qsy-complains-a-lot: demons: Sergeant Henry Johnson of the 369th Infantry (the famed “Harlem H
qsy-complains-a-lot:demons:Sergeant Henry Johnson of the 369th Infantry (the famed “Harlem Hellfighters”) who single-handedly fought off a German raiding party and saved his comrade:On the night of May 15, 1918, Johnson, then a private, was on sentry duty with Needham Roberts, an African-American Army private from Trenton, N.J. The two were attacked and overrun by a German raiding party and Roberts was severely wounded by grenade fragments. Johnson lobbed grenades at the enemy until he ran out and kept up a steady volume of rifle fire despite being struck in the head and lip by German bullets. Despite suffering 21 wounds, he kept fighting. When his rifle jammed, he swung it like a club until the wooden stock splintered.Knocked down by a blow to his head, Johnson fought with the only weapon he had left, a bolo knife, and managed to pull Roberts to safety. The sound of advancing French and American forces caused the Germans to retreat. The gravely wounded Johnson was taken to a field hospital.Johnson killed four Germans, wounded an estimated 10 to 20, and prevented the enemy from breaking through the French line. Johnson, who stood just 5 feet 4 and weighed 130 pounds, was nicknamed “Black Death” for his ferocity.He was awarded the Croix du Guerre with the Gold Plam, France’s highest military honor. Despite his highly distinguished military career, Johnson died 11-years after the war, penniless and without any recognition from the US Army.In the 1990s, President Clinton posthumously awarded Johnson the Purple Heart; in 2003 his son Herman A. Johnson (one of the Tuskegee Airmen from WWII) was presented the Distinguished Service Cross on his father’s behalf.As of 12 December 2014, the US Senate ok’d a national defense bill that included a provision that Sgt. Johnson would be awarded the Medal of Honor. As long as President Obama signs the bill, a ceremony to present the medal will be held in 2015.French military honor higher than the Croix de Guerre avec palme :-Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur-Ordre de la Libération (WW2 only)-Médaille Militaire-Ordre National du Mérite (from 1963)Things that don’t exist :-Gold palms on Croix de GuerreThen again that’s not really important, however I thought I’d point out that the Harlem Hellfighters of which Henry Johnson was part of holds several distinction, notably being the most decorated Allied regiment - over 170 Légion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre, being the Allied regiment deployed for the longest time on the Western Front - about six months at a time without being pulled from the front, being the first Allied regiment to reach the Rhine river, never losing ground or men to the enemy - only two captured soldiers had to be rescued shortly afterward, and finally probably being the only regiment to fix their own transport ship out of sheer impatience over multiple delays due to the boat’s captain apparently being a pussy and hesitating to sail off to France.Note the various French and American uniforms.The regiment itself was rewarded with the Croix d’Honneur for the capture of Séchault in the Ardennes, in which there is now a commemorative obelisk-thingy dedicated to them. The cow is a regular cow not a commemorative one.It is a nice cow though.To go back to Henry Johnson himself, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre with star and bronze palm for his bravery in May of 1918, and this article fails to mention that by killing four Germans and wounding between 10 and 30 according to different sources, he basically disabled every single soldier in the German raiding party. Also I don’t think a Lebel rifle can realistically jam so I think he just stopped giving a shit at a certain point.Johnson’s rifle after the events, probably. -- source link
#harlem hellfighters#wwi