Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson: Perhaps, the most tragic hero of them all

 

While most Americans have never heard of this man, his is quite possibly the most compelling soldier's story you will ever hear, and one which deserves to be told over and over again.
In the wee hours of May 14, 1918, a German raiding party of at least two dozen soldiers operating in the Argonne Forest, set out to capture American soldiers.
The Germans came upon a post occupied by Pvt. Henry Johnson and Pvt. Needham Roberts, and surprised the newly-armed Americans. Johnson was immediately wounded and Roberts was captured.
Johnson then went after the German raiders, firing his French Lebel rifle until it jammed, then using it as a club, bludgeoning enemy soldiers until it broke in half.

Johnson managed to grab a grenade from one of the Germans, which he threw into a group of raiders, killing several of them. He then pulled his bolo knife and dragged the disabled Roberts back to their post, still fighting off Germans along the way.
When French troops arrived a few hours later, they found Johnson and Roberts inside their post laughing and singing songs. They also found several dead and dying German soldiers strewn about the ground.

Johnson sustained no less than 21 separate wounds during the fight.
Since Sgt. Johnson's unit was comprised solely of black troops, at the time they were not allowed to fight with U.S. forces. Thus the 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters was attached to the 16th Division of the French 4th Army. Johnson, from New York, was forced to fight under the French flag though he volunteered for the U.S. Army.
Because of Sgt. Johnson's super-human deeds and self-less determination to save his comrade Needham Roberts, France awarded him that nation's highest military honor...The French Croix de Guere with Gold Palm.
The citation for the award reads as follows:

Johnson, Henry (13348), private in company C, being on double sentry duty during the night and having been assaulted by a group composed of at least one dozen Germans, shot and disabled one of them and grievously wounded two others with his bolo. In spite of three wounds with pistol bullets and grenades at the beginning of the fight, this man ran to the assistance of his wounded comrade who was about to be carried away prisoner by the enemy, and continued to fight up to the retreat of the Germans. He has given a beautiful example of courage and activity.

Upon Johnson's return to the United States, he received a ticker tape parade along New York City's Fifth Avenue. After hearing his story, former President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Johnson to be "one of the five bravest men who fought in World War I."
While France saw fit to bestow their highest honor upon Johnson, his own country has yet to do the same.
Some eighty years later, as directed by New York's Gov. Pataki, the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs submitted an official Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) nomination on Johnson's behalf.
In 2001, Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera approved Johnson's nomination for the CMH. However, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Henry Shelton recommended that he not receive the award due to "failure to follow procedure."
However, in February 2003, Johnson was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest honor. The award was presented to his son, Herman A. Johnson, who served in World War II as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen.
Herman died the following year.

Read the official order granting Johnson the Distinguished Service Cross...
Though the U.S. government has never recognized Johnson's bravery with the CMH, they did see fit to use him to help recruit young black men into the Army. They not only paraded him about in 1918, but used his image decades later, in a 1976 recruiting poster which declared: "Johnson left a trail of destruction a half mile long."

Sadly, unable to continue his job as a porter on the railroad because of his wounds, he became destitute and an alcoholic.
On July 5, 1929, he died in alone in a Veteran's hospital in Illinois, separated from his wife and family. Johnson was only 32-years-old.

It was not until 2001, that Johnson's son would discover that his father had been buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
It was a shame that in 1917, when Henry Lincoln Johnson walked into the Marcy Avenue Armory in Brooklyn and signed up to fight for his country, that he was never allowed to fight under his own flag.
It was also a shame that like many soldiers, Johnson had great difficulty returning to his life at home because of physical and undoubtedly emotional wounds.
It is an even further shame that after more than 90 years, this man who gave himself to his country has not received the honor he truly deserves.
The story of Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson is one worthy of a Hollywood war movie starring an Oscar cast. It is also truly an American tragedy. Unfortunately, one that continues to this day.

Remember Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson and weep...