Black, Jewish WWI heroes receive posthumous honors
WASHINGTON — Declaring that it’s never too late to make things right, President Barack Obama posthumously bestowed the Medal of Honor on two World War I veterans whose heroic acts nearly 100 years ago went unrecognized in an age of discrimination.
In a tearful, joyful East Room ceremony recalling the battlefield triumphs as well as the prejudices of 20th century America, Sgt. William Shemin and Pvt. Henry Johnson were recognized with the nation’s highest military decoration for saving their comrades on French front lines. Shemin was Jewish and Johnson was black.
“It has taken a long time for Henry Johnson and William Shemin to receive the recognition they deserve, and there are surely others whose heroism is still unacknowledged and uncelebrated,” Obama said.
“The least we can do is to say we know who you are, we know what you did for us, we are forever grateful,” he said.
Obama applauded the tireless efforts of their advocates, who led Congress to pass an exemption from Medal of Honor rules specifying that heroic actions have to have taken place within five years to be considered.
Shemin’s daughters were full of emotion as Obama handed them the star-shaped medal hanging from a blue silk ribbon that they felt was long denied their father because of anti-Semitism.
Ina Bass, 83, planted a kiss on the president’s cheek, while 86-year-old Elsie Shemin-Roth smiled through her tears.
Veterans of Johnson’s New York National Guard regiment, the 369th, known as “Harlem Hellfighters,” watched stoically as Obama described how Johnson died destitute in his early 30s after his injuries left him crippled and unable to work.
Obama described how Johnson and a fellow soldier came under attack by at least a dozen German soldiers while on night sentry duty on May 15, 1918. Both were injured, but Johnson single-handedly beat back the invading party and rescued his unconscious comrade while armed with just a Bolo knife after his rifle jammed.
Obama said it similarly took too long for America to properly honor Shemin, who was 19 when his platoon was involved in a bloody fight on the Western Front beginning on Aug. 7, 1918. Obama said that, over the course of three days, Shemin repeatedly raced through heavy machine-gun fire to rescue fallen comrades. “Eventually, the platoon’s leadership broke down. Too many officers had become casualties. So William stepped up and took command,” Obama said.
A German bullet pierced his helmet and lodged behind his left ear. Shemin was left partly deaf. Shrapnel wounds eventually left him barely able to walk, although he earned a degree from Syracuse University and ran a nursery business in New York before his death in 1973.
“Sgt. Shemin served at a time when the contributions in heroism of Jewish Americans in uniform were too often overlooked,” Obama said. “And so it is my privilege on behalf of the American people to make this right.”