Were there any black soldiers in the US Army during WW2?

As Patton once said to the 761st Tank Battalion, "I don't care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sonsofb*tches."

 

The 92nd had a tough time in the hills North of Lucca in the winter 1944-45 and were caught by a surprise counter attack. A British Indian formation went in to restore the position.

These were also segregated troops.

.Was it true that Patton had tried hard not to have this unit under his command?

 

Before he became a general, when he was a colonel he showed little confidence in African American soldiers. In a letter to his wife he said, "A colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in armor." In October of 1944 he asked for 'the best available' tankers. One of the few tank units he received was the 761st. He said "Who the f**k asked for color?!" "I asked for tankers." In October of 1944, after the 761st linked up with Patton's Third Army near Nancy, France where they were close to the front, that was where he gave that speech and said those words.

 

Do you have a link or can you cite a source

 

"As the 761st was about to enter combat, Patton reviewed the battalion and made a speech to the men which offered a guarded vote of confidence in their abilities:

"Men, you're the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren't good. I have nothing but the best in my Army. I don't care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sonsofbitches. Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you. Most of all your race is looking forward to your success. Don't let them down and damn you, don't let me down! They say it is patriotic to die for your country. Well, let’s see how many patriots we can make out of those German sonsofbitches.[4]"

Was just reading this on Wikipedia.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/761st_Tank_Battalion_%28United_States%29

 

Regarding what he said about how "a colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in armor,":
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/761st-tank-battalion-pattons-panthers-quit/
https://books.google.com/books?id=z2htBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=a+colored+soldier+cannot+think+fast+enough+to+fight+in+armor&source=bl&ots=yzBNbmxN7e&sig=B9_mBH6y8Ucy4yXN6LeMvALAUOY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ex8rVYftN4m8ggSZi4T4AQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=a%20colored%20soldier%20cannot%20think%20fast%20enough%20to%20fight%20in%20armor&f=false

 

It is interesting to note the differences of the context in which Patton expressed those contradictory sentiments. His misgivings about the intellectual capacity of the black tankers were stated in a private correspondence. However, his professional and public comments seem to be much more pragmatic.

 

There is a very detailed study about Negro troops available on line at the United States Army Center of Military History web site. United States Army in World War II, Special Studies, The Employment of Negro Troops by Ulysses Lee.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-60003 First Printed 1966-CMH Pub 11-4


the web site is US Army Center of Military History http://www.history.army.mil/
I cannot post a working link. I I found it with a Google search. Google search by title "Employment of Negro Troops" or "CMH 11-4" should bring up link to download of the book.

Written in the early 1950's it is over 700 pages and considered the "standard work on it's subject" and a "key source for understanding the integration of the Army" from forward to the first paperback edition Harold W. Nelson Brigadier General, USA Chief of Military History 14 April 1994
.

Ulysses Grant Lee, Jr. 1913-1969 historian, author, professor, army officer BA Howard University, MA Howard University, Ph.D University of Chicago
During WW2 - education officer and editorial analyst at the Army Service Forces Headquarters, specialist in the role of African Americans in the US Army - Author and editor Army Service Forces manual, Leadership and the Negro Soldier published in 1944 - From 1946-1952 was a historian in the Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army.

 

Somewhere I read that after he had a chance to see how they performed he asked higher HQ for more African American units or at least stated something to that effect. Sorry don't have a reference.

 

This link works for me: http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/11-4/index.htm

 

Natman, thank you for posting the link. I tried to post that link when I first wrote my post, but could not get it to work. For some reason I cannot paste links into my posts so I have to type them. I do usually make mistakes with first attempt but even after I get them right (I compare them character by character with the link pasted into a Word document), they only work about 50% of the time.

 

Ron Goldstein posted a story that I really enjoyed a while back on WW2talk. He is a British WWII vet who is also a member here:

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/30791-british-attitudes-towards-the-us-in-wwii/?p=373142

Posted on: 17 June 2004 by Ron Goldstein</WW2PEOPLESWAR user 16 u520216.shtml>

I will let my reader be the judge.

In July 1944 my regiment (the 49th Light Ack Ack Regt) was in Egypt for re-training and re-equipping.

I had a week's leave in Cairo and decided to try and visit my brother in law, who was then in the RASC and stationed not far from Cairo.

I had found out where his company was supposed to be and thumbed a lift to his unit. S***s law innevitably applied and, to my disgust, when I arrived at his depot, he was away on leave in Palestine.

I immediately tried to get a lift back to Cairo but nothing was going returning that way until later that afternoon. I hung around, got the promised lift but the truck dropped me off at a x-roads with the assurance that 'lots of trucks come this way and you won't have any problems"
The short story is that there I was, stuck at this x-road, in the middle of the desert, with nothing to keep me company but first one arab gentleman, then two and finally at least half a dozen.

They all eyed me speculatively, I was on my own, I didn't appear to be armed or even capable of defending myself and it was getting darker by the minute.

I had given up all hope of survival when out of nowhere a huge lorry and trailer pulled up at my side and the driver,a coloured Yankee serviceman called out 'Where you going to Sunshine?'

I could have kissed him !

His load of peanuts provided a bed for me all the way back to Cairo where I offered to buy him a bottle of scotch for his trouble.

He laughed at me, said 'Be seeing you kid' and roared away into the night.

If it's not too late, and if this same US driver is still around, may I offer him a humble "Thank-you!" for saving my life.

Ron

 

Here's a narrative of the actions by the 614th TD Bn personnel on Dec 16, 1944 at Climbach, France.

 

Patton was above all a military pragmatist. He was a southerner and named after a Confederate general, and his racial prejudices would not have been out of place even in the company of many progressives of the time. But he did not believe in jeopardizing the morale of fighting men by treating them with disrespect or unfairness, no matter the color, and one history of the 761st Tank Battalion states that Patton sacked a white officer for scapegoating the battalion for his own ineptitude. My humble and possibly uninformed observation is that Patton disguised his racist bias so well under his mask of command that his black troops didn't see him as a bigot. Without any intention to downplay the racism in the quote Smiley 2.0 provided, Patton also judged that black troops possessed sufficient courage and physicality to be good combat infantrymen, a view that many racists at the time would find objectionable.

 

Patton was a Californian. His father was a southerner.

 

While born in California his roots were deep in Virginia, his ancestor's were his boyhood heroes. George Smith Patton had graduated from VMI (Virginia Military Institue) where Thomas "Stonewall" Jacson had been an instructor pre-war, served as a confederate officer in the 22d Virginia, commanded a wing of the Confederate army under John C. Brekinridge (former Vice-President of the United States) at New Market, the last major confederate victory of the war. It was during this battle when the confederate line stalled and the center broke that Breckinridge ordered the VMI Cadets (one of whom was Thomas Jefferson's nephew) into the gap. Breckinridge had not wanted to use the cadets in the battle because they were just boys, some as young as twelve. The situation was critical and he was left with no option, he ordered them in saying, "Put the boys in...and may God forgive me for the order." and they went forward in such splendid form that even the combat hardened confederate veterans were impressed. They charged the Federal position, the stalled confederate line surged forward with them and the Federal army was routed.



Painting of Cadet Charge at New Market in Jackson Chapel, VMI



Cadet's capturing Federal guns in artist Tom Lovell's "Youth's Hour of Glory"

Now Col. George Smith Patton was mortally wounded at Third Battle of Winchester about four months later, Patton's brother (one of several who fought) Lt. Col. Waller T. Patton, 7th Virginia, also a VMI graduate, had been mortally wounded at Gettysburg, in July 1863. After his fathers death, George William Patton changed his name to George Smith Patton in honor of his father, also attended VMI, became an attorney and moved to California in 1877. His son is the George S. Patton, Jr. that was the famous WWII general. George S. Patton, Jr. also attended VMI for a year before obtaining an appointment to West Point.


George S. Patton's VMI Cadet photo

George C. Marshall, United States Army Chief of Staff during WWII, was also a VMI graduate.

 

Well that's true, of course, but that doesn't make him a southerner. He was born and raised in California and lived there until he left home for college.

 

My impression is that he was also capable of overcoming his biases when presented with evidence. Again this is based on previous threads on this subject (on the axis history board I think) can't point to any specfic sources though so I could be convinced otherwise. Note if that is the case then it's not just his opinions that matter but when they were expressed and what events had recently influenced them.

 

With everything I have read on Patton, he was not completely close minded. As IWD stated above.