Robert F. Willard
Robert F. Willard
| Born | 1923-08-20 Billerica |
| Died | 1945-02-24 Iwo Jima |
Robert Frederick Willard (1923 to 1945) was a Billerica man, a Navy hospital apprentice who died of wounds received on Iwo Jima. His name is among the twenty-nine World War II dead on the World War Memorials on the Town Common.
He was born on August 20, 1923, a son of Carlisle W. Willard and his wife Emma, and grew up on Boston Road on the Billerica rural route, which had a Woburn post office address; the directories describe his father as a laborer and later a machinist, living near Arcadia Road in Riverdale in 1931.
In the Navy Willard served as a hospital apprentice first class and was assigned to the 5th Medical Battalion of the 5th Marine Division, the medical unit that ran the division''s aid stations and field hospitals. The division landed on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. Willard was wounded there and died of his wounds on February 24, 1945, the day after the flag was raised on Mount Suribachi. His name is in the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.