Fort Polk to be renamed June 13

ALBANY, N.Y. - Fort Polk in Louisiana will be renamed for New York National Guard Sgt. Henry Johnson, a WWI hero, during a June 13 ceremony at the fort's site. 

The Army installation - named for Confederate Gen. Leonidas K. Polk, a resident of New Orleans who was killed in combat in 1864 - will become Fort Johnson. 

The fort is home to the Joint Readiness Training Center and the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division. The division’s other two brigades are at Fort Drum near Watertown, NY. 

Henry Johnson was a porter at Albany’s Union Station when he enlisted in the New York National Guard’s segregated 15th New York (Colored) Infantry Regiment on June 5, 1917, two months after the U.S. entered the war. 

Johnson became a national hero after he fought off a German raiding party with a knife and saved fellow soldier Needham Roberts from capture on the night of May 15, 1918.

Johnson was awarded the French Croix De Guerre for his actions and was the first American recognized by the French military. But he received no U.S. military recognition until after his death in 1929. 

In 1996, Johnson was awarded the Purple Heart. In 1996, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 2002. 

In 2015, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, accepted by New York Army National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Louis Wilson on his behalf.

Brig. Gen. Isabel Rivera Smith, the New York National Guard’s director of joint staff, will represent the New York National Guard at the June ceremony. 

Fort Polk is one of nine Army forts named after Confederate generals being renamed.

During World Wars I and II, forts created in the North were named after Union Civil War generals, while those in the South were named after Confederate generals.

Because Johnson had no descendants, the MoH was accepted by Wilson and is in the New York State Military Museum. It will be loaned to the Fort Johnson command for the ceremony until August as part of a historical exhibition.

William Henry Johnson was born in Winston Salem, N.C., in July 1892. (NY National Guard 05/18/23) Fort Polk to be Renamed for New York Guardsman Henry Johnson > National Guard > Guard News - The National Guard