Sgt Henry Johnson, Harlem Hellfighter Who Earned the Medal of Honor

Dec 12 , 2025

Sgt Henry Johnson, Harlem Hellfighter Who Earned the Medal of Honor

He didn’t just fight an enemy force that night in the Argonne Forest. Sgt. Henry Johnson fought death itself — bare-handed, bloodied, broken but unbowed. His screams, his defiance, echoed beyond the tangled woods. They carried a message: no enemy breaks this line. No man falls without a fight.

Background & Faith

Henry Johnson wasn’t born a soldier. Raised in Albany, New York, in 1892, he grew up under the hard eye of a post-Reconstruction America. Scarred by segregation and indignity, Johnson joined the 369th Infantry Regiment – the Harlem Hellfighters. Black men who carried the nation’s burden on their backs, even as that same nation denied them respect.

Faith was his fortress. A devout Christian, Johnson found strength in Psalms and Proverbs. His beliefs weren’t empty words but a shield against bitterness and despair. He carried a Bible in his pack, a silent testament that his fight was more than flesh and blood. It was for justice, for dignity, for enduring hope.

The Battle That Defined Him

It was May 15, 1918. The night was thick, a veil of shadows concealing a German raiding party moving toward his unit’s barricade in the Bois de Belleau. Johnson heard them first. The whispered approach. The cold steel breath of war.

When the German raiders burst through, Johnson’s world turned into chaos and instinct. He grabbed a rifle and a bolo knife. But weapons alone didn’t save him — or his comrades. Hand-to-hand, tooth-and-nail, he fought back against a dozen enemies.

Even after being stabbed, shot, and hit with a grenade, Sgt. Johnson never stopped. He tore through the darkness, yelling warnings to his fellow soldiers. Blood streamed from deep wounds. Every breath was agony. Every moment was a struggle to defy death itself.

At dawn, six German soldiers lay dead. Johnson had saved the position. Saved lives. His heroism wasn’t loud or showy—it was primal. Grit grinding against pain and fear. An unwillingness to yield even when his own body betrayed him.

Recognition

Johnson’s valor didn’t earn him the Medal of Honor until decades later. In 1919, he received the Croix de Guerre from France — a powerful acknowledgment from an ally who recognized his courage immediately. But the United States delayed honoring him equally.

It wasn’t until 2015 that the Medal of Honor arrived posthumously, granted by President Obama. The delay spoke volumes about the battlefield where Johnson fought twice: abroad, and on American soil against prejudice.

His citation reads:

“For extraordinary heroism in action… Sgt. Johnson displayed utter fearlessness and repelled the enemy assault, suffering multiple wounds but continuing to fight.”[^1]

Sergeant Needham Roberts, wounded but alive due to Johnson’s actions, called him:

“The bravest man in the world.”[^2]

Legacy & Lessons

Henry Johnson’s story is blood and sacrifice inked in stubborn truth: valor recognizes no color, no boundary. His scars tell a double story—one of brutal war, the other of persistent discrimination. Yet his spirit remained unbroken.

His fight was never just for survival. It was a stand for equality, for recognition, for the sacred dignity of every soldier.

Today, Johnson reminds us that courage is forged in the crucible of adversity and remembered through unyielding honor. And that redemption comes not only from surviving battles but confronting the battles within society itself.

In the end, Sgt. Henry Johnson’s fight echoes still—in every soldier who steps into the dark unknown, and in every voice raised to demand justice. His legacy shines fiercest when we carry forward the truth that no sacrifice is invisible. No warrior fights alone. The scars they bear bleed truth to those willing to see: redemption is costly, and freedom, eternal.