WWI Vets Receive Posthumous Medals of Honor

Descendants of Sgt. William Shemin and the senior non-commissioned officer of the National Guard unit in which Pvt. Henry Johnson served during World War I accepted the Medal of Honor in each soldier’s behalf in a June 2 White House ceremony. Johnson was African-American; Shemin was Jewish. The decision to award the men with the nation’s highest honor for military valor in combat came after a review determined that discrimination prevented them from receiving the accolades they deserved while they were alive. Johnson served with the “Harlem Hellfighters,” Company C, 15th New York (Colored) Infantry Regiment, when he rescued a fellow soldier while fighting against German troops in May 1918. (Johnson’s unit later was redesignated the 369th Infantry Regiment.) Badly scarred both mentally and physically by the wounds he endured, Johnson died in the years after the war ended. He was in his mid-30s. Shemin braved enemy fire and sustained bullet and shrapnel wounds while rescuing comrades during combat in August 1918 near Saint Menehoul, France. Command Sgt. Maj. Louis Wilson, the senior enlisted advisor to the New York National Guard, accepted the medal in Johnson’s behalf. Shemin’s daughters, Elsie Shemin-Roth and Ina Bass, accepted the honor for their father. Shemin died in 1973.