WASHINGTON — During the Jim Crow era, nine Southern Army bases were named after traitorous Confederate generals who fought to preserve slavery and white supremacy. Now, a commission created by Congress has proposed new names for the bases that “embodies the best of the United States military and America.”
Fort Bragg in North Carolina will be renamed Fort Liberty if the recommendations are approved by Congress. The other bases would honor some of the military’s most distinguished heroes. These are their stories:
Fort Johnson (Fort Polk, Louisiana)
Sergeant Henry Johnson
Pvt. Henry Johnson was sent to Europe during World War I in a famous black regiment known as the Harlem Hellfighters. The US armed forces were divided and the Hellfighters were not allowed to fight on the front lines with other US troops. Instead, black soldiers fought under the command of their French allies.
This places Private Johnson and his squad on the front line, “against all odds black Americans wearing French uniforms,” in the pre-dawn hours of May 15, 1918, as German troops swarmed from his guard post at the edge of the Argonne Forest. according to a biography provided by the naming committee.
Private Johnson threw grenades until he had no more to throw. He then fires his shotgun until he bites. He would then hit enemy soldiers with the butt of his rifle until it splintered. He then slashed the enemy with his bolo knife.
After the Germans withdrew, daylight revealed that Private Johnson had killed four enemy soldiers and wounded about 10 to 20. He had received 21 wounds in action.
For their actions, Private Johnson and his mate on duty that night were the first Americans to be awarded the Croix du Guerre, one of France’s highest military decorations. Almost a century later, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Sergeant Johnson the Medal of Honor.
She served near the front lines in Fredericksburg and Chattanooga and regularly crossed the battle lines to treat civilians. She was arrested by Confederate forces in 1864 and exchanged for a Confederate surgeon four months later. After she was denied an honorary military rank at the end of the war, Union generals successfully petitioned for her to receive the Medal of Honor for “patriotic zeal toward the sick and wounded.”
Throughout her life, Dr. Walker proudly presented herself as a gender-nonconforming feminist. She refused to agree to “submit” to her husband in her marriage vows and kept her last name, according to the National Park Service. She wore men’s clothing during the war, claiming it made her job easier. After the war, she posed for photographs in suits and a typical top hat, often with her Medal of Honor pinned to her lapel.
Fort Barfoot (Fort Pickett, Virginia)
Colonel Van Barfoot
On May 23, 1944, at the foot of the Italian Alps, St. Van Barfoot single-handedly silenced three machine-gun emplacements, disabled a German tank with a bazooka, detonated an artillery piece with a destructive charge, and took 17 enemy soldiers prisoner.
On top of everything else that day, he rescued two badly wounded American soldiers, leading them about a mile to safety.
“Each of these actions may merit a high award for bravery,” the commission wrote in naming Col. Barfoot, a Choctaw soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor and hailed in the media as a “one-man army” for his actions that day .
He served 34 years in the Army, including tours in Korea and Vietnam. Later in life, he gained national attention again by successfully fighting his homeowner’s association to let the American flag fly in his front yard.
Fort Gregg-Adams (Fort Lee, Virginia)
Lieutenant General Arthur J. Greg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams Early
Fort Gregg-Adams will honor two groundbreaking African-American support officers, Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Greg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams Early. The nominating committee noted the “too often unheralded excellence” of the logistics and support units, many of which to this day are made up of predominantly black troops.
Colonel Adams commanded the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a separate unit of the Women’s Army Corps responsible for delivering mail to American soldiers during World War II. In 1945, the 6,888th was sent to England and then to France – becoming the first large body of black servicemen sent overseas – where it handled nearly two million shipments each month.
At the end of the war, Colonel Adams was the highest-ranking black woman in the military, according to a National Park Service biography.
At the height of his career, according to an article in The Washington Post, General Gregg was the highest-ranking black officer in the Army, serving as director of logistics for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as deputy chief of staff for Army Logistics through late 70s and early 80s. He also participated in the desegregation of the military installation that would bear his name in part, and was one of the first black officers to join his officer’s club.
In February 1953, during the Korean War, Lt. Cavazos charged through enemy mortar fire and gunfire, with “total disregard for his personal safety,” to extract a wounded enemy soldier, earning the young officer a Silver Star. Three months later, Lieutenant Cavazos led three separate assaults on enemy positions and returned to the field five times to rescue his wounded men – earning him his first Distinguished Service Cross.
In Vietnam in 1967, Colonel Cavazos again “completely disregarded his own safety” and led an attack “with such force and aggressiveness” that enemy fighters fled their positions, earning his second Distinguished Service Cross. Throughout his career, General Cavazos earned other awards and citations, including two Legions of Merit, five Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
Fort Eisenhower (Fort Gordon, Georgia)
Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army
Dwight D. Eisenhower served as Supreme Allied Commander in Africa and Europe during World War II—leading the liberation of North Africa, the invasion of Italy, and the D-Day landings. After the war, he was elected the 34th President of the United States States, who served from 1953 to 1961.
Eisenhower rose through the ranks of the Army during the war, rising from a lieutenant colonel in early 1941 to a four-star general by February 1943. A year later, he became one of only five officers ever appointed a five-star “General of the Army.” “
Fort Novosel (Fort Rucker, Alabama)
Chief Warrant Officer Michael Novosel Sr
In two tours of duty in Vietnam, Michael Novosel Sr. rescued more than 5,500 wounded soldiers as a medical evacuation pilot, earning the Medal of Honor for one particularly heroic episode. One of those rescued soldiers was his own son, Michael Novosel Jr., an Army airman whose helicopter was shot down in 1970. (A week later, Michael Jr. returned the favor by rescuing his father from a damaged helicopter.)
Mr. Novosel, the son of Croatian immigrants, joined the Army Air Corps in 1941 and rose to the rank of captain by 1945, flying B-29 strategic bombers. It then transferred to the newly formed Air Force and remained in reserve until the 1960s. When Mr. Novosel was denied an active duty assignment in Vietnam, he gave up his lieutenant colonel rank and joined the Army as a senior officer and helicopter pilot.
In one rescue mission in 1969, Mr. Novosel rescued 29 South Vietnamese soldiers under heavy enemy fire. He and his crew were forced to leave the landing zone six times and had to “go around and come back from another direction to land and retrieve additional troops,” according to his Medal of Honor citation.
By the end of the day, his helicopter was riddled with bullets. In his own recounting of the episode during an interview with the Library of Congress, Mr. Novosel said he was shot in the right arm and leg during his final rescue of the day — causing him to momentarily lose control of the helicopter – but managed to escape with his crew and the last evacuees.
Fort Moore (Fort Benning, Georgia)
Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Julia Moore
Many Americans know Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore as the tough and determined Colonel Moore played by Mel Gibson in We Were Soldiers, the gritty and dark war film that dramatized the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam. The general’s wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe in the film, had a significant role on the home front during this battle.
On November 14, 1965, Colonel Moore led his 450 troops to the infamous X-Ray Landing Area, where they were ambushed by North Vietnamese soldiers who outnumbered the Americans 12 to 1. A bloody hand-to-hand combat ensued, but Colonel Moore and the men they held their positions for him for three days. Colonel Moore had sworn that he would leave no one behind. He kept his promise and his actions earned him the Distinguished Service Cross.
At the same time, Ms. Moore offered emotional support to the families of those killed and injured at Fort Benning. Reports of death and injury were telegraphed at the time, delivered by taxi drivers. Ms. Moore began accompanying the drivers and offering her condolences to the families. Her complaints and concerns led to the creation of Army casualty notification teams, and uniformed soldiers now deliver the news of death or injury to families.
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