Two WWI vets receive highest military honor
Obama awards Medals of Honor to black, Jewish men
WASHINGTON — President Obama awarded two World War I soldiers the Medal of Honor on Tuesday, recognizing men whose bravery on the battlefields of France had not been recognized with the nation’s highest valor award for 97 years because of racial and religious bias.
Sgt. Henry Johnson, a legend in the Army’s all-black “Harlem Hellfighters,” and Sgt. William Shemin, the Jewish son of Russian immigrants, were acclaimed before a packed East Room of the White House. Obama said that there are surely others like them who have gone “unacknowledged and uncelebrated,” and that the United States has more work to do to honor them.
“America is the country we are today because of people like Henry and William — Americans who signed up to serve, and rose to meet their responsibilities, and then went beyond,” the president said.
Johnson, then a private, is credited with fighting off a large group of German raiders in France’s Argonne Forest while serving as a sentry. Black soldiers were not allowed at the time to serve in American combat units, but the Hellfighters, the 369th Infantry Regiment, had been sent by Gen. John J. Pershing to fight alongside undermanned French units.
Early on the morning of May 15, 1918, there was a surprise attack by at least 12 German troops. They opened fire on Johnson and Pvt. Needham Roberts, his fellow sentry, wounding both. The Germans then began to carry away the injured Roberts until Johnson reacted with speed and ferocity.
“Henry refused to let them take his brother in arms,” Obama said. “He shoved another magazine into his rifle. It jammed. He turned the gun around and swung it at one of the enemy, knocking him down. Then he grabbed the only weapon he had left — his Bolo knife — and went to rescue Needham. Henry took down one enemy soldier, then the other. The soldier he’d knocked down with his rifle recovered, and Henry was wounded again. But armed with just his knife, Henry took him down, too.”
Accounts of Johnson’s bravery by his fellow soldiers were found in the past few years by staff members of Sen. Charles Schumer, D.-N.Y. The Army posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor, to Johnson in 2003, but the higher award had been out of reach.
Johnson’s Medal of Honor was accepted Tuesday by Command Sgt. Maj. Louis Wilson, the senior enlisted soldier in the New York National Guard.
Johnson died in 1929, without receiving even a Purple Heart. SHEMIN RESCUED COMRADES
Shemin, the other recipient, joined the Army as a teenager by lying about his age, and is credited with braving enemy fire three times in a bloody engagement with German soldiers in France on Aug. 7, 1918. The opposing forces faced off from two trenches about 150 yards apart. The Americans watched as every comrade who rushed the enemy position was cut down.
“William Shemin couldn’t stand to watch,” Obama said. “He ran out into the hell of No Man’s Land and dragged a wounded comrade to safety. Then he did it again, and again. Three times he raced through heavy machine gunfire. Three times he carried his fellow soldiers to safety.”
The battle lasted for days, and Shemin, an enlisted soldier, took command after numerous officers became casualties, the president recalled. Shemin was eventually wounded, but recovered.
A large contingent from the Shemin family was present at the ceremony, and the award was accepted by two of his daughters, Elsie Shemin-Roth and Ina Bass — “86 and 83, and gorgeous,” the president said.
Shemin-Roth is credited with pushing her father’s case forward. Shemin, who had three children, died in 1973.