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Book tributing Medal of Honor recipient Oscar Johnson published

OSCAR JOHNSON

IRON MOUNTAIN – “Sgt. Oscar Godfrey Johnson, Jr.: World War II Medal of Honor Recipient from Dickinson County, Michigan” by William J. Cummings recounts PFC Johnson’s heroism in practically single-handedly holding his position at his unit’s left flank in the offensive to break the German’s Gothic Line in Italy from September 16-18, 1944, after all other members of his squad had been killed or wounded.

Johnson, who was raised on his parents’ dairy farm in Foster City, was one of only 37 survivors of the original 205-man B Company 363rd Infantry, 91st (Power River) Infantry Division.

This new 46-page spiral bound booklet with full-color cover, inside cover and back cover contains over 20 photographs and illustrations.

Copies will be available for $8 plus tax at the Cornish Pumping Engine & Mining Museum gift shop at 300 Kent St., which opens June 4. All proceeds go to the Menominee Range Historical Foundation to help support the Foundation’s three museums.

Detailed contemporary newspaper accounts record Johnson’s enlistment and Army training first at Camp Adair, Oregon, and then undergoing six weeks of invasion training in Oran, northern Algeria, before landing in Naples, Italy, where Oscar first saw action.

Detailed censor-approved Army accounts of Johnson’s experience which resulted in him receiving the Medal of Honor are included, as is a letter he wrote to his parents describing the event, dated Sept. 20, 1944. Another account released by the Fifth Army in Italy described Johnson’s being wounded near Livergnano on June 25, 1945, before receiving the Medal of Honor.

Contemporary Iron Mountain News articles document Johnson’s Medal of Honor award and his much-anticipated homecoming in June and July, 1945.

Information on his life following his homecoming include his enrollment in a two-year agriculture program at Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University), and the purchase of an 80-acre farm near DeWitt in Clinton County, Michigan, where he and his first wife, Lawanna Wood, raised five children.

Johnson joined the Michigan Army National Guard in November 1950 and was employed fulltime at its headquarter’s unit in Lansing, working as the foreman of a vehicle maintenance shop. Serving 30 years in the National Guard in Lansing, he retired in 1980 holding the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 4. Johnson returned to Kingsford in 1990, living here until his death in 1998.

The new U.S. Army Reserve Center at Fort Baker, California, was named in Johnson’s honor on July 15, 2000. The headquarters building serves the 91st Division (Training Support). On November 11, 2000 – Veterans Day – a portrait of Sgt. Oscar G. Johnson, Jr., was unveiled at the Camp White Historical Museum in Camp White, Oregon, where the 91st Division was activated in 1942.

Genealogical information on Oscar Godfrey Johnson, Jr.’s family, including obituaries of his parents and siblings, is also recorded.

A history of the Medal of Honor and a brief history of the Oscar G. Johnson Veterans Administration Medical Center in Iron Mountain are also provided in the booklet.

Only two Upper Peninsula residents have been recipients of the Medal of Honor. Boatswain’s Mate Second Class Owen Francis Patrick Hammerberg, who was involved in rescue operations at West Loch, Pearl Harbor, on Feb. 17, 1945, is also included in the booklet.

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