LEST WE FORGET ....

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN WORLD WAR II

Compiled by Bennie J. McRae, Jr.
Photo: U.S. Army Military History Institute

Tankers of the 761st Medium Tank Battalion - European Theater of Operations, August, 1944

Photo: Department of Defense (USMC)

Members of the 3rd Marine Ammunition Company on Saipan in 1944


"Fourteen millions of loyal Americans have the right to expect that in a war for the advancement of the 'Four Freedoms' their sons be given the same right as any other American to train, to serve, and to fight in combat units in defense of the United States in this greatest war in its history," U.S. Representative Hamilton Fish (R-New York). - (The Four Freedoms, offered as goals by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, were freedom of speech and religion and freedom from want and fear.) Source: "Colored Troops in Combat," Congressional Record: House, February 23, 1944. pp. 2007-2008. From the book, "STRENGTH FOR THE FIGHT: A History of Black Americans in the Military," by Bernard C. Nalty.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

***** EVENTS *****

 

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/topics/afam/afam-usa.htm
 

 

IN MEMORY OF

LIEUTENANT JOHN R. FOX

366th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Infantry Division

http://www.lwfaah.net/people/ltfox.htm

http://www.366th.org/fox/

http://www.barganews.com/fox/16july.html

 

 

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN WORLD WAR II

http://www.world-war-2-history.com/books/1/1/

AFRICAN AMERICAN MARINES IN WORLD WAR II

http://www.nps.gov/wapa/indepth/extContent/usmc/pcn-190-003132-00/sec1.htm

 

WORLD WAR II VETERANS THE ARMY WOULD RATHER FORGET: .....

old.fairfieldweekly.com/articles/twofronts.html

 

PHOTOS
D-DAY - 60th Anniversary Ceremony, St. Lo, France

http://www.bjmjr.net/ww2/d-day_anniversary.htm

 

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE LEDO/STILLWELL ROAD

www.LedoRoad.com

 

ONLINE WORLD WAR II INDEXES AND RECORDS

A Genealogy Guide

www.militaryindexes.com/worldwartwo/

 

MILITARY RECORDS AND VETERANS REFERENCE DESK

http://www.bjmjr.net/military/index.htm

 

ASSOCIATION OF THE "2221" NEGRO VOLUNTEERS

http://www.bjmjr.net/2221/home.htm

 

THE MAKING OF THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN

http://www.bjmjr.net/tuskegee/making_airmen.htm

********
MOTON FIELD - 1942

http://www.lwfaam.net/ww2/66aafftd/index.htm

********

TUSKEGEE ARMY AIR FIELD - 1942

http://www.lwfaam.net/ww2/tafs/units_1942.htm

********

THE TUSKEGEE ARMY AIR FIELD
(June 2005)

http://www.bjmjr.net/ww2/taaf.htm

 

DOCUMENTING AFRICAN AMERICAN D-DAY VETERANS

“A Tribute to Those Who Also Served”

http://www.bjmjr.net/ww2/dday_vets.htm


 

The Making of an

AUSTRALIAN WORLD WAR II DOCUMENTARY

http://www.bjmjr.net/special/australia.htm
 


 

WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL

World War II Oral History Project

http://www.bjmjr.net/ww2/wchhs_ww2history.htm


ˇ WORK IN PROGRESS ˇ


EUROPEAN THEATER

FAR NORTH

DEFENSE STUDY SERIES - CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

HOME FRONT

ORGANIZATIONS

PACIFIC THEATER

PHOTOS

READING LISTS

SPECIAL REPORTS

SPECIAL REQUESTS


THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN'S PHOTO GALLERIES

WORLD WAR II

Of the more than 2.5 million blacks who registered for the draft in World War II, about 909,000 served in the Army. In 1944 there were over 700,000 blacks in the Army; this represented the greatest proportion of blacks to total Army strength in World War II. So at its peak, only 8.7 percent of the Army -- instead of the planned 10 percent -- was black. In June 1945 blacks accounted for less than 3 percent of all men assigned to combat duty in the Army. About 78 percent of all black males -- and only 40 percent of all white males-in the Army were placed in the service branches (including quartermaster, engineer, and transportation corps).

Approximately 167,000 blacks served in the Navy during the war, about 4 percent of total Navy strength; and over 17,000 blacks enlisted in the Marine Corps, 2.5 percent of all marines.

"Despite the multitude of problems with which the Army was faced in the use of Negro troops in World War II," historian Ulysses Lee would later write in the Army's official account of the war, "at the war's end a greater variety of experience existed than had ever before been available within the American Military Establishment": 

They had been used by more branches and in a greater variety of units, ranging from divisions to platoons in size and from fighter units to quartermaster service companies in the complexity of duties. They had been used in a wider range of geographical, cultural, and climatic conditions than was believed possible in 1942. All of this was true of white troops as well, but in its manpower deliberations and in its attempts to wrest maximum efficiency and production from the manpower allotted to it, the Army found that it was the 10 percent of  American manpower which was Negro that spelled a large part of the difference between the full and wasteful employment of available American manpower of military age.44

 44  Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, pp, 703-04. 

SOURCE: Martin Binkin and Mark J. Eitelberg with Alvin J. Schexnider and Marvin M. Smith, BLACKS AND THE MILITARY: Studies in Defense Policy. Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1982. pp, 24-25.

 


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