They have not waited in Normandy, or in smalltown Virginia, or at First Army Headquarters in Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, to honor the D-Day heroism of then-Cpl. Waverly B. Woodson Jr., a fight medic with an all-Black unit who’s into account for the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor.
The customer middle on the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, overlooking the jap finish of Omaha Seashore, now has an exhibit extolling his above-and-beyond service there with the segregated 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion within the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.
In Bedford, Virginia, the Nationwide D-Day Memorial, initially set as much as honor the 19 “Bedford Boys” who fell on Omaha Seashore on the primary day of the invasion, has put in a commemorative brick in tribute to Woodson and a story plaque on the service of the 320th.
Learn Subsequent: Pulling Shut-Air Help Airmen from Army Bases Would Improve Danger on the Battlefield, Republicans in Congress Say
For many years after the struggle, the final perception was that there have been no Black items or troopers who landed on D-Day, however the plaque notes that the 320th was “the one Black unit to land on D-Day and the one full barrage balloon unit to battle within the European theater.”
The plaque additionally recollects the reward for the 320th from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Drive, who stated the unit “carried out its mission with braveness and willpower and proved an essential factor within the air protection workforce.”
In a telephone interview with Navy.com, April Cheek-Messier, president and CEO of the Nationwide D-Day Memorial Basis, joined a rising refrain of historians, members of Congress, the U.S. First Army and the Woodson household in urgent the case for Woodson, who died in 2005, to obtain the nation’s highest award for valor.
“Completely, he deserves the award,” Cheek-Messier stated. “He ignored his personal wounds” on Omaha Seashore and “put others above himself that day.”
Woodson’s selfless service was additionally the theme of a dedication ceremony in April 2022 on the Rock Island Arsenal headquarters of the First Army, which was the guardian unit to which the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion was hooked up on D-Day.
In altering the title of the Rock Island Arsenal Well being Clinic to the Woodson Well being Clinic, the Army paid tribute to “a real American hero, somebody whose heroism has gone unrecognized for much, far too lengthy,” then-Maj. Gen. Chris Mohan, a senior mission commander at Rock Island Arsenal on the time, stated in the course of the ceremony.
This system for the ceremony spelled out what then-21-year-old Woodson did after touchdown on Omaha Seashore within the first wave: ”Gravely wounded on method — shrapnel had ripped open his thigh and buttocks — he unexpectedly arrange a primary assist station on Omaha Seashore and set to work.”
“He dragged the lifeless and wounded from the surf. He eliminated bullets, distributed blood plasma, even amputated one man’s proper foot. Thirty hours later, Woodson was on the point of collapse from fatigue and blood loss when he noticed three British troopers drowning within the tough sea. He rushed to their assist and carried out CPR. All survived.”
Mohan and others on the ceremony made clear their perception that Woodson was denied the Medal of Honor due to the colour of his pores and skin. ”We’re righting a historic improper” by persevering with to press the case for the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor to Woodson, Mohan stated. “He didn’t contemplate pores and skin coloration when he was treating wounded troopers at Omaha Seashore.”
In 1994, Woodson was awarded the French Legion of Honor — the very best ornament awarded by France — on the fiftieth anniversary of the D-Day landings, however there was nonetheless no recognition from his personal authorities. Then in 1997, President Invoice Clinton commissioned a report on why not a single African American who served in World Battle II had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
The consequence was that seven African People had been awarded the Medal of Honor — six of them posthumously — however the case for giving the award to Woodson was rejected. Assessment boards place nice weight on eyewitness corroboration to make the award, and witnesses had been missing to again up what Woodson did on June 6, 1944.
Information that may have supported the award for Woodson additionally had been misplaced within the 1973 St. Louis hearth on the Nationwide Personnel Information Heart that destroyed hundreds of thousands of army paperwork. There the matter rested till 2016 with the publication by journalist and writer Linda Hervieux of the groundbreaking guide “Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, at Residence and at Battle.”
Woodson “wasn’t even given the fight medic’s badge” due to “systemic racism within the Army” on the time, Hervieux informed Navy.com, however her persistent analysis led to the Truman presidential library in Independence, Missouri, the place she discovered proof that the argument for awarding the Medal of Honor to Woodson had reached the White Home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The proof was within the type of a memo from Philleo Nash, a deputy director within the Workplace of Battle Data, to Jonathan Daniels, a particular assistant to Roosevelt, alerting Daniels to the chance that Woodson was owed a serious award.
If the related authorities in Europe would pace up their critiques, “we might quickly know whether or not he [Woodson] will get a Congressional Medal of Honor,” because the Medal of Honor was identified on the time, Nash wrote. “It is a sufficiently big award that the president can provide it personally, as he has within the case of white boys.”
Capt. Kevin Braafladt, a First Army historian, stated that an Army press launch detailing Woodson’s actions on Omaha seaside was hooked up to the Nash memo. “There was a aware effort going down right here. They had been making an attempt to get him the Medal of Honor,” Braafladt stated, however “we suspect Woodson was ignored for racial causes.”
Hervieux’s guide triggered bipartisan efforts in Congress led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who launched a invoice calling for Woodson to obtain the Medal of Honor that drew tentative help from the Trump White Home.
Then-White Home spokesman Judd Deere stated that “President Trump believes Cpl. Waverly Woodson, like all of those that have bravely served, is a hero,” and Trump “is inclined to help the laws to honor Cpl. Woodson,” in line with a September 2020 Washington Put up article.
The invoice, H.R. 8194, did not obtain a vote on the Home facet, however Van Hollen stored the difficulty alive earlier than a Pentagon assessment board for Woodson, who was discharged as a workers sergeant.
In an announcement to Navy.com, Van Hollen stated that Woodson “displayed extraordinary valor on D-Day” however “his heroic actions by no means acquired the complete recognition they merited, as a result of coloration of his pores and skin. It is overdue that we proper previous wrongs and award Employees Sgt. Woodson with the Medal of Honor — a recognition he so clearly earned.”
Van Hollen joined Woodson’s widow, 94-year-old Joann Woodson, and his son, Stephen Woodson, at Woodson’s gravesite in Arlington Nationwide Cemetery on Oct. 11 for a ceremony during which Woodson lastly was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Fight Medical Badge he had earned on D-Day however by no means acquired.
The Army’s launch asserting the place and when the ceremony would happen was uncommon within the sense that it gave the impression to be laying out the case for Woodson to obtain the Medal of Honor.
The discharge stated that Woodson was “an African American medic who served heroically in the course of the WWII D-Day invasion and who’s at the moment on the middle of bipartisan congressional efforts to improve him to the Medal of Honor.”
Underneath the heading “Further Data,” the Army famous Hervieux’s guide and cited Braafladt’s work to uncover “a trove of beforehand undiscovered proof that Woodson was truly nominated for the medal throughout WWII, however the award was thwarted on account of racism, misplaced information and infighting amongst senior leaders within the European theater.”
On the graveside ceremony, retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas James, who has lobbied for Woodson to obtain the Medal of Honor and written op-eds to that finish, described what it will need to have been like for Woodson within the chaos of Omaha Seashore.
“Think about the unforgiving crucible of floor fight,” James stated. “The explosions, the hail of bullets, machine-gun hearth, artillery rounds, the smoke, the blood, the sweat. And you then hear that acquainted cry: ‘Medic! Medic!’ From the explosions, smoke and hail of bullets runs a younger corporal, Cpl. Waverly Woodson, with an assist bag.”
Steve Woodson stated it was not a shock to listen to that his father risked his personal life to return to the help of others. “One factor about my Dad that I’ll at all times keep in mind was his look after different folks, and it didn’t matter the race of the individual.”
In a later interview with Navy.com, Steve Woodson stated it was a shock on a latest journey to Normandy to seek out that lots of the French knew about his father and the efforts to safe for him the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor.
He took within the exhibit on his father and the 320th on the Colleville-sur-Mer museum. “It was unbelievable to stroll on that seaside” the place his father struggled to assist the wounded, Steve Woodson stated.
His mom additionally walked on Omaha Seashore along with her husband in 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, when the federal government of France awarded Woodson the Legion of Honor.
Joann Woodson informed ABC News in 2015 that, as they approached the seaside, her husband “walked alongside and would look out over the water. He informed me the noise was deafening that morning. He stated, ‘My buddies are gone,'” Joann Woodson stated. “All of the reminiscences surfaced. I requested him, ‘Are you positive you wish to proceed down the seaside?’ He stated, ‘Sure.’ I held his hand, and he and I walked down the seaside.”
Editor’s be aware: Richard Sisk is a former colleague of Linda Hervieux. Each labored on the New York Each day News.
— Richard Sisk could be reached at Richard.Sisk@army.com.
Associated: Cobra Pilot Who Lifted Troops to Security in Vietnam Is Awarded Medal of Honor at White Home Ceremony
Story Continues
