The Black WWI war hero who fought off over 20 German soldiers at once by himself

Henry Johnson received praise from Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama.

May 15, 1918 was the most painful day of Henry Johnson’s life. It’s also the day he became a war hero applauded by his fellow soldiers, his community, and United States Presidents. On that day, the young soldier ordered to do grunt work due to the color of skin successfully fended off over 20 enemy soldiers by himself.

Sergeant William Henry Johnson was born around July 12, 1892 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but, due to inconsistencies of record-keeping, he could have been born as early as 1887 or as late as 1897. As a teenager, he moved to New York where he worked as a chauffeur, soda mixer, laborer at a coal mine, and a porter at Albany Union Station before enlisting to the U.S. Army on June 5, 1917, two months after America entered World War I.

Johnson was a private and assigned to Company C, 15th New York Infantry Regiment, a segregated African American unit. Many Black soldiers at the time were sent to do mostly grunt work such as unloading trucks and digging latrines. Given that Johnson stood at a whopping 5’4” tall and weighed 130 lbs., it is safe to assume that not much was expected of him regarding combat. After months of training, he and his regiment, renamed the 369th Infantry Regiment, part of the segregated 93d Infantry Division, was deployed to Europe. After being taught enough French to understand orders, the 369th Infantry was sent to bolster France’s 161st division on April 8, 1918 to help protect the country’s Argonne Forest region.

About 2:00 A.M. on May 15, Johnson and his partner Pvt. Needham Roberts were patrolling a bridge nearby when they heard clipping sounds. Suspecting the clipping noise was the sound of German soldiers cutting fencing around the perimeter, Johnson ordered Roberts to get reinforcements as he lobbed a grenade in the general area of the noise to root out any enemy forces. The enemy returned fire. Reportedly, Roberts immediately ran back to assist Johnson, but was wounded by enemy grenade shrapnel. Johnson was left to fight on his own.

Roberts supplied Johnson with grenades as Johnson returned fire against the enemy, suffering bullet wounds to his hand, side, and head. After running out of ammunition, Johnson accidentally jammed his French rifle after trying to reload it with ammo meant for American weaponry. Using his rifle like a club in one hand and wielding a bolo knife with the other, Johnson charged into the fray and engaged in face-to-face combat. In the midst of the fight, he saw two of the German soldiers attempt to capture Roberts but intercepted them. Johnson would swing, stab, slash, and club whomever came into his path, regardless of the additional bullets that struck him.

Johnson fought the swarm of German soldiers for an hour before reinforcements arrived.

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