World War II Medal of Honor Recipient. He received the award from President Harry S. Truman in Olympia, Washington on June 21, 1945, for his actions as a sergeant with the Weapons Platoon, Company E. 2nd Battalion, 359th Infantry, 90th Infantry Division, US Army, on August 20, 1944, near Chambois, France. After graduating from high school in 1943, he joined the US Army. When he had completed his recruit and combat training, he was sent to the European Theater of Operations. During a German counterattack on that day, at the Battle of Falaise Pocket, he was wounded in the right thigh while taking cover behind a tree, where a German shell had penetrated the tree trunk. He continued to fight and, in order to direct the shots of friendly tank destroyers, he willingly exposed himself to intense enemy fire and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallantry. During his combat tour, he was awarded the Purple Heart (with three oak leaf clusters). In 1945 he returned home and attended the University of Washington in Seattle, graduating with a bachelor's degree in biology and became an educator and principal in the local school district, retiring after 30 years. He died at the age of 89. His Medal of Honor citation reads: "He manned a light machine gun on 20 August 1944, near Chambois, France, a key point in the encirclement which created the Falaise pocket. During an enemy counterattack, his position was menaced by a strong force of tanks and infantry. His fire forced the infantry to withdraw, but an artillery shell knocked out his gun and wounded him in the right thigh. Securing a bazooka, he and another man stalked the tanks and forced them to retire to a wooded section. In the lull which followed, Sgt. Hawk reorganized two machine-gun squads and, in the face of intense enemy fire, directed the assembly of one workable weapon from two damaged guns. When another enemy assault developed, he was forced to pull back from the pressure of spearheading armor. Two of our tank destroyers were brought up. Their shots were ineffective because of the terrain until Sgt. Hawk, despite his wound, boldly climbed to an exposed position on a knoll where, unmoved by fusillades from the enemy, he became a human aiming-stake for the destroyers. Realizing that his shouted fire directions could not be heard above the noise of battle, he ran back to the destroyers through a concentration of bullets and shrapnel to correct the range. He returned to his exposed position, repeating this performance until two of the tanks were knocked out and a third driven off. Still at great risk, he continued to direct the destroyers' fire into the Germans' wooded position until the enemy came out and surrendered. Sgt. Hawk's fearless initiative and heroic conduct, even while suffering from a painful wound, was in large measure responsible for crushing two desperate attempts of the enemy to escape from the Falaise pocket and for taking more that 500 prisoners."