Johnson, Holden C. Papers

Officer, United States Air Force.

The papers of Holden C. Johnson include correspondence, printed materials, and other items concerning his career in the U.S. Air Force and his service in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Size: Less than 1 linear foot (about 1,600 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: Records created by employees of the U.S. Government during the course of their duties are in the public domain. The copyright interest in other records in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of the records, or to their heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell (2026).

Holden Crouch “Ted” Johnson was born on September 25, 1926. According to a 1950 newspaper article, he graduated from Pine Prairie High School in Louisiana in 1942, and later earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Louisiana State University. Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, and was discharged in 1946. He reenlisted in 1950, the same year he married Nanette Anne Comeaux, and after receiving flight training at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. While stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa during the Korean War, Johnson flew combat missions on B-29 bombers over North Korea. He served in the 307th Bomber Wing, which received a Presidential Unit Citation for its raids on Simanju in July 1953.

After the Korean conflict, Johnson was stationed at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida and at other locations. During the Vietnam War, he was stationed in Thailand and flew missions over Vietnam as a Forward Air Controller (FAC). In 1969, Lieutenant Colonel Johnson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for assisting in the rescue of a pilot who had bailed out over hostile territory. Johnson died in Metairie, Louisiana on January 4, 2003.

The papers of Holden C. Johnson include correspondence, printed materials, and other items concerning his career in the U.S. Air Force and his service in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The collection contains about 175 letters Johnson wrote to his wife, Nanette, between 1950 and 1968. Many of the letters were written in 1953, while he was stationed at Kadena Air Base on the island of Okinawa, and refer to his combat missions over North Korea, training flights, and day-to-day life on the base. In his other letters, Johnson describes his flight training at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas and his experiences during other Air Force assignments, culminating in his tour of duty in Southeast Asia, which began in 1967. His letters include many references to personal affairs and his family.

The papers also include a small amount of additional correspondence, printed materials, and certificates relating to Johnson’s military career. A few photographs from the papers have been transferred to the Truman Library’s audiovisual collection.

This collection was originally donated to the Korean War National Museum in Springfield, Illinois. When that institution closed in 2017, its holdings were acquired by the Harry S. Truman Library Institute for National and International Affairs, and were subsequently donated to the Truman Library.

Related collections at the Library include the papers of Edward B. LeMaster—who was also stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa during the Korean War—and the records of the Korean War National Museum.