Written by Tony J. Spain, Swamp Fox Patriot Wednesday, February 4, 2026 May 15, 1918, WWI, the trenches of northern France smelled of wet earth, smoke, and war. Army Cpl. Henry Johnson is crouched beside his friend Pvt. Needham Roberts in a forward listening post near the Argonne Forest. The two men from Harlem were part of the 369th Infantry Regiment— an all-black unit the Germans would soon call the Hellfighters. A sudden flare of German grenades lights up the dark moonless night shattering the peace. The night sentry post is under surprise attack. Shrapnel tears into Roberts’s arm and shoulder. Johnson drags his wounded friend behind a sandbag barrier as more than a dozen German raiders are coming over the wire with bayonets fixed. Johnson fires one round from his rifle before it jams. He grabs a grenade, pulls the pin with his teeth, and desperately hurls it into the darkness. The explosion scatters the attackers, but they are still coming. Another German soldier lunges ove...