France Croix de Guerre for an American...

[Chris Boonzaier]

A new article I am proud to have on the site....

http://www.kaiserscross.com/60401/176501.html

[Ulsterman]

Great article....except for the last sentence.

I am absolutely certain that the people on the CMOH Review Board, one at least of whom posts here, do not have that sentiment about the Clinton administration or anyone elses for that matter.

[PKeating]

Gerry Embleton and I are very happy to have been able to contribute to this great website by Chris Boonzaier and Gordon Williamson. Gerry's fine artwork should be well-known to anyone with a reasonably-sized library of military history books by Osprey and other publishers. He and his team also work with various museums and have contributed to many exhibitions around the world, including one at the Smithsonian Institute on the French and Indian War, also known variously as The Seven Years War, amongst other things.

I have collaborated with Gerry on several major articles, including this one on the Harlem Hellfighters, an overview of The Seven Years War focusing on three major engagements in North America, the Berezina FUBAR, Landesknecht and, coming shortly, an account of Tul Bahadur Pun VC's heroism and HM Government's moral cowardice. Check his website out: http://www.gerryembleton.com/ I haven't redone my website yet but all of these features will be there, alongside the reportage and the fashion and style stuff.

I'd like to thank Ulsterman for his comments. It is nice, of course, when people like what one does, and I thank you for the kind words, but I am always very interested in proper criticism and I would like to respond to your observation as I know that quite a few people, when the article was originally published, found my closing lines a bit harsh if not offensive. I wrote:

Yet for all that, Henry Johnson, lying in Arlington, remains unequal among the heroes who rest there with him, as efforts to get him a posthumous CMoH continue to be resisted by an American military establishment that clearly feels that the Clinton administration of the 1990s awarded too many posthumous Congressional Medals of Honour to black soldiers.

You speak for some of these readers with the following remark:

I am absolutely certain that the people on the CMOH Review Board, one at least of whom posts here, do not have that sentiment about the Clinton administration or anyone elses for that matter.

I did make reasonable efforts to get a comment from the US Department of Defense but they never responded and I eventually ran up against the deadline. I think I phrased my closing lines fairly carefully. While I would not tar those involved in the 1996/97 and 2002/03 decision-making processes in relation to Henry Johnson and the CMoH as racists per se, I would say that they and their superiors were certainly guilty of racism by association or, at least, aiding and abetting racism. I am sure that this conclusion is offensive to some people but naked truth rarely gives people the warm and fuzzies. I would qualify this by saying that the naked truth in question is, of course, the naked truth as I - and many other people - see it.

If the CMoH Review Board member who belongs to GMIC wishes to comment, I would of course be very interested in anything he has to say. I understand that he might not wish to get into a bunfight on an internet forum. However, if he wishes to show my article to the board in question and they wish to comment for the purposes of inclusion in any future publications of the article, I will be very pleased to hear from them and to give them a voice in the narrative. I have written most of a screenplay about the Harlem Hellfighters and I was recently approached by one of France's leading documentary makers about collaborating on a new documentary about the regiment. If that happens, I expect we would wish to interview relevant people in the Department of Defense hierarchy in relation to Henry Johnson.

Now, let's examine the facts as they are. When the Clinton administration undertook a review of African-Americans denied the CMoH in 1996, the focus was on World War Two. Ten candidates were proposed to the CMoH Review Board in 1996, which chose seven of them, only one of whom was still alive. The seven awards were for World War Two. There was, predictably, a negative reaction from some quarters to the retrospective CMoH awards from conservative types. While some critics, doubtless, simply objected to retrospective awards in principle, it is pretty clear that many objections were rooted in racist sentiment, as well as a seething hatred of Clinton that resulted in automatic criticism of anything he did or tried to do. Had there been equal focus upon World War One, Henry Johnson - and others - might have been granted posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor. However, representations were certainly made to the DoD on behalf of Henry Johnson at the time because he was granted a posthumous Purple Heart in 1997.

The facts are straightforward. It is an indisputable fact that Henry Johnson - and other men of colour - were denied the CMoH during The Great War for no reason other than the colour of the skin. This attitude to black soldiers on the part of the US military establishment in the first half of the twentieth century was even more perverse when one considers that black soldiers had been awarded the CMoH during previous conflicts like the War of Secession and the Indian Wars. So Henry Johnson was denied a CMoH in 1918 because he was black. Johnson was also denied a DSC at the time. That is a matter of record. His regimental commander's promotion of Johnson from Private straight to Sergeant was an attempt to make up for this. Yet, for all that, Johnson was recognised as one of the war's foremost heroes, even being received by the President of the United States of America after the regiment's return from Europe. On top of that, the Department of Defense has even had the brass neck to exploit Henry Johnson's likeness on various occasions in the intervening years to raise money and for recruiting campaigns aimed at ethnic minorities. And in 1929, as I mentioned in the article, parties so far unknown arranged for his interment in Arlington. So there was no question about Henry Johnson's extraordinary heroism at the time or in the intervening decades.

During The Great War, the US military establishment fobbed black heroes off with the DSC instead of giving them the CMoH. This comment is not intended to denigrate the DSC in any way. It is, after all, the United States' second-highest award for bravery in the field. In a sense, the US military dishonoured the DSC by using it as an alternative to the CMoH for Jim Crow. In 2003, after further representations in 2002, the US military establishment, under some pressure, finally recognised Henry Johnson's heroism with a posthumous DSC. In other words, just like their forebears eighty-five years before, they fobbed a black hero off with a DSC instead of a CMoH.

It really is as simple as that, no matter how you try to dress it up. That was the point I was making at the end of the article, albeit discreetly because I hesitated to accuse the current decision-makers of racism. However, they - and anyone influencing or approving of their decisions in this case - were certainly guilty in 2002 of aiding and abetting the perpetuation eighty-four years after the fact of a disgusting injustice rooted firmly in the official racism prevalent in 1918. I will reiterate that while I would not tar those involved in the 1996/97 and 2002/03 decision-making processes in relation to Henry Johnson and the CMoH as racists per se, I would say that they and their superiors, all the way up to the top, were certainly guilty of racism by association or, at least, aiding and abetting racism. I am sure that this conclusion is offensive to some people but naked truth will always upset some of those involved and some observers.

To summarise, the late Sgt Henry Johnson did not receive the CMoH because he was black and he still has not received it, even though seven African-American heroes of World War Two were retrospectively awarded the CMoH in 1997. Given a chance to rectify this at the time, the Clinton administration gave Johnson a posthumous Purple Heart. Big deal! When the issue was raised again in 2002, the Bush administration - which never had a good relationship with African-Americans in general - did precisely as the US government had done during The Great War and gave Sambo a DSC instead of a CMoH. How in the Hell anyone can interpret this sordid scenario as anything but an objectionable perpetuation of the whole Jim Crow thing baffles me. The solution is really quite simple: they should cease prevaricating forthwith and put it right by upgrading Sgt Johnson's posthumous DSC to a CMoH.

PK

Edited November 22, 2008 by PKeating

[Veteran]

Hello

As an adjunct to the story, the French considered the 369th, 370th, 371st and 372nd U.S. Infantry Regiments as part of the French forces. As such the four "colored" infantery regiments ("r?giments de noirs am?ricains") are listed as regular recipients of the French Victory medal, along with such prestigious units as Escadrille LaFayette and the American automobile Field Ambulance.

They were well treated by the French who gave them a chance to show their fighting value and an equal share in their awards.

Best regards

Veteran

[PKeating]

Very true. Well said! Here is a wonderful shot from NARA of members of the 369?me RIUS aka The Old Fifteenth, The Black Rattlers and the Harlem Hell Fighters just before disembarkation in New York City in 1919. This is just a low resolution file for the forum. You don't often see this kind of ambience in photographs of this period. Some of the stuff in the files is just breathtaking, especially the colour images, by which I mean colour rather than colorized photographs. You can be pretty sure that these boys didn't get that German helmet in a game of cards far behind the lines...

PK