b. 31/07/1880 La Grange, Indiana. d. 23/09/1932 Key West, Florida.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 21/07/1905 San Diego, California.
Frank Ebenezer Hill MOH
United States Navy Peacetime Medal of Honor Recipient. He served as a Ship’s Cook First Class in the United States Navy on board the “Yorktown”-class steel-hulled, twin-screw gunboat “USS Bennington”. He was on board the ship on July 21, 1905 when one of her boilers exploded, tearing the ship up and killing or mortally wounding a total of sixty-six sailors, and displayed what was deemed by the Navy as “extraordinary heroism” in saving lives after the explosion. The Official Naval Report of the incident stated “Ship’s cook first class Frank E. Hill stood in the hatch leading from sick bay at the moment of disaster. Hill turned and went below to retrieve injured men from passageways and machine shops filled with steam. He had been on the sick list for several days previously, and fainted on two occasions on gaining the deck with injured men, but continued the work”. He and eleven other men were awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery that day (his official citation reads simply “On board the USS Bennington, for extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion of a boiler of that vessel at San Diego, Cal., 21 July 1905.”)
MOH CITATION:
On board the U.S.S. Bennington, for extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion of a boiler of that vessel at San Diego, Cal., 21 July 1905.
BURIAL LOCATION: CENTER POINT CEMETERY, CENTER POINT, INDIANA.
ROW 5 EAST, GRAVES 7 & 8.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: FAMILY.
