Black military history - A viewpoint

[BLUEHAWK]

On The Meaning of Black History Month

Dr. Alan Gropman


The Air Force Association asked for an essay on Black History Month. This commemoration—always in February--is an expansion of Negro History Week founded in the 1920s by Carter G. Woodson. He was the son of slaves and he earned a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University. Because Woodson recognized the severe lack of information on achievements by black Americans, he founded The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915, the Journal of Negro History in 1916, and Negro History Week in 1926 (which evolved into Black History Month). He wanted a period established for schools, libraries and governments to focus on attainments by blacks because American history books, especially those used in public schools, ignored black successes. This disregard was especially harmful to black school children, robbing them of an important legacy. Woodson was eager to spread the word. He died in 1975 but his Journal still exists and his Black History celebration continues. One would wish, however, America would be past needing such remembrance by fully integrating black history into American history, but it isn’t.

Because most of the readers of this website have a military background, we will focus on black military accomplishments between the American Revolution and World War II, something Woodson emphasized. Denying the role blacks played in American military history was central to those who wished to deny civil rights to black Americans, and school textbooks helped this denial by discounting black history, especially contributions blacks made defending America.

If I were to ask the reader, for example, to identify a black American associated with the American Revolutionary War, who would be named? Most often when I ask this question the answer I get is Crispus Attucks. He was killed in the “Boston Massacre” in March 1770. When I ask for another name of an American black in the Revolution I almost always draw blanks. Peter Salem was a Minuteman who fought in the first battles west of Boston in April 1775 and is the hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill, but he is rarely named because usually the sole black individual cited in school history books is Crispus Attucks, obviously a non-combatant who died 61 months before the “shot heard ‘round the world.” About 2.5 percent of the regulars in the Continental Army were black, more than 5,000 names, and a much higher percentage served in the nascent American navy. Woodson cited Salem and many other black soldiers by name, but most of our histories overlooked these names.

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, all blacks were discharged from the Army and were barred from serving thereafter by law. Although that legislation applied to the Navy too, an inability to enlist enough whites to man fighting ships, forced the sea service to turn a blind eye to race. Blacks did not serve in the Army until the next crisis—the War of 1812. In that conflict, United States President, James Madison refused to enlist blacks until he was forced by manpower considerations to relent. Blacks fought in many key land engagements, most notably at New Orleans in 1815, and, again, a higher percentage of blacks fought in the Navy (perhaps as much as quarter of the force, and at least 10 percent of Oliver Hazard Perry’s men on Lake Erie were black). These facts were almost always disregarded in school textbooks, denying young blacks a substantial part of their heritage as Americans.

The first major military service by blacks came in the American Civil War. At the War’s outset in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln refused to open service to blacks for fear of losing the border (slave) states which had remained in the Union. In 1862 Lincoln facing manpower problems openly advocated recruiting blacks. By the end of the war more than 240,000 blacks served (12 percent of the Union Army at the end of the war) forming 120 infantry regiments and also cavalry and artillery units. In 1865 there were more black infantry men in the Union Army than all the Confederacy’s armies combined. Blacks had a lower desertion rates than whites, a higher killed in action rate, and earned twenty Medals of Honor. Blacks soldiers and sailors (about a quarter of the Navy) made a significant contribution to the Union victory, but American History books—especially school books--have all but ignored those facts.

Because of noble service in the Civil War, Congress authorized for the first time peacetime black units and by the end of the 1860s there were four black regiments in the Army—the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry. Blacks in this era made up 20 percent of the Cavalry (more of the fighting cavalry since at least two white regiments were east of the Mississippi) and more than 10 percent of the fighting infantry (again several of the white units were east of the Mississippi). Black soldiers had a lower desertion rate than white soldiers, and a lower alcoholic rate, making them the most reliable force in the American West. Find American movies or other popular histories making these points!

All four black units were fully engaged in the Spanish American War earning five Medals of Honor in the Army and one in the Navy during that conflict. During that war and in all of the conflicts in the West between 1870 and 1898 the black units acquitted themselves honorably with valor and skill in a very dark period of American racial history in which segregation de jure and de facto became the custom of the land, and racial violence typified by the Ku Klux Klan became the norm in many parts of the country. The period from the end of southern Reconstruction in 1877 and the end of World War II was a miserable period for black Americans with prejudice affecting all parts of American society including the military. Achieving justice during World War I—in the middle of this terrible era—was impossible.

Black service in World War I in both the Army and Navy was circumscribed by racism. Two black divisions were formed in the Army. One—the 92d had a racist commander who did not expect much from black soldiers, and the other—the 93d—fought as four separate units, each brigaded with the French. All the 93d’s four regiments fought well, and the 369th, formerly the New York 15th National Guard Regiment performed heroically, but its service was all but ignored by the United States Army. Attitudes during the inter-war period were grossly negative symbolized by an Army War College study completed in 1925 describing black soldiers as cowardly and claiming a black man’s brain weighted “35 ounces contrasted with 45 ounces” for a white. The Navy completely excluded blacks from service for more than a decade after World War I, and then permitted blacks to enlist only for mess men’s duties. Look in vain for such horrible prejudice to be found in History books.

Service in World War II was slightly improved over World War I because of heightened black militancy and United States electoral politics. Hundreds of thousands of southern blacks emigrated to the less segregated North during World War I and the inter-war period. With the move came better schooling and much more importantly the vote. Black social and political organizations, for example the NAACP, and black newspapers worked hard to improve the life of blacks, and to open opportunities in the military. One vocal pursuit was opening opportunities to fly in the United States Army Air Corps. In 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was running for an unprecedented third presidential term he promised to create a black flying organization in the Army if he were re-elected. He was, and he did, and the Tuskegee Airmen were born. The 99th Pursuit Squadron—an all black unit from top to bottom—was the first air unit created. It grew to spawn the 332d Fighter Group and its success in World War II encouraged the United States Air Force to integrate racially after the war.

The 99th was trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field and the Army Air Forces tried hard to avoid integrating the 99th into its family of units. The Tuskegee Airmen had to wait nearly a year after completing training to enter combat. General George Marshall forced the Army to move the 99th to North Africa, but opposition continued with a plan to take the black unit out of combat and to kill the 332nd fighter group then in training in Michigan. Marshall again intervened to keep the 99th in the fight and to give the 332nd a combat opportunity. Initially the unit was provided used export model P-39s, but in fewer than six months after entering the war in Italy in 1944 the 332nd was assigned the escort mission, first with P-47s and soon thereafter P-51s.

While the 332nd was in training and transit to the combat theater, the 99th flying P-40s scored more than 15 victories over the beaches during the Anzio landings. The unit flourished once it had been moved from the 33rd Group to the 79th Group. The difference was a Group Commander who believed in the 99th and treated the men as valued comrades in arms.

The three squadrons of the 332nd began to win plaudits from Army Air Forces Bomber Groups for its skill and discipline and success as escort. After a month with the new mission, the 99th joined the 332nd making it a four squadron group. Between May 1944 and April 1945 the 332nd flew 200 escort missions, rarely losing a bomber to an enemy fighter. In fact the 332nd was so successful, bomber groups requested their escort. Group Commander Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. changed the nose-art on his Mustang from “Agita-Jo” (after his wife) to “By Request.”

When World War II began no senior officer—military or civilian—in the War Department—or the Army Air Forces expected success from the Tuskegee Airmen. Leaders did not believe blacks had the skills to arm, maintain, and fly airplanes, but the Tuskegee Airmen combat units, were all black from Colonel Davis to the most junior mechanic and the unit uniquely successful. In time the Tuskegee Airmen shot down more than 110 Luftwaffe Me-109s and F-190s (and the second, third, and fourth jet aircraft shot down in history), and were the first Italy based fighter unit to escort bombers to Berlin. Its record was the major contributor to the United States Air Force decision to integrate racially.

When the Air Force became independent in September 1947, its Deputy Chief of Staff/Personnel, Lieutenant General Idwal Edwards, initiated a study to prove racial segregation was based on black inferiority or racial prejudice. Edwards was concerned with the expense of segregation—two sets of mess halls, barracks, gyms, swimming pools, and the friction caused by segregation—there were numerous race altercations during and after World War II. The study proved the Tuskegee Airmen (and other black units) given the same training as whites could perform as well as whites. The heaviest weight in the study was the performance of the Tuskegee Airmen, and Edwards went to the Chief of Staff recommending racial integration. The Chief approved, and the Air Force broke the color barrier.

If, dear reader, you were unaware of the 5,000 black patriots who fought for American independence, or the large percentage of blacks in the 18th and 19th centuries’ United States Navy, or the more than 240,000 black Union Army soldiers, or of the glorious record of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry, or of the six Medals of Honor earned by blacks soldiers during the Spanish American War, or the heroism of the 369th Regiment in World War I, or of the victories of the Tuskegee Airmen, then you understand the meaning of Black History Month.


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Dr. Alan Gropman is The Distinguished Professor of National Security Policy at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University. He has been a member of the Air Force Association for more than 50 years. He is a retired Colonel, had two flying tours in Vietnam, earned the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, six Air Medals, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm among other decorations, and has written four books and more than 250 other publications.

Source: Air Force Association - 13 Feb 10