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WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (AFP) -- Saying it wants to correct a "mistake of history," the US Army said Tuesday it will posthumously honor a black World War II hero a half-century after he was forced out of the military as a suspected communist.
The army said it would hold a ceremony Wednesday in the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes to pay tribute to sergeant first class Edward Carter, who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously in 1997 for extraordinary heroism during World War II.
Not made public at the time President Bill Clinton awarded him the medal was that Carter was secretly investigated as a suspected communist and denied re-enlistment in 1949 during the "red scare" that followed the war.
"Records declassified earlier this year found no evidence to support these suspicions," the army said in a statement.
Carter died in 1963, apparently never knowing why he was denied re-enlistment. Only a campaign waged by his surviving sons and a daughter-in-law succeeded in prying open his secret files.
The records show that the army opened a counterintelligence file on Carter from the time he enlisted in 1942, apparently because he had fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and spoke Mandarin Chinese and Hindustani.
The son of missionaries, Carter was raised in India and China, where he ran away from home to fight with the Chinese nationalist army against the Japanese.
The army said Wednesday's ceremony will "set the record straight on a 50-year-old mistake of history."
His family will be presented with corrected personnel files to show that Carter was fully eligible to re-enlist in 1949 and to "apologize for this injustice from a time when an anxious nation saw the communist philosophy as a threat to America's democratic values."
Carter also will receive three posthumous awards for his bravery in Nazi Germany, where he volunteered to serve in General George Patton's 12th Armored Division after the Battle of the Bulge.
He won the Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest for combat heroism -- for his deeds on March 23, 1945 after the tank he was riding came under heavy bazooka and small arms fire near Speyer, Germany.
Carter, then a 28-year-old infantry sergeant, volunteered to lead a three-man team across an open field to attack a warehouse that was the source of the fire.
Two of his men were killed and the third was seriously wounded in the charge, but Carter continued alone across the field, taking five bullets before being forced to take cover.
As eight enemy riflemen closed in to capture him, Carter killed six of them and took the other two prisoners. He then went back across the field with his prisoners, who provided valuable information about the position of enemy forces, according to the army.
Carter was one of seven African-Americans awarded the Medal of Honor by Clinton in 1997 at a White House ceremony.
No black soldiers in World War II had received the medal previously. After the army reviewed the records to find out why, it recommended Carter and the six others for the medal.