## The Meuse-Argonne Offensive and the 369th’s Full Campaign
Henry Johnson’s specific action on May 15, 1918, occurred in the spring phase of the 369th’s service in France. The regiment’s combat record continued through the summer and fall of 1918, in operations that are part of the full picture of what the Harlem Hellfighters accomplished.
The Second Battle of the Marne, in July-August 1918, was the turning point of the First World War’s final phase. The German spring offensive had made significant gains but had not broken the Allied line; by July, the Allied counteroffensive began. The 369th participated in this phase, contributing to the Allied operations that began reversing German gains.
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, from September 26 to November 11, 1918, was the largest American military operation in history — over a million American soldiers, 47 days of continuous fighting, the bloodiest campaign American forces have ever conducted. The 369th fought this campaign as a French-attached unit with the French 161st Division.
The capture of Séchault on September 29, 1918, was the 369th’s most costly single engagement of the final offensive. The town was strongly defended, the approach was difficult, and the regiment suffered significant casualties in taking it. The entire regiment received the Croix de Guerre for this collective action — not just individual soldiers, but the regiment as a whole.
This collective honor — the whole 369th recognized by France — was an institutional acknowledgment of what the regiment had accomplished over the entire campaign, from the spring of 1918 through the armistice in November. The regiment that had been given to the French because the American Army would not place it alongside white soldiers had, over 191 days of front-line combat, earned the recognition of the army it had been assigned to in ways that the army it belonged to was slower to acknowledge.