Honors for Waverly Woodson at Arlington National Cemetery

Joann Woodson receives the Bronze Star and Combat Medic Badge at Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 11, 2023. Photo: Department of Defense

In an extraordinary ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 11, the First Army honored the late Sgt. Waverly Woodson for heroics on Omaha Beach that have long gone unrecognized.

Two retired First Army generals presented Joann Woodson with the Medic Combat Badge and a Bronze Star, tributes her late husband earned for his service on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Despite his own serious injuries, Woodson treated hundreds of wounded, saving countless lives, until he collapsed 30 hours after landing. Click here to read more about the event.

Joann Woodson and her family are hoping this another step toward the Medal of Honor, our nation’s top award for valor. Woodson was nominated for the award in 1944 but he did not receive it. No African American soldiers did during World War II. “I hope I live long enough to see this Medal of Honor,” Joann Woodson said. “It’s been a long time.”

Click here to read more about the battle to award Woodson the Medal of Honor.

Click here to read more about Waverly Woodson’s battalion, D-Day’s only Black combat unit.

Army Clinic Honors D-Day hero Waverly Woodson

Stephen Woodson spoke about his father at the dedication. Photo: Mark A. Kane

Great news! The US Army yesterday named the Rock Island Arsenal's health clinic in honor of Waverly B. Woodson Jr., an unsung hero of the D-Day invasion who served in a segregated unit. Like other deserving Black soldiers, he was not awarded the Medal of Honor, though senior officers nominated him. But yesterday the Army dedicated the Woodson Health Clinic, and son Stephen Woodson traveled to Illinois for the ceremony. A bipartisan bill is pending on Capitol Hill to award Woodson the Medal of Honor. Please support the bill! and the Woodson family’s Medal of Honor petition.

You can read all about Woodson’s story and his battalion in the book Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes.

320th spotlight: Allen Jay Coles, Jr.

Many thanks to Allen Coles 3rd of Columbia, South Carolina, for his email telling me about his late father, who was a member of the battalion chronicled in my book, FORGOTTEN. Sgt. Allen Jay Coles, Jr., waited decades to tell his children that he had landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. A native of Brooklyn, he was one of the first to be drafted into service. He joked that it was the only lottery he ever "won." He was good friends with Wilson Monk, another 320th vet I was lucky to meet and who became like a second father to me. Allen sent me a photo of his parents the Monks at Café Zanzibar in New York, all of them looking young and gorgeous. Both men married their sweethearts while on furlough in December 1944, before they were shipped to the Pacific. Theirs was the only African-American unit during World War II to serve in both Europe and Asia. You can read more about Allen Coles here and Wilson Monk here.

Sgt. Allen Jay Coles, Jr., landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.