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Medal of Honor Recipient

William Oakley

U.S. Navy · Spanish-American War

MOH-RC-002577Source-based record

The award

Representative medal image: early Navy star design and striped ribbon. Not a portrait or a photograph of this recipient’s own medal.
Navy Medal of HonorAction-era reference: 1898

Portrait not yet available. Representative medal shown.

About this image

Presentation date is not usable for design selection. This is an action-era reference; a later presentation or replacement medal may differ.

Medal imagery and historical designs →

Medal of Honor

May 11, 1898

Cienfuegos, Cuba

Rank at action
Gunner's Mate Second Class
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
Spanish-American War
Unit or command
U.S.S. Marblehead

The Citation

Sources ↓
On board the U.S.S. Marblehead during the operation of cutting the cable leading from Cienfuegos, Cuba, 11 May 1898. Facing the heavy fire of the enemy, Oakley displayed extraordinary bravery and coolness throughout this period.

Sources & record notes

General Order comparison: pending. Current-profile review does not mean that the underlying original order has been examined.

  1. William Oakley — current Society profile ↗Congressional Medal of Honor Society · Checked 2026-08-31

    current identity, service, action metadata, and citation comparison

Transcription, metadata & provenance notes
Award ID
MOH-AW-002589
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-31
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
521
Accredited to
New York
Archive transcription SHA-256
ee24c2ef8f611ea755cdbcb6a792044b5fe8f9667d590762a0586fcb8f8acbc0

Legacy transcription retained without substantive editing; rendered current reference profile variants documented in the Phase 10 evidence snapshot.

Current reference profile confirms identity, USS Marblehead, and the May 11, 1898 Cienfuegos cable-cutting action. Recovery provenance: the prior live-verification result is reconstructed because the described P10-C060–P10-C062 restart files were not physically available; the verified P10-C059 authority, retained web-reference metadata, legacy record, and prior session evidence are all preserved.