William G. Windrich
United States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient
Staff Sergeant William Gordon Windrich (May 14, 1921 – December 2, 1950) was a United States Marine who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for outstanding heroism as a platoon sergeant in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.
Staff Sergeant Windrich was killed in action the early morning of December 2, 1950 near Yudam-ni, North Korea, during a savage night battle with Chinese forces on Hill 1520. He had refused to be evacuated after being wounded twice, once when a grenade fragment ripped through his helmet. Later felled by gunshot wounds in the legs, he directed his men in setting up defensive positions and shouted words of encouragement until he succumbed to his wounds and the bitter cold. He was carried down from the hill and was buried. He is now buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
The Medal of Honor, the United States' highest award for valor in combat, was presented to his widow by Secretary of the Navy Daniel A. Kimball during ceremonies on February 8, 1952, in Washington, D.C.
Biography
William Windrich was born on May 14, 1921, in Chicago, Illinois. He attended public schools in Hammond, Indiana.
US Marine Corps
He enlisted at seventeen in the Marine Corps Reserve on June 6, 1938, and was ordered to active duty in November 1940.
World War II
During World War II, he spent 20 months overseas in the South and Central Pacific as a machine gunner with the 2nd and 5th Defense Battalions and was on Tarawa.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William G. Windrich” is united States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Windrich and United, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “united States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15998034. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1950, 1520 and 1952.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “William G. Windrich”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow William G. Windrich primary sources, William G. Windrich archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William G. Windrich”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “William G. Windrich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.