|
 |
Townhall...
Honoring All our WWI
Heroes
By Ken Blackwell
President Obama and Vice President Biden this week paid an unannounced
visit to Arlington National Cemetery. They went there to offer the
thanks of a grateful nation for the service of Frank Buckles, the last
known survivor of the American “Doughboys” of World War I. Buckles was
barely 16 when he fibbed about his age to get into uniform.
It is altogether fitting and proper that they should do this.
That Great War was America ’s baptism by fire on the world scene.
Although France and Britain , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand had
already been fighting in Flanders field and Northeast France for three
long, bloody years when the U.S. came into the war against Germany, the
Americans were welcomed most heartily, especially by the exhausted
French.
President Woodrow Wilson said America wanted “to make the world safe
for democracy.” It was a noble cause. But it was certainly an odd thing
to ask America ’s black soldiers to fight for. After all, this was the
era of KKK lynchings in many states of the Union . This was the time
when Jim Crow laws forced black Americans into second class citizenship
in the land of their birth. This was an age when the voting rights
guaranteed by the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the
Constitution were routinely denied in thousands of polling stations.
Wilson denied urgent appeals from French generals to have soldiers of
the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) fill in the gaps in their
lines. As a commander-in-chief with no military experience or
interests, he followed the wise counsel of our commanding general, John
Pershing, that American soldiers should fight as a unit—and only under
American officers. Pershing even rejected French army trainers. “An
American army cannot be made by Frenchman,” he said.
Wilson did make one exception, however. He did allow units like New
York ’s 369th Regiment—the all-black “Harlem Hellfighters”—to serve
under the French. Although in doing this Wilson may have been treating
his black soldiers not like sons, but like stepsons, the Harlem
Hellfighters actually welcomed the chance to get into action early and
prove their mettle.
And prove it they did. The Harlem Hellfighters enjoyed their reception
into the French forces. Wilson ’s feckless administration had left the
U.S. Army and Navy woefully unprepared for war, but the French shared
with the Harlem Hellfighters their warm winter uniforms, boots, and
even their distinctive, more protective steel helmets.
Our men from Harlem and other black units—then called colored
troops—appreciated France ’s genuine commitment to racial equality.
Wounded soldiers of France —the whites and those from France ’s African
colonies—were treated by devoted nurses in integrated hospitals. This
honor was automatically extended to America ’s black soldiers wounded
in defense of France.
Not all Americans on the home front agreed with segregation of military
units, or with policies that treated black Doughboys differently than
others serving the cause of freedom.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt, that old Roughrider, was committed
to civil rights. And he wanted to fight for freedom. He went
hat-in-hand to the White House to plead with Wilson to let him serve in
the trenches. But you might be killed there, Wilson rejoined. I would
be more than content, the fearless TR said, to have on my tombstone “
Roosevelt to France .”
TR suspected that Wilson ’s real reason for denying his plea was fear
that Roosevelt would distinguish himself once again in battle and
defeat Wilson in the 1920 presidential election. Embittered by this
refusal, Roosevelt stepped up his vocal criticisms of Wilson ’s hapless
administration—and complained of unfair treatment of America ’s black
soldiers.
The Harlem Hellfighters were too busy fighting Germans to pay much
attention to political wrangles at home. Grateful France showered
medals on the brave black soldiers who came to her rescue. The officers
and enlisted men of 369th Regiment were awared 170 Croix de Guerre and
the Legions d’Honneur. Just six weeks before the Armistice, Cpl.
Freddie Stowers of the 371st Regiment led an attack against a German
machine nest at Maison-en-Champagne. The Germans surrendered, but soon
jumped back into their trenches. Eddie Stowers pursued them, knocked
out one nest, and summoned his men to follow him. But he was shortly
cut down by another bullet. His men followed his lead, however, and
took the hill where Eddie Stowers fell. Cpl. Stowers was the only black
soldier in World War I to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded
posthumously.
When the Harlem Hellfighters returned to New York after their great
victory, tens of thousands turned out to greet them. They marched
smartly up Manhattan ’s Fifth Avenue , cheered by all races. Their
great regimental band leader, James Reese Europe, led them into Harlem
, where he switched from martial music to jazzier tunes. The
overflowing crowds—wives, sons and daughters of these black
heroes—whooped in delight when Big Jim Europe’s band played “Here Comes
My Daddy.”
There never should have been segregated units in the armies of this
great republic. We can be thankful to President Harry Truman, another
World War I Doughboy, for integrating our armed forces in 1948. But as
Frank Buckles is laid to rest, we can be also be proud of Harlem ’s
Hellfighters and remember their brave defense of freedom.
Read it at Townhall
|
|
|
|
