Who is needham Roberts and what did he do?

Answer 1

Birth: Apr. 28, 1901

Trenton

Mercer County

New Jersey, USA Death: Apr. 18, 1949

Newark

Essex County

New Jersey, USA

World War I United States Army Soldier. He was a recipient of the Croix de Guerre with Palm, along with Private Henry Johnson one of the first two American soldiers to be given that award by the French, and therefore one of the first two Americans to receive any decoration during the war. The son of an AME Zion pastor from Trenton, New Jersey, he had been an active Boy Scout and was clerking in a drug store in Trenton when the war broke out. The story goes that as soon as he heard the news, he left the drug store and ran home to put on his best suit before enlisting. His mother caught him and demanded to know, first, what he was doing home at that hour, and second, what was he doing in his best suit? He told her that the drugstore manager wanted him to run an errand to one of their best customers and he didn't want to go looking ragged. She let him go. He then ran back to the drug store and told the manager that his sister was gravely ill in Philadelphia and he had to go see her. The manager advanced him three days' pay. He then hopped a train for New York and wound up at the Armory of the 15th New York Infantry Regiment in Harlem, where he enlisted in Company C after telling the recruiter he was nineteen. The 15th New York had been voted into existence by the New York legislature as an all-black regiment in 1913, but the first serious steps at organization were not taken until 1916, when Governor Charles Whitman appointed William Hayward, a friend and political ally, as Colonel of the regiment. The 15th was designated the 369th Regiment, 93rd Division, American Expeditionary Force, after it arrived in France, but at first it appeared that the 369th was destined for no greater glory than to act as labor troops - digging ditches and unloading ships - except that Colonel Hayward had promised the men that they were trained to fight, and fight they would. After some behind-the-scenes string pulling, the AEF's commander, General John J. Pershing, agreed to assign the 369th and three other black regiments in the 93rd Division to French command. (The French, well aware of the fighting capabilities of their Senegalese and Moroccan colonial troops, had no color barrier in their army.) Roberts was serving in an advanced listening post in the Montplaisir sector in the Argonne Forest when he and Johnson were attacked by a German raiding party. Both men were wounded, Roberts so severely that he couldn't stand, but he was still able to lob a number of grenades at the German patrol. When Johnson ran out of ammunition, he kept the Germans at bay by swinging his rifle like a Baseball bat. Two of the Germans had grabbed hold of Roberts' legs and arms and were starting to drag him back to their lines when Johnson took his bolo knife and plunged it into the skull of one of them, then into the belly of the other. It is reported that the second German said, "The son of a bitch got me," revealing himself to be an German-American fighting for the Fatherland. The unexpected fury of Johnson and Roberts' defense forced the Germans to retreat back to their lines, leaving at least four dead behind; the estimates on the number who were wounded vary from eight to twenty. Colonel Hayward, in a letter to Johnson's wife, said, "The Germans, doubtless thinking it was a host instead of two brave Colored boys fighting like tigers at bay, picked up their dead and wounded and slunk away, leaving many weapons and a part of their shot-riddled clothing, and leaving a trail of blood, which we followed at dawn near to their lines." Luckily, there was an American war correspondent with the 369th at the time, and American newspapers were soon talking about "The Battle of Henry Johnson." Both Roberts and Johnson were given promotions to Sergeant and the Croix de Guerre, and after a long period of recuperation were sent home to participate in recruiting, but no further recognition came for either man until they were posthumously awarded the Purple Heart by President Clinton in 1996. (Johnson was also posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 2002.) Not much is known of Roberts' post-war life except that he was mustered out of the army in 1919 and died in an asylum, never having completely recovered from his war experiences. (