Medal of Honor in sight
Henry Johnson's heroism detailed in communique
Updated 7:03 am, Tuesday, March 22, 2011
ALBANY -- Five days after Henry Johnson and another African-American soldier fought off a German raiding party, the commander in chief of the U.S. military effort in Europe described the episode in detail to officials in Washington, D.C.
"Reports in hand show notable instance of bravery and devotion shown by 2 soldiers of American colored regiment operating in French sector," wrote Gen. John J. Pershing in a communique dated May 20, 1918.
Retrieved from the National Archives almost a century after this nation entered World War I, the report from the commander of the American Expeditionary Force may dramatically strengthen the chances that Johnson, an Albany native, could posthumously receive the nation's top military award, the Medal of Honor.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, will make that case Tuesday afternoon at the foot of a statue of Johnson in Washington Park. Schumer's staff uncovered the Pershing report, which the senator cites as the "chain-of-command endorsement" required for the Medal of Honor.
Other newly unearthed documents collected by Schumer's office include the text of a letter describing the bravery of Johnson and his fellow sentry, Neadom Roberts, that was sent to Johnson's wife by Col. William Hayward of the 369th U.S. Infantry, the segregated New York National Guard unit known as the "Harlem Hellfighters."
The letter -- which was read into the record of the U.S. Congress four months after the incident by New York Rep. Norman J. Gould -- describes how while on guard duty before dawn, Johnson and Roberts came under attack by German soldiers "numbering from 12 to 20," likely intent on taking prisoners who could provide intelligence.
Despite suffering grenade and gunfire wounds, Johnson fought off the Germans and rescued Roberts as German soldiers attempted to drag him away.
"Henry laid about him right and left with his heavy knife, and Roberts, released from the grasp of the scoundrels, began again throwing hand grenades and exploding them in their midst," Hayward wrote, according to the Congressional Record. " ... The Germans, doubtless thinking it was a host instead of two brave colored boys fighting like tigers at bay, picked up their dead and wounded and slunk away."
Schumer's office will also submit Roberts' eyewitness account of the incident, contained in a 1933 pamphlet found in the collection of the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, Va.
Johnson -- who later became a sergeant -- was awarded one of France's highest military honors, the Croix de Guerre with Gold Palm, for his bravery. He was the first American to receive the medal.
But appropriate recognition from his own nation has been much slower in coming. Though he was wounded 21 times in 1918, Johnson did not even receive the Purple Heart, a combat decoration given to soldiers wounded by the enemy or posthumously to their family, until 1997.
In 2003, Johnson was posthumously honored with the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military honor, after a 30-year effort that drew Schumer's support.
For years, Johnson's son worked to get the Medal of Honor for his father. Herman Johnson, a member of the illustrious Tuskegee Airmen in World War II who became a Missouri state legislator, came to Albany in 2003 to see his father honored with the Distinguished Service Cross. "I am amazed at the respect the people of Albany had for him," Herman Johnson said at the time. He died in 2004 at age 87.
After World War I, Henry Johnson was hailed as a hero, and a ticker-tape parade was held in his honor in New York City. But he died poor and forgotten at age 32, estranged from his wife and three children.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
The Medal of Honor is intended for those who show "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States."
Reach Seiler at 454-5619 or firstname.lastname@e