Army Sgt. Henry Johnson’s heroics on the battlefield — wounded 21 times and under enemy fire — earned him international acclaim.
He led his all-Black U.S. 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the “Harlem Hellfighters,” in a parade up New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1919 and became the first American, Black or white, to be given the Croix de Guerre by the French government.
Despite former President Theodore Roosevelt calling Johnson one of the bravest Americans to serve during World War I, it would take nearly 100 years for the Winston-Salem native to be fully honored by the U.S. government for his bravery.
But after years of pushing by his family, Johnson’s name and bravery are finally again being recognized.
In 1996, 67 years after Johnson’s death at the age of 36, President Bill Clinton awarded him a Purple Heart for the 21 wounds he received in a pitched night of battle.
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In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Medal of Honor, the country’s highest recognition of military valor.
And in June, the Army formerly renamed Fort Polk in Louisiana as Fort Johnson.
“I kept my promise to my father that granddad would get the Medal of Honor,” Tara Johnson told the Journal in a recent interview.
Winston-Salem to France
Henry Johnson was born on July 15, 1892 in what is now Winston-Salem, said Tara Johnson, who lives Toledo, Ohio.
Little is known about his time here.
His family moved to New York state when he was a teenager, part of the Great Migration of Southern Blacks to the North.
“It was a little better going north for African Americans than staying in North Carolina or further south,” Tara Johnson said.
Johnson worked various jobs — as a chauffeur, soda mixer, laborer in a coal yard and a redcap porter at Albany’s Union Station, according to Johnson’s Army biography.
He enlisted in the Army on June 5, 1916 and was assigned to the 15th New York National Guard Regiment, which eventually was renamed the 369th.
Johnson volunteered because he was proud to be an American, Tara Johnson said.
“He went into the service because of the fact he was an American, and it was his God given right to defend America,” Tara Johnson said.
Back then, the U.S. forces were segregated and Johnson’s unit did mostly manual labor until the unit was sent to France and loaned to the French Fourth Army, according to Smithsonian magazine.
The French, desperately in need of men, welcomed the Hellfighters, giving them French helmets and weapons. The 369th was eventually sent to the western edge of the Argonne Forest in France’s Champaign region.
That’s where Johnson left his mark.
During the night of May 14-15, 1918, Johnson and a fellow soldier, Pvt. Needham Roberts, were assigned guard duty at an outpost in northeastern France, according to the Army record.
A group of German soldiers attacked them.
Johnson and Roberts fired their rifles and threw grenades at the German soldiers.
Johnson killed one German with a rifle shot, knocked another one down using his rifle as a club, killed two with a bolo knife and killed one with a grenade, according to an account on the Defense Department’s website.
“Each slash meant something, believe me,” Johnson later said according to Smithsonian magazine. “I wasn’t doing exercises, let me tell you.”
Johnson ran out of ammunition, and a wounded Roberts was being carried off by two German soldiers.
Johnson managed to drag Roberts away from the Germans, who retreated when they heard French and American soldiers advancing, according to the Smithsonian article.
During the battle, Johnson “took German bullets in the head and lip but fired his rifle into the darkness. He took more bullets in his side, then his hand, but kept shooting until he shoved an American cartridge clip into his French rifle and it jammed,” according to the Smithsonian article.
Johnson fought about 24 German soldiers and sustained 21 wounds in hand-to -hand fighting.
“While under intense enemy fire and despite receiving significant wounds, Private Johnson mounted a brave retaliation, resulting in several enemy casualties,” according to an Army citation. “When his fellow soldier was badly wounded, Private Johnson prevented him from being taken prisoner by German forces.”
“Private Johnson’s extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit and the U.S. Army,” the citation says.
After the fight, Johnson was promoted to sergeant as he was recovering from his wounds.
Johnson was modest about his exploits.
“There wasn’t anything so fine about it,” Johnson said, according to Smithsonian Magazine story. “Just fought for my life. A rabbit would have done that.”
At some point, he was given the nickname “Black Death.”
“I don’t know how I feel about that phrase, ‘Black Death,'” Tara Johnson said. “But I know how he felt about his actions that caused people to call him that.”
Brig. Gen. David W. Gardner, the commanding general at the new Fort Johnson, said that Johnson embodied the warrior spirit in its purest form, Fort Johnson’s public affairs office said in a statement.
“(Johnson’s) actions saved his comrade, sounded the alarm and secured his unit’s safety and position,” Gardner said. “Johnson became the United States’ first hero of the Great War, immediately receiving the French Croix De Guerre for his actions. He was one of the first Americans to ever receive the award.”
“Johnson’s story is a testament to the indomitable warrior spirit that is the lifeblood of the United States Army,” Gardner said.
Tara Johnson has strong feelings about the battle.
“The Germans were trying to capture them because they were Black,” Tara Johnson said. “They need to know how they worked. It was really the Germans’ interest in something Black — that had two legs and were fighting. They didn’t look at them as human beings.”
Back to the U.S.
In February 1919, Johnson participated in the victory parade up Fifth Avenue, standing in a car, waving a handful of red lilies as the crowd shouted, “Oh, you Black Death,” the Smithsonian Magazine reported.
After the war, Johnson was unable to work as a porter because of his combat injuries, according to this Army biography.
He died on July 1, 1929 at age 36, likely from his wartime injuries, Tara Johnson said.
According to the National Park Service, he died alone and penniless on July 1, 1929, in New Lenox, Ill. Tara Johnson says the family believes he died at VA hospital in New York state.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
“He never recuperated from all of his 21 injuries,” Tara Johnson said. “When he came back, he was still very ill. He was getting assistance from the VA hospitals.”
During a White House ceremony on June 2, 2015, Obama said that the country failed to properly acknowledge Johnson’s contributions because of segregation in the Army at the time he served, the New York Times reported on June 3, 2015.
“It takes our nation too long, sometimes, to say so,” Obama said. “We have work to do as a nation to make sure that all of our heroes’ stories are told.”
Tara Johnson said she and her father, Maj. Herman Johnson, a Tuskegee Airman, pushed the U.S. government to properly honor Johnson.
Her father died in 2004 at age 87.
In 2015, military researchers said they could find no direct link between Herman Johnson and Henry Johnson, meaning the military believed the men weren’t related.
At the time of Herman Johnson’s birth in 1916, records involving Black people, including birth and death records, often contained inaccuracies, Tara Johnson said.
“We were not documented very well,” she said.
Tara Johnson said, “That was only father that my father ever talked about.”
On May 15, the 105th anniversary of Johnson’s actions in World War I, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for the U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp for Johnson, whom Schumer called an American hero.
“The creation of a U.S. postage stamp to honor Sgt. Johnson,” Schumer said in a statement, “is just one more important step in rectifying a century-old injustice to turn away from a sad chapter in American history and continue to give the recognition to Sgt. Johnson, and the countless other African Americans who courageously fought and died for a nation that failed to treat them with fully equality before the law.”
It might be three years or more before the postal service issues a stamp for Johnson, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service said last week.
Tara Johnson attended the ceremony renaming Fort Johnson.
“He thought of himself as a soldier and nothing more than that,” Tara Johnson said. “He was honored. Now that this is Fort Johnson, his name is going to be remembered. The soldiers that are training here are going to know his story and understand his dedication this country.”
The base being named for her grandfather was “the crescendo” of his service to the country, Tara Johnson said.
“He was well deserved of his honors,” she said.