin in Montgomery County. Source

  

Note: This is a cenotaph. Differing contemporary accounts have Owen Shannon as being buried either on his homestead or in the now defunct Joel Greenwood family cemetery in Plantersville. However, in both cases, his grave was never marked and the location lost.


Old Methodist Churchyard
Montgomery

30° 23.316, -095° 41.845

Martin Parmer (1778-1850)

Martin Parmer, legislator, judge, and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, on June 4, 1778. After first moving to Kentucky, in 1798 Parmer settled in Dickson County, Tennessee, where he became superintendent of the Montgomery Bell iron works. About 1816 he moved to Missouri, where in 1820 he was elected to a two-year term in the Missouri General Assembly (1820–21). While serving in this office Parmer was named as a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1821. Three years later he represented Clay County for a term in the Missouri State Senate (1824–25). Partly as a result of his military service in the War of 1812, he was chosen colonel of the Missouri militia, where, after 1821, he led four military companies against the Indians.

In 1825 Parmer went briefly to Arkansas and then to Texas, where he settled near Mound Prairie (now in Cherokee County). The next year he joined Haden Edwards and fought for Benjamin Edwards in the Fredonian Rebellion. On November 25, 1826, Parmer presided over the court-martial that tried and convicted Samuel Norris, the alcalde of Nacogdoches, and his attorney, José Antonio Sepulveda. When the rebellion collapsed in defeat, Parmer fled first to Gonzales and then later to Louisiana. He attempted to return to Texas in 1831 but was expelled by Mexican authorities. After being pardoned in 1835 he returned to East Texas in time to be elected as a delegate from Tenaha (now Shelby County) to the Consultation of 1835. The same year he was elected to the General Council. The following year San Augustine County selected Parmer as one of its delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1836. At Washington-on-the-Brazos he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and was assigned to the committee to draft the new constitution. In 1839 President Mirabeau B. Lamar appointed Parmer chief justice of Jasper County. He held this post for less than a year.

Parmer married Sarah Hardwick about 1798 in Kentucky. They had ten children. Sarah Parmer died in Texas in 1826. In later years her ten children spelled their surname "Palmer." About 1827 Parmer married Margaret Griffin Neal; they had one daughter. About 1830 Parmer married Louisa Lout, who had at least six children by a previous marriage. They had one son. Finally, about 1839 Parmer married Zina Kelley; they had five children. Parmer died on March 2, 1850, in Jasper County and was buried twelve miles southeast of Jasper on the A. C. Parmer survey. Later his body was moved to the State Cemetery in Austin. Parmer County, established on August 21, 1876, was named in his honor. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

30° 15.971, -097° 43.643