Map of the Battle Showing the Defense at Reno Hill
Company M and the other seven surviving companies of the 7th Cavalry Regiment defended their positions on what would become known as Reno Hill on June 25 — June 26, 1876. (Custer’s Best: The Story of Company M, 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn)
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Grave of Willie Johnson
“La Haye Pesnel, France on the morning of June 26, 1944 was bright, clear, sunny and warm. Lieutenant Colonel Henry L. Peck gathered seventeen authorized witnesses and spectators at 10:40 a.m. at an old rock quarry one-half mile from the village. A scaffold faced south; it had not been there two days before. The personnel stood some ten to fifteen yards away. First Lieutenant Harry Bender and eleven men of Company B of the 387th Military Police Battalion guarded the area. Peck briefed the personnel on the proper conduct at the event, in essence to keep quiet and not move, and then read General Court-Martial Order Number 218 in its entirety. At 10:58 a.m., a 2½ ton 6X6 covered cargo vehicle halted fifty yards from the gallows. Out stepped General Prisoner Willie Johnson; it had been a 2½ ton truck with which he had committed murder and it would be a 2½ ton truck, the venerable “Deuce-and-a-Half,” in which he would have his last ride.”
On Tuesday, June 26, 1945, U.S. Army official executioner Master Sergeant John C. Woods hanged U.S. Army Private Willie Johnson at Le Haye Pesnel, France for the crimes of murder and rape. Johnson was 5’11” tall and weighed 172 pounds. Married with one child, Johnson worked as a farm laborer, until inducted. Initially assigned to the 354th Engineer General Support Regiment, he deployed to England in July 1943, transferred to his current unit and landed in France in July 1944. It does not appear that Johnson had a civilian criminal record; he did have two Summary Court-Martial convictions, for being absent without leave. The Army initially buried Private Johnson at the U.S. Military Cemetery at Marigny at 3:00 p.m. on July 12, 1945, in Field GP (General Prisoner) (Z), in Row 2, in Grave 32. Officials later reinterred Willie Johnson at the American Military Cemetery at Oise-Aisne in Plot E. His remains are in Row 2, Grave 28. (American Hangman: MSgt. John C. Woods: The United States Army’s Notorious Executioner in World War II and Nürnberg)
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Wilhelm Ulex, Army General of Artillery, born July 15, 1880 in Bremerhaven, commander 10th Army Corps, dismissed from active service in 1941 and retired to Bremen-Oberneuland, died on June 26, 1959, on the German ethnic policy in Poland in 1939: “…A blot on the honor of the entire German people.” (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)