Soldier Thompson

In one of the foxholes dotting the perimeter guarding the Army's 25th Division near Masan, Korea last August, a thin, hollow-eyed G.I. sat intently watching the dark no man's land ahead. He was Pfc. William Thompson of M Company. His buddies in the 25th's all-Negro 24th Regiment knew him as a professional type--always quiet, never talkative about his past. There wasn't much Private Thompson wanted to tell. Born out of wedlock, he had been brought up by his grandmother in New York City tenements, had finally run away and been taken into a shelter for waifs. In 1945, at the age of 18, Willie enlisted in the Army, determined to make something of himself.

That night in Korea, Private Thompson's platoon got orders to fall back; the North Koreans were attacking in force. The 24th was grouped for the withdrawal when the first enemy waves crashed into their positions. Two doughboys grabbed machine guns, started pouring lead into the charging ranks. Willie Thompson was one of them. Enemy fire got the other machine gunner. Willie kept blasting away, spraying belt after belt of withering fire to hold back the Reds. His platoon formed up again and started moving out. The lieutenant ordered Private Thompson to retreat. He refused. He said he was going to stay, and if he couldn't make it back he would at least "take a lot of the enemy with me." His squad leader and another G.I. tried to drag him away. Badly wounded, he fought them off. The last the platoon saw of Soldier Thompson, the Koreans were closing in, lobbing grenades at his still-chattering machine gun.

Last week the Army announced the names of eleven more heroes of the Korean war, who had received posthumous awards of the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor beyond the call of duty. Among them was Pfc. Willie Thompson, the first Negro to win the nation's highest military honor since the Spanish-American War.*

* Seven Negroes won the Medal of Honor in 1898; five were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment on San Juan Hill, the other two were Navymen.

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