Former President Theodore Roosevelt
called this man one of the “five bravest Americans” to serve in
World War I.
Henry Johnson, the first American
private to be awarded the Croix du Guerre, France’s highest
military honor, in the First World War – was 5”4 and weighed 130
lbs. He was a porter at a train station in New York before he
enlisted in the all-black 15th New York National Guard Regiment,
renamed the 369th Infantry Regiment upon shipping out to France.
Henry and the fellow Harlem Hellraisers
as many called them were poorly trained and worked at first at menial
jobs such as latrine digging and unloading ships. The French army was
short of men, however, so the Hellraisers were lent to them. They
were given French helmets, weapons and a few useful words then put on
sentry duty.
On Henry’s first night as a sentry,
at about two am, a German raiding party made its way through the
barbed wire. Henry and fellow Hellraiser Needham Roberts were
stationed in a forward fox hole and heard their wire cutters. They
began throwing grenades at the Germans. Return fire was fierce and
Needham was wounded bad enough that he couldn’t do much more than
hand Henry grenades. Henry was also wounded, but not as bad as his
friend. When they ran out of grenades, Henry fired at the Germans
until his rifle jammed. By this time the Germans were in their fox
hole and were attempting to cart Needham off. Henry beat at them with
the butt of his rifle until it broke. Then he pulled out his American
bolo knife and hacked and slashed until the Germans dropped Needham
and retreated. By then Henry had been injured several more times.
Dawn revealed the extent of the fight.
Henry had killed four German soldiers outright and injured 10 to 20
more.
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