He played both football and baseball for Thomasville High School, but Henry Talmage Elrod, would one day find his opposition much greater than any he faced on the playing fields of south Georgia.  

Born in Turner County, Georgia, on September 27, 1905, Elrod’s father, Robert, moved the family to a 490-acre tract of land in southern Thomas County in 1911.  

A photo of the 1922 Thomasville High Bulldog football team, which finished the season 8-1-1, shows a tough and determined looking Elrod with his 16 other teammates. His prowess on the Thomasville High team earned him a spot on the University of Georgia football team, where he played just one year on George Woodruff’s 1923 squad before he transferred to Yale University prior to enlisting in the Marine Corps in 1927.  

He was appointed a Marine second lieutenant in 1931 and eventually trained as a Naval aviator at Pensacola Naval Air Station, earning his wings in 1935.

Captain Elrod flew from the Hawaiian islands to tiny Wake Island in the middle of the Pacific on December 4, 1941, escaping just three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Wake Island’s location 1,500 miles east of Guam, 2,300 miles west of Honolulu and 2,000 miles southeast of Tokyo, made it a strategic piece of land for the U.S. military. With slightly less than three square miles of land, the airstrip on Wake was a certain target for the enemy approaching.

Imperial Japanese aircraft began aerial attacks on the Wake Island base on December 8, destroying eight of the VMA-211 squadron’s 12 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats on the ground.  Two more aerial attacks followed, and on December 11, the garrison, with the support of the four remaining Wildcats, repelled the first Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island.

On December 12, Elrod single-handedly attacked a flight of 22 Japanese planes and shot down two, earning him the nickname “Hammerin Hank” among his fellow Marines. He executed several low-altitude bombing and strafing runs on enemy ships. During one of these attacks, he became the first American to sink a Japanese warship from a fighter aircraft, dropping the bombs on the destroyer Kisaragi’s stern, causing depth charges to explode and sending the ship to the bottom of the Pacific.

In his book, “The Story of Wake Island,” Major James P.S. Devereux, who commanded the garrison at Wake, describes Henry Elrod trying to nurse his crippled fighter back to the island. “Elrod’s plane was shot-up even worse. We watched him trying to reach the island. We could see the plane was in serious trouble, wobbling badly, losing altitude all the time as though it were being dragged down. It seemed certain he would never make the island. But he did, by a slight margin of a few feet, and crash-landed on the beach. Major Paul Putnam and I were among those who hurried down to pull what was left of Hammering Hank Elrod out of the wreck. He climbed out unhurt, but he wasn’t thinking about the miracle of his escape. His plane was a total loss and he couldn’t think of anything else. His first words to us were an apology for failing to bring his plane safely back.”

The remaining Marine aircraft were soon destroyed in repeated attacks and when there was nothing left to fly, Elrod organized troops into a beach defense unit which repulsed repeated Japanese attacks as the invasion of Wake Island intensified.

Later in his book is told the story of Captain Elrod’s last moments of life through an eyewitness account from Major Putman, who had been in the defensive battle with Elrod. As Major Devereux arrived at the battle’s location, Major Putnam said, “Jimmy, I’m sorry, poor Hank is dead.”  The book continued, “Elrod had been a fury.  Men remember how one enemy charge almost overwhelmed them and how Hank Elrod stood upright, blasting with a tommy gun and broke the charge. Japanese fell close enough for him to touch. They remember he was standing up to throw a grenade when a Japanese soldier shot him. The enemy had crawled in among the Japanese dead scattered thickly around the position and waited there for his chance. Somebody killed the Japanese soldier, but Elrod never knew it. He died instantly. Now he lay there, defiant and with his eyes open, the grenade still tightly clutched in his hand.”

The Japanese soon overran the island and the Marines surrendered at the command of Major Devereux, a decision that was not popular with a number of the men.  

Initially buried on Wake Island, his remains were later reinterred in Arlington National Cemetery. Elrod was posthumously promoted to major and his widow, Elizabeth, was presented with his Medal of Honor, the United States’ highest military honor, for his heroic actions during the defense of Wake Island. Additionally, streets were named after him on three different Marine Corps installations and a U.S. Navy ship was commissioned, the USS Elrod.

The story of Henry Elrod is one of bravery and true patriotism.  The only Medal of Honor winner from Thomasville, he is a true American hero.