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[[images - six black & white photographs of scenes from the meeting]]

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF "THE FAMOUS 369TH"

On June 2, 1913 a unit be known as a Negro Regiment of Infantry was constituted. The unit was designated the 15th Infantry Regiment. New York National Guard on June 29, 1916 and mustered in to Federal Service at Camp Whitman, N.Y. on July 25, 1917. Redesignated the 369th Infantry Regiment (93rd Division) on March 1, 1918, the unit was sent to France.

The 269th was attached to the French Fourth Army on April 13, 1918 and assigned to Divisional Training School under French command. They went into action at Bois d'Hauza, holding for two months an entire sector against German fire. The 269th also fought at Minaucourt and took part in the great attack at Maison en Champagne which carried them to the Rhine River. Harlem's own, as they were affectionately called, also saw action at Main de Massiges, Butte de Nesil, the Dormois, Sechault, Argonne Forest, Repont, Kuponase, Voges Mountains, the Aisne, the Turbe, Fontain and Bellevue Ridge.

Credited with being the first group of musicians to introduce jazz to Europe, the 369th Regimental Band, led by Lieutenant James Reese Europe, become famous on the battlefronts. Its Drum Major was Sergeant Noble Sissle, later to become well known on Broadway as a singer, conductor and composer. The Band played for both American and French units in camps, in hospitals and for civilians behind the lines.

The first American soldier in World War I to receive the French Croix de Guerre with star and palm was Sergeant Henry Lincoln Johnson, a red-cap from Albany, New York. The battle in which he fought become knowns as "The Battle of Henry Johnson". With a fellow soldier of the 369th Infantry, Needham Roberts of Trenton, New Jersey, Johnson was on outpost guard duty before dawn on May 14, 1918, when a raiding party of twenty Germans attempted to take Roberts prisoner. Johnson, using the butt end of his rifle and a bolo knife, freed Roberts and, between them killed four Germans, wounded several others and held their post as the rest fled.

Eleven times the 369th was cited for bravery and the entire regiment received the French Croix de Guerre for gallantry under fire. Individually, 171 of its officers and enlisted men were decored with the Croix de Guerre of the Legion of Honor. On February 28, 1919, the 269th was demobilized at Camp Upton, New York.

The 369th had a distinguished record in World War I. It will be remembered for many things, namely:

1. Only volunteer Regiment raised for the war that reached France.
2. Was shipwrecked three times enroute to France.
3. Only Regiment in U.S. history to carry a State Flag through the war.
4. First Regiment in the U.S. history to serve as an integral part of a foreign army (French).
5. First Regiment of the Allies to reach the Rhine.
6. Served 191 days in action, longest of any American Regiment.
7. Never lost a man by capture and never lost a foot of ground.
8. First combat regiment to arrive home and march up 5th Avenue under the Victory Arch.

On September 6, 1924, the 369th Infantry Regiment was federally recognized as a National Guard Unit, after having

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