The base, officially named Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Johnson, now honors Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a Black US soldier during World War I who fought off about two dozen Germans alon…
The base, officially named Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Johnson, now honors Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a Black US soldier during World War I who fought off about two dozen Germans alone, killing at least four. It was previously named after Confederate commander Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk.
“Sgt. Henry Johnson embodied the warrior spirit, and we are deeply honored to bear his name at the Home of Heroes,” said Brig. Gen. David Gardner, the commanding general of the base, according to excerpts from his prepared remarks shared with CNN. “Sgt. Johnson’s acts of self-less service during World War I will inspire those at our installation, where we have trained and deployed America’s men and women to fight and win our nation’s wars for over 80 years,” he added.posthumously, enlisted two months after the US became officially involved in World War I and began his military career in a segregated New York regiment based in Harlem, the Army said in a statement last month.
During his deployment to France, where he was assigned to a French infantry unit, Johnson fought off a German raid with the butt of his rifle that ran out of rounds, as well as “grenades, his fists and a bolo knife to kill four German soldiers” and save a fellow American soldier, according to the Army. He was severely injured and suffered 21 wounds, and was unable to return to his job as a porter after the war.
Johnson was outspoken about the racism experienced by Black soldiers, for which the Army punished him by canceling the speaking engagements that he was assigned after his heroic actions. He died in 1929 of myocarditis following a tuberculosis diagnosis.
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