Corporal Freddie Stowers
Un-Remembered Hero of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
By LTC Taylor V. Beattie*
The 28th of September 1918 could not have opened well for Corporal Freddie Stowers and the men of the US 371 st Infantry Regiment of the 93 rd Infantry Division. They had been walking for three days. It was 0545 hrs, it was cold, foggy, and they were about to attack a hill defended by a determined German force. If Freddie Stowers was nervous that morning he set aside his fears and tended to the needs of the soldiers in his squad. Corporal Stowers was a Non-Commissioned Officer, a leader, and as such his men came first. He moved down the trench line joking, checking equipment, calming nerves and ensuring that every man was ready for the attack. For Freddie Stowers, 21 yrs old, from Sandy Springs, South Carolina, miles away from family and familiar things, this would be his last day among the living.
Adrenalin pumped liquid fire into their guts as the whistles blew and they went over the top in the attack. The going was rough. A steady up hill climb in the open into a hail of machine gun and mortar fire. Abruptly the fire from the German trenches ceased and the Germans crawled up onto the parapets of their trenches hands in the air yelling "Kamrad!" or friend meaning that they wished to surrender. The sense of relief experienced by the men of C Company must have been intense. The fight was over and those who made it this far would live another day. The Americans were out in the open now 100 feet from the complacent Germans when a whistle blew, this time from the German lines. The here-to-fore surrendering Germans dropped back behind their weapons and opened up on the Americans in the open. The dirtiest of martial tricks, feigning surrender. Immediately the American unit took 50% casualties. The platoon leader was down, Corporal Freddie Stowers took charge. Rallying his men they attacked and destroyed the machine guns. But there was another trench full of machine guns to be dealt with and there would be no surrender taken from this bunch. Freddie Stowers rallied the survivors and continued the attack. This time he was knocked down gravely wounded by machinegun fire. Running on adrenaline, Freddie got up and led the charge into the next position and somewhere on hill 188 Freddie Stowers collapsed and died. He died in the company of the soldiers he inspired in the midst of a great feat that would not be recognized until 73 years later. His family, none the wiser for his courage and bravery, mourned his death and then… moved on with life.
I was first introduced to the legacy of Freddie Stowers in February 1994. My family and I were stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, and on the advice of a friend drove down to France to explore the battlefields of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Near the end of the last day we stopped in at the American Cemetery at Romagne, France. Where 14,426 Americans killed during the First World War now rest. I had just left the chapel, "A sacred Rendezvous of a grateful Nation with its immortal dead" as the inscription on the wall reads and was strolling along the first row of a sea of crosses. A glint of gold caught my eye. The glint was the unique gold lettering of one of the crosses. The name on the cross was that of Freddie Stowers, a Corporal in the 371 st Infantry of the 93 rd Division. The gold lettering of the cross marked him as a Medal of Honor recipient. Taken with the notion that Corporal Stowers is a Medal of Honor winner, I stooped down and snapped a picture.
By 1997, we had returned to the United States and I was wandering the halls of the Pentagon, on military business completely lost. The Pentagon with its series of rings and ramps is hopelessly confusing to a dyslexic such as myself. As asking for directions is a sure sign of weakness in the military, I ambled along lost until I found myself passing through the African American Hall of Heroes. Again my eyes were attracted by the glint of gold this time given off a Medal of Honor hanging in the middle of the display case. The medal belonged to Corp Freddie Stowers… my acquaintance from the American Cemetery in France. Freddie Stowers was black, the thought had never occurred to me.
In the segregated Army of 1918, two provisional, or in the lexicon of the day "Colored", divisions were raised for France. Freddie Stowers' unit the 371 st Infantry Regiment was one of four regiments of the 93 rd division. Upon arrival in France all four black regiments (led largely by white officers) had been loaned out to the French Army. All four black regiments served with distinction with the French and earned many French honors.
In 1988, the Secretary of the Army directed that the army conduct an investigation to determine whether there had been any barriers to African American soldiers in the Medal of Honor approval process. In early 1990 a Medal of Honor recommendation from the First World War was discovered bearing the name of Corporal Freddie Stowers. The award was processed and in a White House ceremony in 1991, then President George Bush presented Corporal Freddie Stowers Medal of Honor to his two surviving sisters, Ms. Georgiana Palmer and Ms. Mary Bowens.
Today the struggle for equity in the award of the Medal of Honor during the First World War continues with the case of Sergeant Henry Johnson. Henry Johnson was the first American of any color to be awarded the French Croix De Guerre with palm. Johnson’s outfit the 369 th Infantry Regiment (sister unit to Stowers 371 st) was also shepherded off to the French.
In the end World War I produced a bushel of heroes. However when the smoke cleared and the hoopla fades, there remains one distinguishing characteristic between a Sergeant Alvin York and a Corporal Freddie Stowers. As the un-remembered hero of WW I Freddie Stowers fought for a country that he loved. A country that in that particular snapshot in time did not necessarily love him back.
*LTC Taylor V. Beattie is an active duty Special Forces officer and an instructor with the US Army Command and General Staff College, Ft Leavenworth, KS. You May Contact him at (913) 684-4227 or beattiet@leavenworth.army.mil