El Paso Doctor Wins Award for Rescue

Soldier’s medal awarded to Lt. Colonel Haskell D. Hatfield, M.D. by the U.S. Army War Department in 1946.

 

Major excerpts from the article in the El Paso Times, March 26, 1946 (shown above):

El Paso Doctor Wins Award For Rescue

Dr.  Haskell D. Hatfield has been awarded the Soldier’s Meal, (the) War Department announced Monday, for helping rescue six men trapped in a B-29 Bomber which crashed Feb. 9, 1945, at Tinker Field, Okla.

He was released from the Army Air Corps with the rank of colonel in January and returned to El Paso.

Dr. Hatfield was commissioned in the medical reserve in 1935. He went on active duty in January, 1941, serving as flight surgeon at various bases during his five years in the Air Corps.

In the citation accompanying his award, Hatfield was credited with having “heroically entered the blazing aircraft and aided in the rescue of the trapped crew. Despite danger of imminent explosion and in face of exceptionally great hazard, he administered opiates and first aid during the successful rescue of the crew.”