Black WWI hero receives due honors


by Staff Sgt. Marcia Triggs


WASHINGTON (Army News Service) — For one veteran's son, Black History Month will be when the Army corrected an injustice by posthumously awarding his father the Distinguished Service Cross, 85 years after he earned it.

In the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes, Herman Johnson accepted the Army's second-highest military award Feb. 13 on behalf of his father, the late Sgt. Henry Johnson, for his heroic acts during World War I.

"This has been a life-long dream. Without this type of honor, this part of history for African-Americans would soon be lost," said Herman Johnson, a former Tuskegee Airman who was a baby while his father was forced to fight alongside America's allies.

Herman Johnson accepts the Distinguished Service Cross on behalf of his late father, a World War I veteran, from Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz, the director of the Army National Guard. At a Pentagon ceremony, the late Sgt. Henry Johnson was posthumously recognized. (photo by Daphne Hart)

African-American soldiers were not allowed to fight on the front lines during World War I, but the late Sgt. Henry Johnson and his unit from Harlem, N.Y., were so determined to fight for their country, they did so under the French flag.

Johnson distinguished himself as a hero while a private on guard duty. He and a fellow soldier were attacked by a raiding party of 24 Germans. In a hand-to-hand encounter, Johnson stopped his comrade from being taken prisoner. He kept fighting, despite receiving 21 wounds, until the Germans were chased away.

He was promoted to sergeant and received the Croix de Guerre with Gold Palm, the French's highest military award.

Although Johnson's heroic act was featured in former president Theodore Roosevelt's book, "Rank and File: True Stories of the Great War," and Johnson's name and likeness was used by the Army to recruit minorities in 1918 and 1976, he received no official recognition from his own government.

After the war he went back home and returned to his job on the railroad.

"People ask, why did my father fight in a country that didn't recognize him as an equal, and then they wonder why did I follow suit 25 years later and struggle against the same prejudices.

"The answer is simply, this is my country. I love it, I'll fight to protect it," Johnson said.

Johnson's first victory in getting his father recognized was in 1997 when Sgt. Johnson posthumously received the Purple Heart and in 2002 when he received a grave plot in the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Herman Johnson, who said his main goal is to eventually get the Medal of Honor for his father, accepted the Distinguished Service Cross in the Hall of Heroes, with the wall behind him listing the names of Medal of Honor recipients.

"This is truly an honor," Herman Johnson said referring to the Distinguished Service Cross. "But I would truly like to see him get the Medal of Honor. He should be recognized in that manner because that's how you honor your heroes."

And a hero is how Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz, the director of the Army National Guard, described Sgt. Johnson. Schultz presented the award to Herman Johnson.

"He was part of the 369th Hell Fighters from New York," Schultz said. "A regiment that never lost a thread of ground, a trench or a captured soldier. The enemy gave them their name. "