Cpl. Waverly B. Woodson, Jr. displayed incredible heroism on D-Day, but racism and bureaucracy prevented him from receiving the honors he deserved — until now, 80 years late. | U.S. Army
By GARRETT M. GRAFF
06/03/2024 10:00 AM EDT
Journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff is the author of the new book, When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day. His previous book, Watergate: A New History, was a finalist last year for the Pulitzer Prize in History.
Cpl. Waverly B. Woodson Jr. arrived on Omaha Beach sometime around 10 a.m. on June 6, 1944, about three hours after U.S. troops had launched their D-Day landing. He was wounded even before he hit the shore — his landing craft hit a mine in the choppy green water as it neared the beach. Woodson, all of 21 years old and part of the only Black combat unit to land on D-Day, found himself amid almost unspeakable carnage. The first waves of the Omaha Beach landing had floundered, devastated by German fire from 14 “resistance nests” protecting the beach.
By 10 a.m., small pockets of shell-shocked U.S. troops had rallied and fought their way to the cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach, but the beach behind was a chaotic scene of wounded men and discarded equipment; bodies of the dead and the nearly dead rolled in the surf. As Woodson recounted, “There was a lot of debris and men were drowning all around me. I swam to the shore and crawled on the beach to a cliff out of the range of the machine guns and snipers. I was far from where I was supposed to be, but there wasn’t any other medic around here on Omaha Beach. … I had pulled a tent roll out of the water and so I set up a first-aid station. It was the only one on the beach.”
He’d stay there on the sandy and rocky beach, treating the wounded, for the next 30 hours, working through the day, the night and nearly all of the next day — all while trying to treat his own shrapnel injuries to his groin and back — before he was evacuated himself. Woodson comforted and collected the injured, administered sulfa powder, bandaged wounds, tightened tourniquets, dispensed plasma, removed bullets and even amputated one soldier’s foot. As a historical commission that examined his record later summarized, “For 30 continuous hours while under enemy fire, Woodson cared for more than 200 casualties. Even after being relieved at 4:00 p.m. on 7 June, Woodson gave artificial respiration to three men who had gone underwater during a [landing craft’s] landing attempt. Only then did Woodson seek further treatment.” Over the course of his time on the beach, Woodson almost certainly saved dozens or even scores of lives.
Not a single one of the million-plus Black personnel who served in World War II received one of the 432 Medals of Honor awarded during the war. | U.S. National Archives
All told, the U.S. suffered around 3,700 casualties at Omaha Beach, including about 800 dead, meaning that if that estimate is approximately accurate, Woodson personally helped treat somewhere around five to seven percent of all U.S. casualties on the bloodiest beach of D-Day.
In a day filled with extraordinary bravery and courage, Woodson’s example stood out. By the fall, word of Woodson’s heroism had made it all the way to the White House, where an aide to Franklin Roosevelt suggested that the president consider the unprecedented step of awarding the Black soldier the nation’s highest combat medal personally: “We would soon know whether [Woodson] will get a Congressional Medal of Honor. This is a big enough award so that the President can give it personally, as he has in the case of some white boys.”
Woodson never got his medal. His record of valor that day became a casualty of entrenched racism, wartime bureaucracy and Pentagon record-keeping. In fact, his story was all but forgotten — except by his family — for more than a half-century.
But that has started to change. As the 80th anniversary of D-Day arrives this week, the quest to deliver Woodson the nation’s highest combat award continues unsuccessfully. But, in a surprise Monday morning, provided exclusively in advance to POLITICO Magazine, the Pentagon and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) announced that Woodson will receive the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest medal for combat valor — as part of a long overdue recent reckoning by the military about how institutional racism suppressed awards for heroic Black soldiers in World War II.
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