Henry Johnson and the Harlem Hellfighters’ Courage in WWI

Oct 08 , 2025

Henry Johnson and the Harlem Hellfighters’ Courage in WWI

Henry Johnson’s voice was a roar swallowed by bullets and blood—alone, wounded, and far behind enemy lines. The night air crackled with gunfire, shadows moving like death all around him. But he stood. He fought like Hell itself depended on it. Because it did.

The Man Before the War

Born in 1892, in the rural hills of Albany, New York, Henry Johnson grew up on hard soil and harder prayers. A son of African Americans still chained by Jim Crow’s silence, he carried the weight of two wars before his first battle—racism and poverty.

Faith wasn’t just shelter—it was armor. Church hymns and Psalm 23 whispered into his soul taught him endurance. Not by power alone, but by steadfastness and spirit.

He joined the Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment, later known as the Harlem Hellfighters—a unit mocked and doubted by many of their own countrymen but committed to proving their valor on foreign fields.

The Battle That Defined Him

The date: May 15, 1918. The place: near the village of Guinement, France.

The night was thick with fog and terror when a large German raiding party struck the Hellfighters’ outpost. Caught off guard, they began a brutal infiltration.

Sergeant Henry Johnson and Private Needham Roberts were on sentry duty. What followed was savage—a close-quarters melee longer than an hour, a storm of bayonets, bullets, and sheer ferocity.

Johnson, despite sustaining multiple grave wounds—bayonet slashes carving through his body, bullet holes tearing flesh—never faltered. Alone after Roberts was incapacitated, Johnson wielded a bolo knife, rifle butt, and fists. He tore through the enemy ranks, killing at least four German soldiers and halting the raid.

His actions saved his unit from annihilation. Johnson’s measured violence was not hatred but necessity. He sacrificed his own body so others could live to fight again.

Recognition in a Divided Nation

For decades, Johnson’s heroism went unrecognized by the United States military. At a time when segregation was the norm, and black soldiers were often dismissed as second-class citizens, Johnson’s valor was initially honored only by France with the Croix de Guerre—with a gold palm and bronze star for extraordinary bravery.

It wasn’t until 2015—97 years after that deadly night—that the Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously, finally placing Henry Johnson in the pantheon of American war heroes.[1]

His citation described a man who “completely disregarded his own personal safety to defend his comrades.”

Allies saw the warrior Johnson was, but his own country took half a century to grapple with the truth—courage doesn’t own a color.

The Warfare of Recognition and Redemption

Johnson’s story is more than an account of a single night in 1918. It’s a testament to the cost of war, and the cost of racism in war.

He bore scars no medal could heal. His ills and poverty after the war were a quiet shame many others like him endured—heroes forgotten at home.

Yet his legacy strikes deeper. It reminds every soldier who bears invisible wounds that their fight is heartrending but not in vain. His faith and steadfastness echo Psalm 91:4:

“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”

Blood. Valor. An Undying Flame.

Sergeant Henry Johnson stood his ground when the night wanted to swallow everything. He fought the enemy and the bitter currents of injustice—the kind no medals could immediately silence.

In every wound he bore, in every life he saved, Johnson left us a blood-wrought lesson: courage is forged in the crucible of sacrifice, and valor lives beyond the battlefield.

To honor him is to remember the price paid in shadow and sorrow, to hold fast to truth, and to carry forward the flame of justice he lit with every ragged breath.

Sources

1. U.S. Army Center of Military History, Sergeant Henry Johnson Medal of Honor Citation, 2015 2. National Archives, 369th Infantry Regiment Records 3. Harriett Tubman Museum, Harlem Hellfighters and African American Soldiers in WWI