-
- The 24th Infantry, which had left
the country in April 1942, had been on Efate in the New Hebrides and on
Guadalcanal. From its arrival on 4 May 1942 as a part of Force 9156 ( later
III Island Command) to October 1942 it was charged with a large part of
the perimeter defense of Efate. From October to the summer of 1943 the regiment,
after consolidating its battalions, became a part of the island's mobile
striking force, organized under the 24th's commander, Col. Hamilton Thorn.
With the American successes on Guadalcanal, the danger of immediate attack
on the island had now passed. While the 24th continued its training and
field duties, it performed base service functions, including loading and
unloading ships, guarding air bases, building roads, spraying and draining
as a part of mosquito control, sending daily labor details to perform quartermaster
and ordnance services, and installing and maintaining wire communications
for a large part of the base. These were, and continued to be, the 24th's
main contribution to the Pacific war.2
-
- The 24th's 2d Battalion, from about
1 March to 6 August 1943, was on detached duty on Guadalcanal, unloading
ships, operating a provisional truck company, and furnishing labor details
to quartermaster and ordnance dumps. The rest of the regiment moved to Guadalcanal
in August, with the 1st Battalion receiving commendation from the commander
of the USS Hunter Liggett for its speed and efficiency in unloading. The
3d Battalion was then detached in September for service at Munda for duty
with the Provisional Service Command there. It operated ration dumps and
a labor pool for the New Georgia Group Service Command. In the meantime,
the regiment continued to return cadres
- [497]
- to the United States for new units,
II officers and 182 enlisted men leaving in July and 5 officers and 76 enlisted
men leaving in September 1943. While its units furnished men for local security
in outlying areas of Guadalcanal, the regiment's chief daily duties involved
supplying details for the Island Service Command, averaging 35 officers
and 1,200 enlisted men.3
-
- The 24th Infantry, the only Negro
infantry unit continuing with all white officers, remained at these tasks
until the end of January 1944, when the 1st Battalion, under Lt. Col. John
L. Thomas, left Guadalcanal with naval Task Force 31 for Empress Augusta
Bay, Bougainville. It landed on 30 January as a supporting unit in XIV Corps
reserve.4
While the other battalions and regimental units remained at their assigned
duties at Munda and Guadalcanal, the 1st Battalion began to unload ships
and work supply dumps at Bougainville, where marines and troops of the 37th
Division had landed in November 1943 and where the 37th and Americal Divisions,
plus two Fiji battalions, were still engaging the enemy.
-
- On 29 February, two weeks after
the Allied occupation of the Green Islands to the north of Bougainville
had assured the cutting of Japanese communications and supply lines to Bougainville,
and on the day that the Advisory Committee was meeting in Washington to
frame a recommendation on the use of Negro troops in combat, the 1st Battalion,
24th Infantry, still in corps reserve, was relieved of service command duties
and
- attached to the 37th Division to
assist in the construction of regimental reserve line positions. The battalion
was assigned to the west half of the 129th Infantry reserve line. This battalion
was already in position for active use against the enemy when the War Department's
message urging the prompt use of Negro ground combat troops went out to
General Harmon.
-
- On II March, the battalion passed
from XIV Corps reserve to the operational control of the 37th Division,
which attached it to the 148th Infantry. It occupied the regimental reserve
area. One company moved forward to reinforce the main line of resistance
between the 1st and 3d Battalions of the 148th. That night this position
was attacked and two men were killed.5
-
- Not until the next night, 12 March-
for the 1st Battalion had been organizing its sector and training its men-
did the first of its combat patrols go out. Led by 2d Lt. Henry J. McAllister,
the patrol moved several thousand yards out and, on its way back, about
a thousand yards from the battalion's lines, encountered eight Japanese,
killing one and losing one of its own men.6
It was to this first Negro infantry patrol in a combat area that the published
news release of 15 March referred.
-
- The news release took the War Department
by surprise. Would the 93d Division be as promptly used? The
- [498]
- next day an "Eyes Only"
message went from General Marshall to General Harmon, advising that both
the Chief of Staff and Secretary Stimson felt that initial use of the 93d
Division or its elements should be permitted only after adequate preparation
of the unit or units involved, for undoubtedly the first reports of the
division's action would be headlined at home. News releases and theater
reports would have to be kept factual; the War Department was under constant
pressure for alleged failure to use Negro troops in combat. The units of
the 93d should have a careful test to determine their capabilities. Anything
warranting comment should be reported soon after their initial use and thereafter
from time to time so that the Secretary might be kept fully informed.7
On 22 March another query went to the South Pacific, asking details of the
extent and duration of the employment of the 24th Infantry on Bougainville,
the use and location of the remainder of the regiment, future plans, personnel,
casualties, and results attained so far.8
-
- General Harmon assured Marshall
that all reasonable measures to insure proper preparedness for the units
of the 93d would be made, but the reinforced 25th Infantry Combat Team of
the 93d Division was already loading for Empress Augusta Bay. No amphibious
operations were planned for these troops or for the 1st Battalion, 24th
Infantry. They were to be used
initially with Fiji battalions on combat patrols and to mop up Japanese,
with employment on limited operations from a base within the defense perimeter.
The War Department would be kept informed of events as they occurred.9
-
- Thus, the first of the larger Negro
ground combat units were committed to action, under direct suggestion from
the War Department, acting under the pressure of unfavorable reactions to
conversions and in the furtherance of a "national policy" which
required that at least some Negro ground units be committed to combat. Promises
of reports and evaluations went along with their commitment. In a klieg
lighted atmosphere, of which units and their officers were happily not always
aware, their employment began. Later, with the arrival of visiting observers,
board members, staff representatives from higher headquarters, reporters,
photographers, and interviewers, of high rank and low, troops could no longer
ignore the interest focused upon them. Documentation, some objective and
some not so objective, much of it out of proportion to the importance of
the units or their missions, flowed into higher echelons, influencing the
future use of the units concerned and the disposition of other units. Few
units, outside of the services, were employed for vital military tasks unrelated
to one or another aspect of the demonstration of their abilities. The careers
of Negro combat units were, therefore, as atypical as were the circumstances
of their commitment to overseas duty.
- [499]
-
- The 93d Division received its final
movement orders in December 19430n I I January 1944, its advance party,
under the division's commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond G. Lehman, left San Francisco
for the South Pacific at the same time that its artillery units were completing
firing tests at Iron Mountain. The remainder of the 93d moved to the Solomons
between then and the end of February. This was the last time until the end
of the war that all elements of the division were gathered in the same location.
While the entire division proceeded to Guadalcanal, only its special troops
and the 25th Infantry tarried there. The 368th Regimental Combat Team, without
debarking, proceeded to prepare defensive positions on Banika in the Russells,
arriving on 7 February. The 369th Regimental Combat Team, after a few days
on Guadalcanal, proceeded in increments to islands of the New Georgia group,
relieving elements of the 43d Infantry Division there. These units of the
93d Division began their careers as occupation troops, establishing guard
posts, patrolling, assisting in the operation of ports, and training in
jungle warfare.
-
- The 25th Regimental Combat Team
10
arrived on Guadalcanal on 17 February
1944 in the third group of 93d Infantry Division troops to reach the Solomons.
It spent its first three weeks setting up camp on Guadalcanal while portions
of its troops, averaging about a thousand a day, worked in the port area.
When the bivouac area was in shape on 28 February, the regiment started
jungle training with troops not detailed to the docks. Between then and
21 March, each battalion received about a week's training in jungle warfare,
with emphasis on scouting, patrolling, perimeter defense, and rifle, grenade,
and malarial training. On 22 March the combat team was ordered to move to
Empress Augusta Bay, near the southern end of Bougainville,11
where the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, was already being employed by XIV
Corps.
-
- The last major effort of the Japanese
to dislodge Allied forces from the Torokina beachhead on Bougainville was
being made at this time, though neither the troops nor their commanders
could be certain of the finality of this offensive. The Japanese, with an
estimated force of 25,000 on Bougainville, were expected to make strong
efforts to force Allied units into the sea. Late in February, XIV Corps
intelligence learned that the Japanese were concentrating a force of about
12,000 in front of Allied positions. The predicted attack came on 8 March,
with a "series of vigorous but poorly coordinated attacks of a more
or less piecemeal nature," all of which were repulsed with heavy Japanese
and light American losses. By the end of March the main Japanese effort
was over. The Japanese
- [500]
- 6th Division was, by then,
practically destroyed.12
-
- On 28 March, the 25th Regimental
Combat Team, under the command of Col. Everett M. Yon, arrived on Bougainville,
unloading by day under intermittent Japanese shelling. The next three days
were spent in preparing a bivouac. On 30 March, the combat team went under
the control of the Americal Division for training, administration, and operations.13
-
- In his instructions to Maj. Gen.
Oscar W. Griswold, commanding the XIV Corps, General Harmon, expanding the
War Department's suggestions, emphasized the values inherent in limited
offensive operations beyond the Torokina perimeter in southern Bougainville.
"As a corollary," he added, "an opportunity will be afforded
for the seasoning and employment of Negro combat forces." He suggested
that the 25th Regimental Combat Team, supplemented if desired by the already
available 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, be used in these operations. The
24th Infantry's battalion could be replaced later by a fresh one from the
same regiment. The Negro units were to work with more seasoned units under
experienced leaders before going on their own.14
-
- Each battalion of the 25th Infantry
was therefore attached to one of the Americal's infantry regiments. The
- 5934 Field Artillery Battalion and
the 25th's cannon company were attached to the Americal's division artillery
and other elements of the combat team to corresponding units of the Americal
Division.15
The two battalions of the Fiji Infantry Regiment, native Fijians under New
Zealand and Fijian officers, whose whole combat experience had been obtained
on Bougainville, were also available for use with the Negro units.
-
- Already on Bougainville upon the
arrival of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, and the 25th Regimental Combat
Team was the 2d Battalion of the 54th Coast Artillery, a Negro unit operating
as field artillery. Later re-designated the 49th Coast Artillery Battalion,16
this unit was among those that lost equipment and records when the President
Coolidge sank after striking mines off Aspirate Santo on 26 October
1942. The 2d Battalion, 54th Coast Artillery, with the 172d Regimental Combat
Team of the 43d Division, had been sent from Gnome to Aspirate Santo in
anticipation of the possibility of enemy attacks upon that major base supporting
operations then in progress on Guadalcanal. Aspirate Santo was otherwise
only lightly defended at the time.17
-
- On Aspirate Santo, as part of the
Island Defense, the 2d Battalion of the 54th gained experience in the use
of various types of equipment, including borrowed 155mm. and naval guns,
pending arrival of replacements for its own weapons due in January 1943.
Lacking
- [501]
- individual equipment, men learned
to improvise. Occasional bombing raids, incurring no casualties and little
damage, and intensive training in field artillery methods- every available
man in the unit was trained as a cannoneer- contributed to the fitness of
the unit. It remained on Aspirate Santo through 1943. On 4 February 1944
the unit debarked at Empress Augusta Bay where it was assigned to field
artillery missions as corps artillery of the XIV Corps, thus becoming the
first Negro combat support unit to engage the enemy actively in the South
Pacific.18
-
-
- The 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry,
while under the tactical control of the 148th Infantry from 11 to 29 March
1944, was not used for offensive operations. At the time, "the combat
efficiency of the battalion was considered too low," General Griswold
said. It was given a sector of the perimeter and "did an excellent
job in organizing and preparing its defensive positions.19
is When the major Japanese attack against the Torokina beachhead came in
March, no serious attempt was made against the 24th's sector. "In general,
the troops of the battalion were inclined to be a bit 'triggerhappy,' but
perhaps no more so than those of any other organization which has never
had its baptism of fire," General Griswold reported.20
-
- The first month's patrol work of
this battalion was judged "decidedly
inferior." One officer and fifteen enlisted men on a patrol reported
themselves pinned down by an estimated six Japanese; though they had encountered
no opposition for three hours, the officer made no attempt to extricate
his patrol. One platoon of Company B, 148th Infantry, went to the rescue.
Finding no opposition at all, they escorted the patrol back to the perimeter.
Another patrol of the same company remained lost for several hours because,
"according to the officer's statement, he was afraid to cross the barbed
wire on the battalion reserve line." Another platoon did not continue
an attack after being fired on, allowing an estimated half-dozen Japanese
to escape.21
-
- Upon the arrival of the 25th Regimental
Combat Team on 29 March, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, passed to the
control of the Americal Division, relieving two companies on Hill 260, the
scene of bitter fighting a few days before.22
Patrols went into enemy territory but no contacts were made. Sanitary measures
taken by the battalion seemed adequate, but mosquitoes were dense in the
area of this hill. Japanese who had occupied it were almost universally
infected with malaria. Within a month of occupying Hill 260, nearly one
third of the battalion had malaria.23
Leaving Hill 260, the battalion relieved troops of the 132d Infantry along
a narrow beach running from the Torokina to the Mavavia Rivers. Patrolling,
by
- [502]
- 24TH INFANTRYMEN PLOTTING DEFENSIVE
POSITIONS, BOUGAINVILLE,
- March 1944.
-
- now much improved, continued; clashes
with the Japanese occurred north and east of Mavavia Lagoon and both sides
suffered casualties.
-
- The confidence and ability of the
battalion increased. On 19 April an officer and sixteen men patrolling across
the Mavavia were trapped by a company of Japanese. The patrol leader ordered
his men to fight their way back across the river; twelve were able to do
so, but the patrol leader and three men were pinned down by machine gun
fire. A rifle platoon, supported by a platoon of medium tanks from the 754th
Tank
- Battalion, landed from LCT's and
attacked the enemy. The 24th's platoon rescued the trapped men and withdrew
across the river mouth. After nearly five days of artillery and mortar fire
on the area, a company of the 24th, supported by two platoons of tanks and
a platoon of flame throwers, landed from LCT's and attacked along the narrow
beach. Facing moderate to heavy resistance, the company cleared more than
1,000 yards of beach before nightfall while the remainder of the battalion
occupied the cleared area and organized defensive positions. The advance
con
- [503]
- tinued the next day until midafternoon,
when swampy ground near the mouth of the Moy River halted further attempts
to gain ground.24
These constituted the first Negro infantry attacks supported by white armored
troops and involving LCT's in World War II.
-
- The 2d Battalion, 132d Infantry,
took over the 24th's positions between the mouth of the Torokina and the
Mavavia Lagoon while the remainder of the 24th's battalion extended their
positions toward the assault company. Through this action, more than 5,500
yards of the shore line came under the control of the Americal Division
and its attached units.25
The XIV Corps commander considered the conduct of the battalion in this
action to be "highly satisfactory." Subsequent patrols to the
north and east as far as the Reini River he also judged "highly satisfactory."
Discipline and morale in the battalion were considered good. "Although
this battalion has in the past been employed largely on labor duties to
the detriment of its training," General Griswold concluded, "its
work in combat here has progressively and noticeably improved." As
of 10 May its combat efficiency was considered "good." 26
The battalion had eleven men killed in action, two dead of wounds, and thirteen
wounded during its operations in Bougainville. It accounted for an estimated
forty-seven Japanese killed in action and one prisoner of war.27
-
-
- When the 25th Regimental Combat
Team arrived on Bougainville the main ground offensive of the Japanese the
only one since the occupation of the Torokina beachhead had about spent
itself. After resistance on Hill 260 ended, the Americal Division planned
to extend its outpost line of resistance along the general line of hills
facing the beachhead. Enemy artillery in these hills was still able to reach
the Torokina airstrip. The proposed hill line was divided into regimental
sectors; when established by units of the Americal's regiments, it would
be maintained by units of the 25th Infantry.
-
- The 25th began its seasoning program
under the control of the Americal within twenty-four hours of landing. On
30 March, officer observers moved out with combat patrols of the Americal
and two ammunition and pioneer platoons accompanied elements of the 132d
Infantry in an attack on Hills 500 and 501. In three days of action sixty-five
Japanese were killed by this force; the 25th's platoons lost three men to
sniper fire. On 31 March Pvt. James H. O'Banner, a member of this party,
became the first enlisted man of the 93d Division to kill an enemy soldier.
-
- Before other battalions attached
to the regiments of the Americal began their active patrolling, the 2d Battalion
was temporarily detached from the 182d Infantry and assigned to a special
task force from the 37th Division which included the 3d Battalion, 148th
Infantry, and the two battalions of the Fiji Infantry Regiment. The task
force was directed to pursue and destroy the enemy detach
- [504]
- ments withdrawing east and north
along the Laruma River. The force moved out on the morning of 2 April, heading
north along the Numa Numa Trail, and halting at the Laruma River, where
missions were assigned. The 2d Battalion was ordered to ford the Laruma
and proceed eastward, protecting lines of communication and securing a trail
junction near the mouth of Jaba Creek while the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry,
proceeded along the south bank of the river.
-
- The 2d Battalion, 25th Infantry,
crossed the river successfully, lowering men and equipment down a 60-foot
river bluff by rope; Company E killed two Japanese while covering the crossing.
Small skirmishes and light enemy fire occupied the battalion as it proceeded
northeast. Enemy positions south of the river prohibited any advance on
that side, and were bypassed by elements of the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry.
The 2d Battalion, 25th Infantry, placed considerable mortar and machine
gun fire on these positions from its vantage point on the opposite shore.
-
- On the next afternoon, 9 April,
a small patrol under the regimental intelligence officer recrossed the Laruma
and uncovered an enemy machine gun nest in a pocket of pillboxes. One Japanese
was killed before hostile fire forced the patrol to withdraw. A platoon
from Company F, after machine gun and mortar preparation, crossed the river
and cleared out the machine gun position, losing five men wounded to approximately
twenty Japanese dead. One man, Pvt. Wade Foggie, set up his rocket launcher
under heavy fire and sent eight rounds into three enemy pillboxes, destroying
them all and killing about ten Japanese. For this action he received the
division's first Bronze Star.28
The next day Company E accompanied a party of Fiji Scouts on a patrol south
of the river. On 5 April the task force completed its mission; the 2d Battalion
was returned to the control of the 182d Infantry, Americal Division.
-
- In this manner, most of the units
of the 25th were introduced to combat. Patrols, consisting of members of
the regiment, Fijians, and members of the Americal Division, engaged in
both limited and extensive missions. In the meantime, the 593d Field Artillery
Battalion was joining in the missions of the Americal's artillery. The 1st
Battalion, 25th Infantry, attached to the 132d Infantry, got its first experience
on 3 April. A party hand carrying supplies to a force of the 132d in the
vicinity of Hill 500 was ambushed by an enemy patrol when a part of the
platoon was on the way back to the perimeter with a 132d Infantry litter
case. Four men were lost the first of the regiment to be killed in action.
A member of the regimental medical detachment, Technician 3 Stephen H. Simpson,
Jr., was with the 132d's patient at the time that the litter was fired on.
Staying with the wounded man, he knocked out a Japanese machine gun with
a hand grenade, helped the patient to the bottom of a hill, and there dressed
a fresh bullet wound that the man had received during the skirmish. He and
other members of the patrol improvised a litter and continued toward the
rear. When darkness came, the patrol was lost in the jungle, but Simpson
and the others remained with the wounded man until, guided by the sound
of friendly artillery in the morn
- [505]
- ing, they reached an Americal outpost
and delivered him safely to an aid station. Company B of the 1st Battalion,
in the meantime, took over a sector of the main perimeter from a company
of the 132d Infantry on 4 April. Two days later, on 6 April, Company C saw
its first action in conjunction with Company L, 132d Infantry, on a patrol
in the vicinity of Hill 500 where, after a brief exchange of fire with an
enemy force, the patrol withdrew and called for artillery fire on the area.
-
- So far, the seasoning process had
proceeded as planned and, in some cases, with better results than expected.
The 5934 Field Artillery Battalion was warmly welcomed by Brig. Gen. William
C. Dunckel, commanding the Americal artillery, after his observers reported
the accuracy of their fires and the efficiency of their construction and
occupation of their positions.29
The 2d Battalion of the 25th, returning from its mission with the 37th Division
task force, was commended by the regimental commander for its count of thirty
enemy dead at a cost of four minor casualties. The 3d Battalion had not
as yet participated in combat patrols with elements of the 164th Infantry
to which it was attached. It had been directed to organize reserve positions
for the regiment. Its companies had gone on reconnaissance patrols without
contacting the enemy.
-
- On the evening of 5 April, Company
K of the 25th's 3d Battalion, under the command of Capt. James J. Curran,
a white officer, and Negro platoon leaders, received the mission of forming
a trail block approximately 3,000 yards from
the base of Hill 250. A machine gun platoon from Company M was attached
for the mission. Company K was to move out on the morning of 6 April and
form the trail block during the following night. There was little time for
briefing, supplying, instructing, and inspecting the company, for it was
located in enemy territory and could carry on only limited activity in the
dark. Capt. William A. Crutcher and three enlisted men of the 593d Field
Artillery Battalion went along as artillery observers; an officer and an
enlisted man of the 161st Signal Photographic Company had their cameras
to make pictures for press release; Sgt. Ralph Brodin, intelligence sergeant
from the Americal's 164th Infantry, was attached as combination guide and
aide. All attached personnel except the 593d's enlisted men and the machine
gun platoon were white.
-
- Company K moved out about o645.
Its equipment and armament were normal, except that nine additional Browning
automatic rifles had been substituted for nine m1 rifles. The light machine
gun section had four guns and there was but one instead of three 60mm. mortars.
The unit carried two radios, SCR-300. The plan given to the platoon leaders
was: The 1st Platoon would provide security to the front while breaking
trail; a light machine gun section and company headquarters would follow.
The 2d Platoon, coming next and in column, would provide security to the
flanks, moving out from the trail with small finger patrols at all halts
for reconnaissance and returning with reports of observations. Behind the
2d Platoon would come another machine gun section, with the 3d Platoon in
the rear to provide
- [506]
- security to the rear and to the
immediate right and left; it also, at all halts, was to send out finger
patrols and establish small outposts to the rear.
-
- The men of the company were elated
as they moved out on their first mission; the presence of newspaper men
and the cameramen gave added vim to the occasion. All went well until, about
2,600 yards out and nearing its objective, the patrol entered an old Japanese
hospital area containing several bamboo shelters. The 1st Platoon sent out
finger patrols as planned. Shortly after halting in the shelter area, m1
fire broke out on the left front of the 1st Platoon. One patrol leader reported
that his patrol had seen three Japanese, killed two. The company commander
and the reporting sergeant started out to investigate. Before they reached
the dead Japanese, firing broke out all around them. The patrol leader and
one of his men were wounded.
-
- With one of the 1st Platoon's patrols
still out, the company commander ordered the 2d and 3d Platoons forward
to join flanks with the 1st Platoon to provide security for the right and
rear. The rifle platoons had moved into approximately these positions when
firing resumed and machine guns were set up. Because of the dense jungle
the mortar squad's men were used as riflemen, placed to the rear right of
the company facing up the trail toward the 1st Platoon.
-
- After the first rifle fire, heavy
M1, automatic rifle, and machine gun fire interspersed with some Japanese
fire, broke out to the front and left of the 1st Platoon. Without orders,
some members of the 2d and 3d Platoons took up the fire. The 1st Section
of machine guns opened fire to the right and left of the 1st Platoon; the
2d Section fired to the right and left flanks of the 3d Platoon.
-
- His finger patrols still out, the
company commander tried to order a cease fire; the order was taken up by
platoon leaders and some noncommissioned officers, but after a brief silence
one Japanese machine gun fired eight or nine rounds. Company K's men opened
fire again. Men began to cry out that they were wounded; firing, much of
it at random, continued.
-
- The 2d and 3d Platoons, ordered
to swing one squad each toward the 1st Platoon lines to bring their flanks
together to meet at the trail, began moving in toward the 1st Platoon, firing
sporadically in the general direction of the original position of the 1st
Platoon whose men, caught in a cross fire, were now trying to take cover.
Captain Curran ordered the 1st Platoon commander to reorganize his platoon
and form a line about 75 yards to the rear through which the company could
be withdrawn. The first sergeant, James Graham, was ordered to form the
walking wounded, get a litter squad, provide security of five men, and evacuate
the wounded to an aid station. These were the orders that started the movement
of the entire company to the rear. The platoon sergeant of the 1st Platoon
had already pulled off his pack, dropped his rifle, and disappeared. The
directed movement of the 1st Platoon, whose men, highly excited as a result
of being fired on from front and rear firing which both they and the members
of the other platoons insisted was Japanese fire increased the apprehension
of the men of the rear platoons, most of whom knew nothing of the
- [507]
- orders governing the leading platoon's
movements. When the company commander tried to move to the rear to help
the 1st Platoon commander reform his platoon, men crowded around him. Hoping
to prevent a coalescing of the three platoons, he decided not to move with
the 1st Platoon. Instead, he ordered 1st Lt. Oscar Davenport, weapons platoon
leader, to withdraw his forward machine guns. Davenport, who had gone to
investigate the original firing, was pinned down. He called out to the company
commander, who replied, too late to cement officer solidarity and too soon
to conceal rank from a sharp-eared enemy, "Don't call me captain, call
me Jim." Davenport remained until all of his platoon had been withdrawn.
While crawling to give aid to a wounded soldier of a nearby platoon, he
was wounded. He continued toward the wounded soldier, reached him, and was
administering first aid when he was hit again and killed.30
-
- In the meantime, enemy firing, apparently
unaimed, continued at short intervals. Sporadic bursts from Company K followed,
some of it directed at any movement in the brush. The company commander
reported the situation to the 3d Battalion command post and was told to
withdraw about three or four hundred yards and reorganize his company. After
the 2d and 3d Platoons had formed a new line as ordered, men continued to
fire sporadically, pushing back each time until some lay two and three deep
behind each other, firing over the heads of men in front. One backed "right
over" the company commander's head and shoulder. Attempts to withdraw
the men a few at a time failed, for men withdrew in groups until only the
company commander and two other officers remained on the line. The new 1st
Platoon line through which the company was to withdraw was a scene of confusion
because men were reluctant to move off the trail and face outward as ordered.
The white intelligence sergeant from the 164th Infantry, Sergeant Brodin,
the sole experienced infantryman present, was of considerable help. "He
walked calmly up and down carrying his carbine, telling the men there was
nothing to worry about, that there were a few Japs, and that if they held
everything would turn out OK," 1st Lt. Charles Schuman, the Signal
Corps photographer, reported. "Sgt. Brodin suggested that my sergeant
and I withdraw to the rear where we ran into Captain Curran. He was running
up and down the trail trying to calm the men by shouting `Hold your fire,
hold your fire.'" At no time, Schuman continued, did he see any control
exercised over the men by anyone. "I may have been in the wrong places,
but I saw no leadership, no command, except Capt. Curran shouting hold your
fire." Brodin commented that men fired at any moving bush. "They
would listen to me because they thought I had more experience," he
said. "They wanted to fight." Soon there was no patrol front;
soldiers were lying about on the ground, facing and firing in all directions.
Captain Curran reported again to the battalion command post, and he was
ordered to bring his company back to Hill 250 to reorganize.
-
- The first elements of Company K,
with the first sergeant and the missing
- [508]
- platoon sergeant of the 1st Platoon,
reached their front lines about 1730 in the afternoon. The battalion commander
met them as they crossed the Torokina River. All seemed quite upset and
excited. In their opinion, the patrol had met at least a regiment of Japanese,
although no survivor had seen an enemy soldier. The platoon sergeant was
lying down with two or three other men; the first sergeant, in charge of
litters, had "two or three men carrying him across the Torokina River,"
the battalion commander reported, adding, "He is rather old and fat."
-
- Lieutenant Davenport and nine enlisted
men were killed in the fight and twenty enlisted men were wounded. The dead
were left behind along with equipment, including a radio, a light machine
gun, a 60mm. mortar, 30 rounds of 60mm. ammunition, 2 Browning automatic
rifles, about 18 M1 rifles, 3 carbines, and web equipment.
-
- The entire action consumed but thirty
or forty minutes but its aftermath was considerably longer. The best estimates
were that not more than a squad or so of Japanese were involved and that
most casualties were caused by the unit's own men. Investigation of the
incident by the Americal Division, involving testimony from almost every
available member of the company present, lasted from 14 April to 2 May;
31
discussion, speculation, and
rumor lasted longer.
-
- The next day a patrol from Company
L went out to recover Company K's dead. This patrol ran into a fire fight
about 75 yards short of its destination, losing one man in the fight and
another by drowning, and returned without completing its mission. On 8 April
Lt. Abner E. Jackson, 1st Platoon leader of Company K, led a carrying party
of forty Company L men to the scene of the fight; six bodies were found
but the men refused to touch or wrap them. Despite the threat of disciplinary
action if the mission were not completed, Jackson could get only two noncoms
and two privates to help him wrap the bodies. At Jackson's request, twenty
men from his own Company K under the unit's new first sergeant joined his
party. Three bodies and three mattress covers full of equipment were brought
back. On the third day, another carrying party under the battalion commander
accompanied by Jackson brought back the remaining bodies and equipment.
-
- The 3d Battalion's units continued
their patrolling for the next two weeks without further disrupting incidents
or casualties. Most of the subsequent patrols of the 3d were joint patrols
with the 164th, as in the initial patrols of the 25th's other battalions.
On II April a patrol from Company K killed two of the enemy. A prisoner
was taken by a Company I patrol the same day and another on 13 April.
-
- The 2d Battalion, after its return
to Americal Division control, engaged in extensive patrolling in the Torokina
valley. One of the patrols from its Company F was ambushed on 8 April. A
member of the patrol, Pvt. Isaac Sermon, wounded by a shot in the neck,
returned
- [509]
- 25TH RCT MEN KNEE-DEEP IN MUD
ON A TRAIL TO HILL 165, BOUGAINVILLE,
- 15 April 1944.
-
- fire with his Browning automatic
rifle and killed at least three of the enemy. After using his one magazine
of ammunition, Private Sermon started crawling back to the rest of his patrol;
he was shot three more times but kept going. He kept his position in the
rapidly moving patrol for more than 600 yards; then he dropped from exhaustion
and loss of blood and had to be carried in. He was awarded the regiment's
only Silver Star for his part in this action.32
-
- On the same day, 8 April, the Americal
Division ordered units of the 25th
Infantry to occupy the new outpost line.33
A provisional battalion of the 25th, including the regimental headquarters
and the antitank and cannon companies; moved onto Hill 260 as the 1st Battalion;
24th Infantry, which had been going through the same seasoning process with
elements of the 37th and Americal Divisions, moved off. Regiments of the
Americal continued to control the battalions of the 25th as they gradually
moved into position along the line of
- [510]
- hills. Generally, the battalions
of the 25th followed units of the Americal Division and the Fiji battalions
into position as planned, remaining to organize and defend the outpost line.
By 25 April, battalions of the 25th Infantry were all in outpost positions.
-
- On 30 April control of the 25th
Regimental Combat Team passed to a provisional brigade, organized under
Brig. Gen. Leonard Boyd, assistant division commander, from all troops of
the 93d Division then on Bougainville. The outpost line was now 12,000 yards
from the Torokina bomber strip, leaving the remaining Japanese artillery
out of range of the airstrips. Units of the regiment continued to patrol
in cooperation with units of the Americal Division through May. In the meantime,
troops of the 93d's 318th Engineer Battalion were constructing roads to
the new positions while the 93d Reconnaissance Troop furnished security
for the road builders.
-
- Relations between men of the 25th
and the veteran white troops with whom they were employed were excellent.
Praise given them by officers and men of the Americal and by their own higher
officers boosted morale. Men and officers reacted well to the knowledge
that the unit was gaining experience and that some officers and men were
gaining reputations as good patrol leaders. Most men and most officers considered
that the unit was settling down well. Racial tensions had been pushed into
the background both by enlisted men and by white officers although some
Negro officers, while admitting that morale had improved, still smarted
under the existing promotion policy and the lack of command positions among
them. Enlisted men expressed themselves as fighting to maintain gains that
Negroes had made in the past seventy years, to guarantee better jobs after
the war, to "prove that we can do anything that anybody else can do,"
and because "If it were not for the Japs I wouldn't be here."
The 25 percent or so who were not adjusting well divided roughly into two
groups: those with little education, usually products of rural backgrounds,
and those with urban backgrounds, who were better educated. The men of the
first group viewed their missions with apathy, approaching their work halfheartedly,
while the others resented being in the war at all, considering it little
of their affair. Most of this minority of men lacked confidence in their
leaders, white and Negro, and in their training. Some declared that their
continental training in the desert had done little to fit them for jungle
warfare.34
-
- The Company K affair made a greater
impression on the men of the regiment than most officers realized. Officers
of the unit, knowing more of the problems of green troops, tended to view
the episode as something that might have happened to any green troops freshly
committed to action in the jungle. They realized that the men involved were
- [511]
- somewhat shaken by the affair but
there was little knowledge of its effect on the combat team as a whole.
The enlisted men of the 25th, however, those who were performing and adjusting
well along with those who were disgruntled, tended to view it as the result
of moving the company into action without adequate preparation. They blamed
the company commander for the events on this patrol. The rumor spread and
was believed that the white company commander deserted his men, running
to the rear under fire; that the Negro officer casualty sacrificed his life
in order that his men might get back to the outpost line; and that the whole
affair was being whitewashed in order to save the faces of the white officers
involved. Outside the combat team, the incident became a cause célébre
of another kind. It formed the basis of a rumor spreading through the Pacific
that the 93d Division, in the invasion of Bougainville, had broken and run.35
-
- Despite excellent discipline and
control in many other instances, this and lesser incidents of individual
and command failure combined to dampen enthusiasm for further use of the
25th Infantry on the gradually quietening Bougainville perimeter. Adverse
reports sent to the War Department included a case where three men in a
foxhole were approached at night by a fourth man, who jumped into the hole.
In the ensuing scuffle one man was knifed.
There were no Japanese in the area at the time.36
In another foxhole at night one of two soldiers thought he heard the enemy
approaching. He fired all his own ammunition, then borrowed his companion's
rifle and ammunition and fired again. When he tried to leave the foxhole,
his companion attempted to stop him. In the struggle one man was shot. He
was found dead in the morning in front of the foxhole. On another night
a Negro officer and an enlisted man were in a foxhole closely adjoining
another containing two enlisted men. The officer, thinking he heard a noise
in the brush, left his foxhole, went to the neighboring position, and ordered
the two soldiers to leave and investigate. Later the officer, seeing two
figures in the brush, shot and killed one and wounded the other. In the
morning it was revealed that these were his own two men. A company of the
25th, adjacent to a Fiji battalion, fired three mortar shells into an area
close to the Fijians although half an hour earlier it had received warning
that Fijian patrols were beginning to move out. On another occasion enemy
infiltrators precipitated a night battle between the same company and its
Fijian neighbors; though quantities of ammunition were fired, by luck alone
no casualties were sustained by either unit. After ten days on the outpost
line one of the 25th's battalions had not cleared sufficient fields of fire,
had failed to cover the gaps between strong points by fire, and was erecting
- [512]
- open topped pillboxes to house five
men each, thereby subjecting too large a group of men in one place to enemy
action.37
Easily noted incidents of this sort, failures in leadership ranging up to
battalion level, as well as failures of battle discipline among individuals,
Colonel Yon told his officers, "detracted from the excellent work others
did and resulted in the 25th CT being rated only `Fair' by Division and
Corps in combat efficiency." The combat team nevertheless accomplished
its mission, Colonel Yon felt. Battalion and company `commanders of the
Americal and 37th Divisions with which elements of the combat team operated
stated that troops of the 25th settled down in the face of the enemy "as
quickly, if not more so, than did their organizations on Guadalcanal and
on New Georgia." 38
-
- But these and other organizations
were now seasoned. They were considered dependable. The area had too little
in the way of defensive troops and service troops for the widely separated
positions held and developed. The 93d, with only one regiment introduced
to combat, could be used to advantage, as originally suggested by General
Harmon, to replace more seasoned units so that they might proceed to forge
their way up the ladder of the Pacific islands toward Japan while the 93d
occupied and defended forward positions already secured.
- Nevertheless, the performance of
the 25th Regimental Combat Team on Bougainville, while not without merit,
produced familiar "buts" in higher commanders' estimate of the
unit, all echoing the training experience and all tending to support the
desirability of the original view of the most profitable employment for
the Negro division. The XIV Corps commander concluded after six weeks:
-
- (1) It is apparent that the unit
had had little "jungle training"; consequently, as individuals
or as a unit, they were not prepared to handle adequately problems encountered
in jungle operations. Most individuals showed willingness to learn from
white troops; however, their ability to learn, and to retain what has been
taught, is generally inferior to that of white troops.
- (2) In general, morale of all soldiers
was high. However, units as a whole seemed to be unduly affected by reports
of difficulties encountered by other elements of the command. Morale of
the officers, especially white, seems rather low. Much of this attitude
can be traced to the lack of responsibility demonstrated by their junior
colored officers and noncommissioned officers.
- (3) In general, discipline seems
satisfactory; however, there is a tendency on the part of junior colored
officers to make the minimum effort to carry out instructions. This same
tendency exists among the enlisted men when they receive instructions from
these junior officers. As a rule colored officers do not have control of
the enlisted men. On the other hand, those units having a large proportion
of white officers appear to be better controlled, trained, and disciplined.
- (q) Initiative is generally lacking,
especially among platoon commanders and lower grades. The presence of higher
ranking officers, especially whites, is necessary to assure the tackling
and accomplishment of any task.
- (5) Field sanitation is generally
inadequate.
- (6) To date, the 25th Inf., though
supposedly better trained than the 1st Bn 24th
- [513]
- Inf, has not progressively improved
to the extent of the latter unit.
-
- The combat efficiency of the 25th
Regimental Combat Team at the time was considered fair for infantry units,
good for the artillery unit.39
-
- On 20 May relief of the battalions
of the 25th on the outpost line by battalions of the Americal Division's
182d Infantry began, continuing to 12 June. Patrolling was carried on by
each unit until relieved but there were few additional enemy contacts. The
93d Provisional Brigade was dissolved on 8 June 1944, just as the last elements
of the 25th Infantry left Bougainville for the Green Islands north of Bougainville.
The 93d Division, still under XIV Corps, passed to the control of the Southwest
Pacific Area on 15 June after most of its elements moved to the Treasury
Islands.40
-
- The 93d Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop
remained on Bougainville until 25 October 1944, continuing to operate with
Americal forces. The reconnaissance troop, engaging in mapping patrols and
protecting the engineers as they built roads, met no enemy opposition until
16 May when, on a four-day patrol mission reconnoitering and mapping the
area between the Saua and Reini Rivers, one of its patrols, moving along
a newly discovered trail leading west to the Reini, encountered six Japanese.
Three-quarters of an hour later, it ran into an ambush near a pillbox in
the same area. The rear of the patrol was subsequently attacked, and the
men withdrew to high ground from which artillery fire was directed on the
area. The patrol continued its mapping mission in the morning, leaving its
artillery observers and heavy equipment within the perimeter. About Iozo
it was ambushed again; it engaged the enemy in fire fights that lasted most
of the day. The patrol leader, Lt. Charles Collins was wounded in the leg
during his fourth fire fight of the two days; he continued to command his
patrol and during the fighting was wounded three more times and was then
unable to continue with the rest of the patrol. Three members of the patrol
stayed with him and another wounded soldier. Staff Sgt. Rothchild Webb helped
his partly blinded patrol leader into a nearby swamp. After three days in
Japanese held territory, Webb successfully led Collins to safety.41
The remaining wounded soldier and two companions, who succeeded in silencing
enemy fire long enough to recover him, spent two days in the jungle before
they were rescued by a friendly patrol. The troop lost three men killed
in action and three wounded in these fire fights.
-
- The 93d Reconnaissance Troop expected
to join the remainder of the division in the movement from Bougainville
From 20 May to 20 June it was in reserve, standing by for movement, but
on 20 June it was attached to the Americal Division for continued use on
Bougainville. From 1 July to 10 July, acting as reconnaissance unit for
the 182d Infantry, it participated in the battle for Horseshoe Ridge on
the East West Trail. It initiated attacks on the front and rear of the hill
simultaneously; after several efforts, all elements were recalled for reorganization.
Five men had been
- [514]
- wounded. The attack had forced the
enemy to evacuate; a handful of men, under Lt. Glen A. Allen, went up the
hill in the late evening and found the Japanese leaving. They established
a position on the hill and held it until reinforcements came.42
-
- The 93d Reconnaissance Troop continued
patrolling, setting up roadblocks and ambushes through the summer, generally
acting on reconnaissance and combat patrol missions for the 164th Infantry.
It employed alternating patrols in the jungles every five days during August.
All missions were accomplished, some members of patrols being cited for
exceptional services. After seven months on Bougainville the troop sailed
to rejoin the 25th Regimental Combat Team.
-
- Also remaining on Bougainville during
this period was one other Negro ground combat unit, the 49th Coast Artillery
Battalion, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, having departed on 25 June
for the Russell Islands. Between 4 February and 29 July, the 49th, acting
as field artillery, fired 400 missions, expending 13,113 rounds. Missions
were of all types: destruction, neutralization, harassment, and counterbattery.
When the Japanese 6th Division launched its March counterattack on the Torokina
beachhead, the unit functioned exceptionally well during counterbattery
fire, receiving credit for the destruction of several 75mm. and 150mm. Japanese
field pieces. One officer and one enlisted man were killed and three enlisted
men were wounded during this action; the unit received six Bronze Stars,
two Air Medals, and a commendation
from the XIV Corps Artillery commander, Brig. Gen. Leo Kreber.
-
- Beginning in May, part of the 49th
relieved the 3d Marine Defense Battalion in seacoast defense positions,
while Battery B remained as field artillery under the operational control
of XIV Corps Artillery. This battery, attached to the 135th Field Artillery,
moved to positions 1,000 yards outside the perimeter on the Numa Numa Trail,
placing fires on enemy positions in the upper Laruma valley in support of
regiments of the 37th and Americal Divisions.
-
- The 49th continued with assignments
on Bougainville, generally under the 68th Antiaircraft Artillery Brigade,
until 26 November 1944 when, after the island was taken over by Australian
forces, it was relieved of tactical duties. Not until February and March
1945 did the unit leave Bougainville for Finschhafen; even then a rear party
remained with the unit's heavy ordnance equipment.43
-
-
- The 25th Regimental Combat Team
left Bougainville for the Green Islands in June, unaware that the remainder
of its career, along with that of the 93d Division's other regimental combat
teams, was to be primarily one of security and service missions. Just before
orders for the relief of the 25th arrived, the report of the investigation
of Company K's patrol arrived from XIV Corps, with the conclusion and recommendation:
- [515]
- The performance of Company "K,"
25th Infantry as brought out in this report of investigation, is indicative
of a lack of proper discipline, and small unit leadership. It is desired
that training be instituted to correct these deficiencies, and be vigorously
prosecuted in order to prevent like occurrences.44
-
- Of the report the regimental commander
commented that the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 25th had been trained, as
planned, with veteran units while the 3d Battalion's units had not. Instead,
Company K was sent out with but one enlisted man of the 164th Infantry.
It had consistently been one of the three best companies of the regiment
during the past two and a half years. It was the regimental commander's
opinion that
-
- . . . had this organization been
given prior instruction and been accompanied by an experienced platoon of
the 164th Infantry in its initial action, the results would have been far
different. The force encountered was small but equipped with machine guns.
The majority of our casualties were inflicted by other men of the company.
This has resulted in many instances in jungle warfare when troops were committed
without proper seasoning. Early in May a company of the 182d Infantry, a
veteran of two years of jungle warfare, encountered an inferior force of
the enemy east of the Saua river, became disorganized and returned to the
perimeter of the 3d battalion, 25th Infantry on Hill 65 after darkness.
The above facts are not offered in condonation of the failure of Company
"K" to carry out its mission, but they were contributing causes...45
-
- Neither this opinion nor the demurrer
of the 93d Provisional Brigade's commander that the 25th Regimental Combat
Team had not been adequately rated altered the course of events planned
for the 93d Division. Arriving on the Green Islands, where it relieved the
3d New Zealand Division, the combat team took up its duties of security,
labor, and training. Like other elements of the 93d, it was to spend the
next year and a half moving from one Pacific island to another, relieving
elements of other divisions going forward to engage the enemy, taking over
positions which were now rear areas, loading and unloading ships, cleaning
out ,Japanese stragglers hiding out on "secure" islands, and mounting
invasions for other troops. These were the duties contemplated when the
93d Division was accepted by the theater. At first the ability of the enemy
to attack the 93d's islands by air or by sea could not be discounted, but
later this possibility became more and more remote. The subsequent duties
performed by the 93d in the Pacific were essential, but they were not those
an infantry division was normally expected to perform.
-
- In Washington, reports on the 1st
Battalion, 24th Infantry, and the 25th Regimental Combat Team were briefed
and sent to General Marshall, Secretary McCloy, and Secretary Stimson. Secretary
McCloy, forwarding one report to Stimson, observed:
-
- . . . Although they show some important
limitations, on the whole I feel that the report is not so bad as to discourage
us.
-
- The general tone of these reports
reminds me of the first reports we got of the 99th Squadron. You remember
that they were not very good, but that Squadron has now taken its place
in the line and has
- [516]
- performed very well. It will take
more time and effort to make good combat units out of them, but in the end
I think they can be brought over to the asset side.46
-
- To this Stimson observed: "Noted-
but I do not believe they can be turned into really effective combat troops
without all officers being white. This is indicated by many of the incidents
herein." 47
-
- For the 93d, unlike the fighter
squadron, there was to be no means of demonstrating improved offensive combat
performance; neither the 25th Infantry nor the remaining untried units of
the division would be employed for any tactical missions other than minor
ones. The fighter squadrons had a different employment story now that, as
Secretary McCloy expressed it, they had taken their "place in the line."
-
-
- The 99th Fighter Squadron was completing
its first year in combat just as the 93d's units were leaving Bougainville.
On 2 June 1944, with its commanding officer, Capt. Erwin B. Lawrence, leading,
it flew its 500th combat mission for a cumulative total of 3,277 sorties.48
Public relations releases, appropriately, made much of the anniversary.
Since acquiring new missions in the fall of 1943,
the 99th Squadron had turned in consistently better performances, some of
them with dramatic impact.
-
- In January 1944 the 79th Fighter
Group, with the 99th Squadron still operating as a fourth squadron, was
assigned missions over the Anzio beachhead from Capodichino Aerodrome, near
Naples. From D day, 22 January, on, the 79th met enemy air opposition. On
two successive days the 99th scored heavily over the Anzio beach where recently
landed American troops were feeling the weight of massing German forces.
On the morning of the 27th, fifteen of the 99th's P40 Warhawks engaged sixteen
or more Focke-Wulf 190's that were pulling out of a bomb run over the beach.
They destroyed six and damaged four of the enemy planes. That afternoon,
the 99th returned to the beach area, engaging twelve Focke-Wulf 190's and
Messerschmitts. Three were destroyed and a fourth probable was recorded.
On the next day, the 99th's share of twenty-one enemy aircraft knocked out
of the air over Anzio was four destroyed.49
"It's a grand show. You're doing a magnificent job," General Cannon
declared to the 79th Group and the 99th Squadron. "You are authorized
to use the following as you may see fit," General Arnold cabled General
Eaker from Washington: "The results of the 99th Fighter Squadron during
the past two weeks, particu-
- [517]
- larly since the Nettuno landing,
are very commendable. My best wishes for their continued success."50
Approbation at home and abroad was noted with pleasure by men of the squadron.
The Atlanta Journal, after carrying a news article, "Black Eagles Down
8 Planes Over Nettuno," continued editorially:
-
- The success of the 99th U.S. Fighter
Squadron in the air battles over the Nettuno beachhead Thursday will be
gratifying to all Americans whatever their race or position. It should be
cause for special pride among our Negroes . . . . The fine performance of
the 99th in its first desperate adventure will give its members a confidence
in themselves that will make the 99th a unit to be feared by the enemy.51
-
- All three afternoon London papers
carried the story on their front pages.
-
- The 332d Fighter Group, under the
command of Lt. Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., arrived at Taranto, Italy, between
29 January and 3 February 1844, with its three full squadrons, the 100th,
301st, and 302d. On 5 February, the first of its squadrons, the 100th, became
operational. The group was assigned to harbor and coastal patrol and to
convoy escort missions with the Twelfth Air Force. A month later, General
Faker informed Washington that the showing of the 392d Group made him "very
anxious to have them reequipped with P47's I have gone over this matter
thoroughly with Colonel Davis, Cannon, Twining, and Norstad and I am certain
that this is the smart thing to do. You will
find also that it will take a lot of political pressure off you." 52
The P47 Thunderbolts would improve the range of the group, then equipped
with P39's, making them available for bomber escort duty. General Faker
restated his desire to reequip the 332d at the same time that older groups
were changed over to the newer fighters then in production. "Cannon,
Twining and I believe this is a sound move," he said, adding that their
reasons were countered by but one theoretical objection:
-
- In the Anzio bridgehead battle,
the colored combat pilots have demonstrated that they fight better against
the German in the air than they do on ground support missions. The only
point raised against this is the fact that bombardment accompanying missions
are at high altitude and colored troops do not normally stand cold weather
very well. The P47 is a warm airplane, however, and we believe it will work.
Colonel Davis and his colored pilots are most enthusiastic to undertake
the program and I am confident that they will do a good job.53
-
- Washington had planned and preferred
to reequip the 332d with P63's, the Kingcobra, the new and improved version
of the P39,54
but delays in proving and delivering this plane plus General Eaker's urging,
provided the group with new P47's, first used after its transfer to the
Fifteenth Strategic Air Force at
- [518]
- 332D FIGHTER GROUP BEING BRIEFED
- before a combat mission, Italy
-
- the end of May. When that happened
General Eaker noted:
-
- Yesterday we transferred the 332d,
completely equipped with P47's, to the Strategic Air Force. These colored
pilots have very high morale and are eager to get started on their new Strategic
task accompanying long-range heavy bombers. I talked with General Strothers,
their Wing Commander, today. He has watched them closely in their indoctrination
phase and he feels, as I do, that they will give a good account of themselves.55
-
- The 332d, now assigned to the 306th
Fighter Wing, flew its first mission with the Fifteenth Air Force on 7 June.
On its third mission, two days later, it downed five Messerschmitt 109's
over Munich.
-
- In July the 332d was again reequipped,
this time with P51 Mustangs, useful for long-range escort fighting like
the P47 and also for bombing, ground attacks, and reconnaissance.
-
- Since February the 99th Squadron
had been operating with the 79th Group, and then with the 324th Fighter
Group, in bombing enemy positions, highways,
- [519]
- railroads, bridges, and industrial
plants. The 99th had celebrated the first anniversary of its departure for
North Africa on 2 April 1944 by moving from Capodichino to Cercola Field
for attachment to the 324th Group. While still with the 79th Group, beginning
8 March, it had received several P47 Thunderbolts. This was taken by the
squadron as a sign that it would remain attached to the 79th Group, which
had already acquired P47's. But on I April, when the last of the 99th's
P47's were transferred to the 85th Squadron, rumors broke out that the squadron
was about to be detached from the 79th Group. Men and officers hoped that
they would remain attached to the 79th with which they had established and
maintained good relations. The news of attachment to the 324th Group, with
which it had worked earlier while at Cape Bon, caused "considerable
grumbling among the men . . . . Every man was proud of the attachment with
the 79th Fighter Group and the policy of its commanding officer, Col. Earl
Bates." During its second attachment to the 324th, the 99th operated
practically independently, all reports going directly to XII Tactical Air
Command (Rear). On 5 June, when the 324th left Pignatoria Airfield on which
it and the 99th were stationed, attachment terminated. The squadron remained
independent, operating directly under the XII Tactical Air Command while
men debated the length of time that they would continue to so operate. From
11 to 29 June it was attached to the 86th Bomber Group and on the latter
date was assigned to the 3324 Fighter Group as originally planned.56
-
- On Independence Day, 1944, the 332d
flew its first operational mission with its new P51 Mustangs. On 12 July,
over southern France, the unit secured its first victories in the Mustang,
one pilot, Capt. Joseph D. Elsberry, scoring three victories that day. On
15 July the group, with the 99th added, flew its first four squadron escort
mission with bombers of the Fifteenth Air Force.57
On 18 July it shot down eleven enemy planes.
-
- Though the youngest among them,
the 332d now took its place with the 306th Wing's and, later, the Fifteenth
Fighter Command's groups escorting the Strategic Air Force's bombers on
their long-range missions to the Balkans and into southern France, Germany,
and Czechoslovakia. Morale rose among the 332d Group's ground crews and
pilots as more important missions were assigned it. Maj. Gen. Nathan Twining
and Brig. Gen. Dean C. Strother visited the 332d and praised its efficiency.
As more enemy aircraft were downed by the group, "everyone seemed to
have had a high spirit. The Group, because of its unique setup, attracted
international attention and the pilots wanted to prove that they could make
the grade." 58
-
- In August the 332d strafed radar
installations on the coast of southern France in preparation for the invasion,;
on invasion day it covered Fifteenth Air Force attacks on the landing beaches.
The 332d furnished fighter escort for the Fifteenth's final attack on the
Plo-
- [520]
- esti oil refineries, accounted for
thirty-six of the seventy-six aircraft destroyed on a mission to Ilandza
Airdrome in Yugoslavia, strafed airdromes in the Athens area before the
invasion of Greece, strafed railroad traffic from Budapest to Bratislava,
and attacked targets of opportunity whenever possible. In December in missions
over Germany the fighter group met its first German jet planes, the ME-262's.
The 332d's commander confirmed the hopes of his men when, in his year's
end message, he told them:
-
- I cannot fail to mention the all
important fact that your achievements have been recognized. Unofficially
you are known by an untold number of bomber crews as the Red Tails who can
be depended upon and whose appearance means certain protection from enemy
fighters. The bomber crews have told others about your accomplishments,
and your good reputation has preceded you in many parts where you may think
you are unknown. . . The Commanding General of our Fighter Command has stated
that we are doing a good job and that be will so inform the Air Force Commander.
Thus, the official report of our operations is a creditable one.59
-
- The 332d's missions with the Fifteenth
Air Force had their climax on 24 March 1945 when, with Colonel Davis leading,
the group flew cover for B17's in a 1,600 mile round trip attack on Berlin,
the longest mission of the Fifteenth Air Force's history. One P38 and three
other Mustang groups were in this attack on the Daimler-Benz tank works,
which turned out to be one of the more exciting missions of the Fifteenth
Air Force's year. Before this time, only two victories over ME-262
jet planes had been confirmed by the
Fifteenth Fighter Command. Over Berlin, 8 more jets were credited to Mustangs,
5 to the 31st Group and 3 to the 3324 Group. The 332d probably destroyed
2 more and damaged 3 other ME-262's. It probably destroyed an ME-163 rocket
plane as well. On the way back from Berlin, aircraft of the group strafed
enemy ground installations and transportation, damaging 2 locomotives and
3 railroad cars. For the day's action the 332d received the Distinguished
Unit Citation.60
-
- Two more big days awaited the 332d.
On 31 March, while on a strafing mission in the Munich area, it destroyed
13, probably destroyed 3, and damaged 1 enemy aircraft; destroyed 7 and
damaged 13 locomotives, destroyed 13 and damaged 57 railroad cars, destroyed
1 and damaged 1 vehicle on flat cars; and damaged a railroad station, a
roundhouse, a factory, and a warehouse. The next day, 1 April, in the Wels
area, Austria, the 332d Group destroyed 12 more planes, bringing the two-day
total up to 25. On 26 April the 332d concluded its combat career with 4
enemy aircraft destroyed, the last to be downed by Mediterranean based aircraft
before the end of the war.
-
- Throughout its career, the 332d
Group received its replacement pilot though morale was high enough for a
number of its pilots to refuse relief when available. While the recognition
that it was being used on important missions and was achieving success on
those missions was a major factor in the high morale of the unit, the active
- [521]
- UNLOADING SUPPLIES ON THE BEACH
AT HOLLANDIA
-
- interest of higher headquarters,
evidenced in the visits of Generals Faker, Twining, and Strother and of
Col. Yantis H. Taylor, the group's wing commander, was no negligible factor.
The relations of the 332d with other units and its sports achievements men
of the group became basketball champions of the Fifteenth Fighter Command,
placing three members on the command's all-star team contributed to the
sense of mission which gripped ground men and pilots alike. Pilots of the
332d downed over enemy territory usually managed to rejoin the group with
the aid of partisans in the German occupied countries of southeastern Europe
and the Maquis in France. One pilot downed in August 1944 remained in northern
Italy heading a partisan band until the end of the war.
-
- After the war, when asked about
Negroes in the Air Forces, General Ealzer ascribed much of the success of
the units to their leadership: "They did a very good job. The reason,
in my opinion, they did a good job is that they had an outstanding leader,
Colonel Davis, a
- [522]
- West Point graduate, at the head
of that group. He is a remarkable young leader." 61
However, the sense of mission, understood and furthered by Colonel Davis
and by the groups's immediately higher headquarters-which assigned to the
unit tasks of undeniable importance, paralleling the assignments of other
units in the same command-probably had as much to do as leadership with
the pride in unit and in achievement that marked the fighter group off from
most other large Negro units in World War II.
-
-
- The 93d Division, in the meantime,
continued its assigned missions in the Pacific. Now under control of the
Southwest Pacific's Eighth Army, the 93d proceeded slowly up the island
ladder of the Pacific toward the Philippines, generally relieving elements
of other divisions, especially the 31st and the 41st, that were moving on
to other missions. Upon its arrival in the Southwest Pacific Area, GHQ G3,
with the concurrence of GHQ G4, gave oral instructions that the 93d Division
was to have training, fatigue, and defensive missions in exactly the same
proportions as those of the other divisions of the Eighth Army.62
Despite conflicting instructions and misunderstandings on the part of both
the division and the senior commanders in many of the areas occupied by
the 93d's troops, this remained the policy for its employment
63
The 93d was to De Kepi in readiness to enter combat on call, although when
labor requirements at Hollandia and Finschhafen mounted sharply at the end
of 1944, the priority of missions was altered to place defense of areas
and labor details ahead of training.64
The 93d then had responsibility for the control and coordination of all
labor and transportation furnished by all Eighth and Sixth Army units in
the Hollandia area. For this purpose, the division assumed operational control
of all Eighth Army units in the area not engaged in the operation of the
army headquarters.65
Administrative and supply responsibilities for all Eighth Army Area Command
units at Hollandia, Finschhafen, and the Admiralty Islands continued with
the 93d even after movement to Morotai.66
-
- On their islands elements of the
93d Division generally performed security, dock, warehouse, and patrol missions.
Areas occupied by the division usually had air and service units, white
and Negro; on them as well, and generally included airfields, warehouses,
ports, radar, radio, and antiaircraft installations. The senior 93d Division
commander present was often in command of the island. Occasionally elements
of the division encountered remnants of Japanese troops. In some cases while
other elements of the 93d moved ahead, units as
- [523]
- small as a company remained behind
to complete the job of rounding up remaining enemy stragglers and closing
out installations. Small expeditions sometimes went out in landing craft
to clear neighboring areas and islands. Occasionally enough of the enemy
remained to produce fire fights of considerable size.
-
- Though the 93d Division struck no
major blows against the enemy, its role as a holding division and as administrator
of large areas of the Pacific command -it had at times as high as 28,000
troops attached for administration and for operational controls-67
was on the asset side, if not wholly in the sense meant by Secretary McCloy
at least in the real sense of its value to operations in the vast and undermanned
Pacific. During the entire period, the 93d continued training those of its
troops not engaged in other duties, preparing against the day when the division
might be called upon for more critical missions.
-
- Two of the 93d's infantry regiments
had only minor encounters with the enemy in 1944. The 2d Battalion, 368th
Infantry, on Vella Lavella, made several contacts while charged with the
security of that island from February through June. The 369th, at Munda
and elsewhere on islands of the New Georgia group, encountered no hostile
forces at all. In addition to furnishing labor details, the 368th engaged
in intensive training. Members of its staff flew to Bougainville, observed
the jungle operations there, and returned to Munda and established a jungle
patrol leader school that continued until all company officers and noncommissioned
officers completed the course.
In addition, about fifty officers and petty officers of the 73d Naval Construction
Battalion (Seabees) and selected officers and noncommissioned officers of
the 368th Infantry attended the course. Captured Japanese rifles and machine
guns, fired over troops to familiarize them with the weapons and their characteristic
sounds, were used in training exercises. Battalion exercises in jungle attacks
with close artillery support the artillery barrages brought down within
200 yards of troops on the line of departure just prior to the jump off
were staged even during packing for the move from New Georgia to Emirau,
St. Matthias Group, in June 1944
-
- Only at the end of the year did
elements of the 369th Infantry come into contact with the enemy. At Wardo
on Biak, a small detachment of the 369th consisting of 15 men and one officer
(later supplemented by 27 more men and another officer), sent to protect
radar installations, found the enemy active. Between 6 November and 16 December,
the detachment killed 38 and captured one Japanese. At the end of the year,
on 31 December, a similar detachment at Wari killed eight to ten Japanese
in a fire fight. By the time the 369th left Biak on 31 March 1945 ,68
74 Japanese had been killed and 34 captured, with no casualties to the 368th.
-
- This, in general, was typical of
the activities of the elements of the 93d Division, whether at Munda, Biak,
Emirau, Hollandia, or Finschhafen. Some men were placed on patrol, guard,
and tactical duties; some continued training; the
- [524]
- remainder were on dock, warehouse,
or other service details. The 25th Infantry, for example, arrived at Finschhafen
from the Green Islands on 30 October 1944. It later became responsible for
the defense of the Finschhafen base, but this duty was a minor one in the
regiment's work there. Finschhafen at the time was one of the busiest ports
in the Southwest Pacific. Every available man in the 25th went to work in
its warehouses. Later the regiment took over the greater part of dock operations.
Some ninety stevedore crews were formed. Riflemen and machine gunners were
retrained as winch operators, signalmen, and checkers. For four months the
regiment worked at loading and unloading ships at Finschhafen. Often the
tonnage rates of the 25th's crews were better than those of the regularly
organized port companies at the base.69
-
- Occasionally a unit, like the 368th
Infantry's landing team in late January and early February 1945, had a specific
assignment calling for duties beyond these. This landing team established
a perimeter guard at Toem, in the Maffin Bay area, providing security for
troops evacuating supplies and disinterring bodies from the American cemetery
there preparatory to closing out installations. Patrols were active continuously.
The attached Battery C of the 584th Field Artillery harassed the enemy constantly,
firing on area targets. On several occasions the enemy infiltrated camp
areas and fire fights developed. No casualties were suffered by the landing
team.
-
- When all bodies were removed from
the cemetery, and all bridges and
all structures not portable destroyed, the landing team of the 368th moved
on to Wakde four miles away. From Wakde patrols to the Toem mainland continued
to operate for months. Company K, 368th, remained at Wakde until 2 October
1945, its patrols on occasion engaging in fire fights with enemy stragglers
remaining in the Toem area.
-
- Not until the bulk of the division
elements still remained at Biak, Wakde, Noemfoor, Middleburg, and Sansapor
arrived on Morotai, closing there on 12 April 1945, did the pattern of activity
change.
-
- An estimated five to six hundred
Japanese remained on Morotai; on the nearby large island of Halmahera there
were 40,000 more. The 93d Division relieved elements of the 31st Division
on Morotai on 13 April, assuming responsibility for the defense and operation
of all Eighth Army installations on the island. It had air support from
the Both Wing, Royal Australian Air Force, and sea support from Naval Task
Unit 701.2 (PT) . Combat troops of the division were instructed to kill
or capture the remaining Japanese.70
-
- Operations, especially on the west
coast of Morotai, were intensive, with combat patrols covering ever widening
areas. As a result, the remaining enemy troops, in groups of fifty or less,
were unable to concentrate. The Japanese force, under the command of Col.
Kisou Ouchi of the 211th Infantry Regiment, was composed chiefly of remnants
of the 2d Diversionary Unit, 36th Division Sea Transport Unit, 220th Infantry
Regi-
- [525]
- ment, 211th Infantry Regiment,
one company of the 212th Infantry Regiment, 20th Expeditionary Force, and
the 18th Shipping Engineers. Most of these troops, with instructions
to carry out raids on Eighth Army installations, were located along the
west coast of the island, especially in the Tilai, Wajaboeia, Tijoe, Libano,
and Sopi areas. The Japanese kept close to the better native gardens in
the area. Supply barges had formerly come to Morotai from Halmahera, landing
near the mouth of the Tijoe River, but PT squadrons now prevented bulk resupply
of the enemy troops remaining on Morotai. Only once during the period of
the 93d's occupancy were barges successful in reaching land. On 13 May,
PT boats sank two of four barges but two others escaped and landed north
of the Tijoe. One, on the way back to Halmahera, was intercepted and sunk;
the other, beached and camouflaged, was located by 25th Infantry patrols
and destroyed. There was neither organized resistance nor offensive action
on the part of the enemy; the job of 93d Division patrols was to prevent
consolidation of the remaining Japanese forces, who might yet engage in'
harassing action against the Allied base on Morotai, and to search out and
capture or kill the remaining Japanese on the island.
-
- On 15 April the first of the 93d's
patrols, one from the 369th Infantry, killed four Japanese. On 21 April,
the first prisoner was taken, also by the 369th. Beginning in May, landing
parties went to the western and northern sectors of the island, eventually
covering the entire coast line.
-
- The disposition and number of the
enemy arriving on the barge discovered in May was of the greatest interest
to the 93d Division, for one of its missions was to prevent the resupply
and reinforcement of the Japanese left on Morotai. On 24 May one group was
located by a small patrol from Company F, 368th Infantry, led by Lt. Richard
L. Crawford. The patrol trailed a pair of footprints up a stream bed from
Hapo to a point two miles inland. There the trail left the stream bed and
all but disappeared in the rough terrain on the north side. On a small outcropping
overlooking their approach, the patrol sighted seven Japanese in clean uniforms,
well equipped with pistols, but with only one rifle. One, who later proved
to be a captain leading the party, stood gazing in a mirror, shaping his
beard with what the patrol described as "obvious admiration."
At very close range, the patrol opened fire, killing six of the seven Japanese.
The seventh man, wounded, escaped. These seven, members of a Keinpoi party
the dual-functioning, military police and intelligence personnel plus seven
or eight well-equipped Japanese seen by the 3d Battalion, 25th Infantry,
on the coast north of Libano on 13 May accounted for a total of fourteen
or fifteen Japanese who had presumably arrived on the barge from Halmahera.71
-
- Psychological warfare worked well
for the 93d in smoking out the hungrier elements of the remaining enemy.
Many of the captured prisoners carried propaganda leaflets, or said that
they had heard the division's propaganda broadcasts. One prisoner, while
listening to a broadcast amplified from a beach, started down to surrender.
He related
- [526]
- later that he was "very disgusted"
with the team for leaving the beach before he arrived. He then had to go
hungry two more days before he was picked up by one of the division's patrols.
72
-
- A main effort of the 93d Division's
patrols during the period on Morotai was to capture Colonel Ouchi alive.
Ouchi, described as an egotistic commander, disliked by his men because
of a tendency to allocate to himself more than a fair share of available
food and supplies, successfully eluded the division's patrols for weeks,
though his command post was located several times. The division was so intent
on seeking him out for capture that the 93d's motto on Morotai became "Gherchez
Ouchi." 73
-
- A 25th Infantry patrol on 11 July
found traces of Ouchi in the Tijoe River area. On the last day of July,
a twelve man patrol set out to capture him. After moving about 100 yards
in from the coast in the Tijoe area, the patrol came upon two Japanese,
one of whom they wounded and captured. The wounded prisoner informed the
patrol that a camp of ten Japanese was not far away. After administering
first aid to the wounded man, the patrol located a three but camp, spotted
six Japanese, and killed one. The other five, including some who were wounded,
escaped. The patrol bivouacked near the Japanese camp. The three huts were
well supplied with rice, ammunition, blankets, and grenades. The patrol
decided that it was close upon Colonel Ouchi. On 2 August it scouted the
surrounding area without finding the enemy until, in the late afternoon,
the sound of chopping led the
patrol to a clearing with four huts in which several Japanese were sleeping.
Five others, each carrying supplies, were approaching the camp. After dropping
their supplies, they went to the river to bathe. The patrol surrounded them
and ordered them to surrender, but they began to scatter in all directions.
-
- Of the Japanese in the area, seven
were killed, two escaped naked into the jungle, and one was taken prisoner.
The prisoner turned out to be Colonel Ouchi. As the patrol started for the
beach, one of the mortally wounded Japanese made a lunge for the sergeant
holding Ouchi. The sergeant, "handling his carbine expertly with one
hand and shooting from the hip," hit the Japanese in the temple. He
fell dead at the sergeant's feet.74
Colonel Ouchi was one of the highest ranking Japanese officers captured
before the surrender of Japan.75
-
- Morotai, during the period of the
93d's occupation, was the scene of considerable activity pertinent to the
extension of the war in the Pacific. During the earlier weeks on the island,
troops of the division, especially the 25th Infantry, then in reserve, were
supplying all available men for round-the-clock port duties. The port of
Morotai was then handling most of the troops and supplies used in the Australian
invasion of Borneo. Working alongside Australian dock
- [527]
- workers, the troops of the 93d played
large part in getting these operations under way. From 10 April to 10 July
the division discharged and out-loaded 311,552 tons of supplies and equipment,
moved thousands of Allied troops from transports to staging areas and back
to embarkation points, and improved harbor facilities, roads, and camp sites.76
-
- In the last days of the war, the
93d had charge of more than 1,500 "patients" and crew from the
Japanese
- hospital ship Tachibana Maru.
This ship, intercepted by two destroyers, the USS Conner and USS
Charette, was brought into Morotai as a prize on 6 August. The patients
aboard this hospital ship had been removed from a Japanese general hospital
in New Guinea. Most of them were very nearly and some completely recovered
from beriberi, malaria, and other diseases. The American boarding party
found mortar shells packed in boxes marked with red crosses and labeled
medical supplies. Patients were sleeping in the holds the ship carried twice
its normal seven hundred on rifles, machine guns, ammunition, and hand grenades
hidden under bunks. At Morotai, the patients were removed for a thorough
search of the ship, a procedure which would have been impossible, especially
in the light of the later discovery of the extent of arms and ammunition
available aboard the ship, had not Army troops been available to take charge
of and guard the prisoners. Working parties unloading the ship found approximately
thirty tons of assorted ammunition, including hand grenades, rifle, howitzer,
and machine gun ammunition,
four hundred rifles and carbines, fifteen light machine guns, forty-five
knee mortars, and four 8cm. field howitzers.77
-
- When hostilities ceased on 15 August
1945, the 93d Division was made responsible for the surrender of all Japanese
troops in the Moluccas. Through the local Armed Forces radio station, WVTL,
the Japanese on Halmahera were given instructions to meet with the division
staff. After a preliminary meeting on a PT boat off the shores of Halmahera,
the commander of the Japanese forces and his staff were brought over to
Morotai to sign the instrument of surrender for the 40,000 Japanese troops
on Halmahera. Approximately 660 stragglers were collected on Morotai itself.78
Formal surrender of the Japanese in the Moluccas was made to the Australians
after 2 September, with the 93d Division assisting.
-
- In October the 93d Division, with
the exception of the 368th Regimental Combat Team, which had already moved,
proceeded to the Agusan Del Monte Area on Mindanao where it relieved the
31st Division of its missions there. The 93d controlled supply points at
Agusan and Davao, assumed command of all troops attached to the 31st Division
effective 20 October, and reassumed command of the 368th and its attached
troops at Zamboanga on Mindanao and on Jolo, Sanga Sanga, and Palawan. The
93d, under the discharge and transfer program effective after the close
of the war, was responsible for the readjustment of
- [528]
- all troops in its area. It was responsible
for the defense and security of Mindanao, the collecting, guarding, and
evacuating of Japanese prisoners of war, and the supervision of the training
and supply of all Philippine Army units within the command, including the
6th Philippine Infantry Division. On 15 November it acquired all of the
Southern Islands Area Command's missions; the Mindanao-Sulu-Morotai area
thereupon became the 93d Division Area Command.79
Thereafter the 93d supplied the 6th Philippine Infantry Division,
rounded up remaining stragglers, furnished leaflets to be dropped on areas
suspected of harboring Japanese troops, furnished transportation for Philippine
Army patrols to distant areas, and operated prisoner collecting points throughout
Mindanao. As of 20 October 1945 the 93d Division had approximately 30,000
Japanese, including civilians, in its stockade. Processing and evacuating
the Japanese, processing American troops for return home or transfer, classifying,
storing, and evacuating surplus equipment, and operating supply points were
the division's last missions.
-
-
- Whether or not the 93d Division
eventually moved to the asset side depended largely upon the viewer and
his interpretation of the value of doing unglamorous but necessary jobs
well. The diarist of the division's headquarters company prefaced one of
his last installments with the apology that he realized that an account
"filled with fictional adventures, hardships, and tragedies of war
would make a more powerful story"
but his unit had no such heroic deeds to its credit. He would confine himself
to "only actualities nothing extraordinary, just the usual activities
of a rear echelon unit" whose members were with it not by choice but
by assignment. Since there was no occasion to "perform the noble, heroic
and spectacular," he continued, "we have contented ourselves with
doing the various tasks assigned us in the shortest period of time possible
and better than anyone else." His companions had seen no dead Japanese,
few live ones, had had no bombings, and "only a limited few had had
actual combat experience."80
A staff officer, writing from the Moluccas, characterized the division's
progress with, "And so this is just another rear area, now. Yep, 93d
stuff-drag-ass along behind."81
-
- At the end of the war, the 93d Division
had certainly not moved to the asset side as a combat division. Walter White,
while serving as a war correspondent in the Pacific,82
had urged the White House and the War Department at home and General MacArthur
in the Pacific to prepare it for a combat role. He got new denials that
any other was intended for it.
-
- White, after ten weeks in the Pacific,
- [529]
- dispatched to the President, with
copies to Under Secretary Patterson and Assistant Secretary McCloy, a detailed
account of the career and state of morale in the gird. He later repeated
the substance of his findings in an interview with General MacArthur. White
reported that the 93d was the victim of rumor and malicious slander, all
reinforced by its role as a rear echelon unit engaged primarily in labor
duties. Its assignment, he observed, was viewed across the Pacific as punishment
for a failure on Bougainville. To the contrary, White concluded after discussions
with division and other officers, the 93d had performed its limited combat
duties creditably and the rumors about it were false. Nevertheless, the
division had been the victim of improper management, corrected in part by
"the outstanding and most beneficial event in the history of the 93d
Division," the appointment of Maj. Gen. Harry H. Johnson as commander
in August 1944. General Johnson was building discipline and morale, but
he occupied an uneviable position. He could not complete his job if the
93d followed his old division, the 2d Cavalry, into oblivion as "a
service division." White recommended that the 93d be assembled, brought
to strength, relieved of fatigue and service duties except those normal
to a combat division, and trained for amphibious warfare; that it be relieved
of officers who were incompetent or who disliked service with Negroes; and
that it be used in combat as the only means of answering the reports about
it and official policy current in the Pacific.83
-
- General MacArthur, queried by the
War Department in anticipation of
a White House request for comment, replied to the War Department's brief
of the White report. As requested by the War Department, he quoted General
Griswold of XIV Corps as authority that on Bougainville the artillery did
good work, the engineers fair, the infantry poor; that in training, individuals
were proficient in handling and maintaining their weapons; that vehicle
maintenance was of a high order, that the general level of leadership was
poor despite a number of officers of "high type and adequate qualifications,"
and that morale was poor. The Commanding General, XIV Corps, added that
under its new commander the division had taken a "new lease of life"
and that under him it would improve. General MacArthur's inspectors, who,
at General Johnson's request, had investigated charges of discrimination
within the 93d, had reported that these charges were "without foundation
in fact." Other divisions in the Southwest Pacific were all superior
to the 93d "except in the matter of motor maintenance. In this item
our inspection teams have shown it to be without peer among the units inspected."
84
-
- White, having discussed the 93d
with General MacArthur at his headquarters at San Miguel on 1 March 1945,
now forwarded a supplementary memorandum to the President on 8 March, stating
that General MacArthur had denied that the division would be used exclusively
for labor duties and that he had affirmed that it would be used in combat
"providing circumstances warranted." The general had said further
that the
- [530]
- rumors about the division on Bougainville
were "false and ridiculous," that he knew "from experience
with the 25th Infantry and the Filipino Army he commanded that race and
color have nothing whatever to do with fighting ability," that lack
of ships had prevented moving the 93d and other divisions to forward areas,
that the 93d would be moved from New Guinea to Morotai, and that his inspectors'
reports on the division had not been too favorable. When asked for details,
General MacArthur told White that "it was chiefly that the men of the
93d wanted to go home. He said, laughing, that that is true and natural
of all divisions overseas, regardless of race." 85
-
- On his return to Hollandia, White
found the 93d Division planning to move from New Guinea. Steps were being
taken to improve it internally. White now wrote to General MacArthur: "You
certainly acted promptly after our talk of March I . . . ," adding,
"Your action in bringing the Division together in one island for the
first time since the gird left the States will undoubtedly have immediate
effect in improvement of efficiency and a sense of unity." He made
new recommendations for the readying of the division, urging that its artillery
be reequipped with its own or other guns and that its officer personnel
be carefully sorted to provide better leadership both from among white and
Negro officers. "It is
my hope," he concluded, "that neither you nor the War Department
will think these recommendations by a layman presumptuous. Be assured that
they are made solely with the desire that the zeal of the overwhelming majority
of the officers and enlisted personnel of the gird to contribute to the
speediest winning of complete victory may be utilized to the fullest degree."
86
-
- Aside from the movement of the 93d
Division to Morotai, which White attributed to his interview with General
MacArthur, the only positive action taken on his report was on his statement
that "One practice which has been exceedingly destructive of morale,
and which should be discontinued, is the insistent and frequent querying
of officers of the gird Division, either by questionnaires or personal interviews,
as to whether or not the 93d Division can or will fight if given an opportunity."
87
As a result, after a perusal of questions sent to the 93d shortly before
by Army Ground Forces,88
all questioning of troop units "concerning or bearing upon morale of,
or combat relations between, racial groups" was halted, except by special
permission of the Secretary of War.89
This ruling seriously hampered Army researches into soldier attitudes for
the remainder of the war.
-
- Despite qualms about their future
ca-
- [531]
- reers as combat units, elements
of the 93d Division built a reputation for discipline, cooperation,
esprit de corps, and excellence in their assigned duties matched by
few other units in the Pacific and contrasting strongly with their training
careers. To troops of the 93d one transport commander paid "his respects"
after an inter-island voyage with these words:
-
- During my two years experience as
a Transport Commander, I have never witnessed a unit which functioned so
smoothly and efficiently nor exhibited such loyalty and esprit de corps
as your troops have demonstrated.
-
- It was indeed a pleasure to have
been associated with you, your officers and men aboard and I am sure the
trip will long be remembered by myself and my complement of enlisted men.90
-
- Their excellent and uncomplaining
work in mud and rain at POL dumps; the courteous and cooperative efficiency
of their noncommissioned officers; their willingness to accept responsibility
and act upon it ("an outstanding characteristic" of an entire
company, one commenting officer noted); and their cooperation with men of
other units, both on official duties and on joint enterprises, were frequently
cited.91
They were not only commended for leaving areas well policed but at times
for leaving them "better policed than were areas of any other unit
leaving this Base." 92
At Finschhafen and Hollandia they were responsible for clearing up and distributing
promptly an unprecedented volume of more than 210,000 bags of Christmas
mail arriving in November and December 1944 .93
Not only their esprit and discipline in carrying out unusual and unexpected
tasks were favorably commented upon. Headquarters often added comments like:
"Whereas some combat units under similar instructions in the past have
been content to furnish work details without interest in the job or the
working conditions of their own men, the units of the 93d Division have
not only furnished effective supervision for each job assigned but the higher
echelons of command have maintained their control and influence by frequent
inspections." 94
The results obtained, the Commanding General, Intermediate Base Section,
said, "are gratifying to the Base Commanders now seriously handicapped
by scarcity of labor, equipment and adequate supervision." 95
-
- Elements of the division given those
tasks were both large and small; they were supervised by sergeants and junior
and field grade officers alike. A team of five men from the 93d Signal Company,
for example, under the sole direction of a sergeant, installed and operated
for five weeks a communications system on Pie Beach, Hollandia, with a minimum
of equipment under adverse con
- [532]
- ditions.96
Officers and men sent to a school at Oro Bay were adjudged "outstanding
in several respects. They displayed keen interest in the various subjects
and worked hard in absorbing the material and information that was given
them. The grades received by them on examinations were exceptionally high.
Their conduct and bearing, while at this school, was excellent and their
cooperation during and after classes was instrumental in making this particular
class an outstanding one."97
The GHQ coordinator for Morotai, noting the many unsolicited expressions
from the Australian command regarding the services given them by American
forces in mounting the invasion of Borneo, declared to the Chief of Staff,
Eighth Army, that "Credit for that frame of mind is due almost entirely
to the very fine work done by the 93d Division. This division has not failed
in one single instance to meet requirements which often placed a very heavy
strain on all facilities here. This has been done in a spirit of determination
and pride in accomplishment which has left a very fine impression with all
agencies involved in these operations."98
At least one unit, in addition to the field artillery for Bougainville,
got official recognition of an unspectacular but essential job in cleaning
out the enemy on Mindanao and Palawan.99
-
- How much of this praise was due
to the etiquette of command
at the close of a successful campaign, the men of the 93d Division could
not know. But they did know that no similar words speeded their way from
Bougainville and they did know that they had gained a reputation for work,
discipline, and maintenance in the Pacific. They had the satisfaction of
knowing that in this way, if in no other, they had been an "asset"
to the Pacific war.
-
- The 24th Infantry, on the other
hand, had greater satisfaction in an unusual acknowledgment of the value
of garrison forces that came its way in the spring of 1945. The 24th, after
its 1st Battalion's brief encounter with the enemy on Bougainville, returned
to routine labor and guard duties for the South Pacific Base Command and
for the Guadalcanal Island Command. In December 1944 it moved to Saipan
and Tinian for garrison duty. These islands had been declared secure, but
their jungles and caves were still infested with Japanese. The 24th had
the task of clearing the islands of all Japanese who had not surrendered.
A survey group from The Inspector General's Office, under Maj. Gen. Philip
E. Brown and Brig. Gen. Elliot D. Cooke, arrived in April 1945, found the
24th still cleaning out the enemy, and reported their conduct and accomplishments
to be of "such a meritorious nature" that The Inspector General
brought the unit's performance to the attention of the Deputy Chief of Staff,
despite the fact that "occasion rarely arises where it is appropriate
for inspectors general to single out and comment upon any one unit during
an overall inspection or survey."100
- [533]
- The 24th Infantry, the survey group
reported, had killed or captured an impressive number of the enemy, "and
even today are engaged in continuous patrolling and jungle fighting against
those Japanese still hiding on the island." Though the regiment as
a whole had not engaged in actual combat before coming to Saipan:
-
- It, nevertheless, conducted itself
in a superior manner. Even at this late date, scarcely a day passes that
members of this Regiment do not capture or kill some of the enemy and, in
so doing, suffer occasional casualties themselves, yet, despite all that
has been accomplished by the 24th Infantry Regiment, members of this Regiment
considered that they were not eligible for the Combat Infantryman's Badge,
nor that provision had been made for them to be awarded a battle clasp on
the theater ribbon for the combat in which they have been engaged since
assuming their task of eliminating the remaining Japanese resistance on
Saipan. Nevertheless, even after three years service overseas the morale
of this Regiment is high and its discipline is well worthy of emulation
and praise, as is the exemplary manner of performance in all duties to which
it has been assigned.101
- [534]
- Much of its record was attributed
by the inspectors to the regimental commander, Col. Julian G. Hearne, Jr.,
who had been with the regiment for four years, advancing from battalion
to regimental commander, and to "a dozen or more noncommissioned officers
who have been with the Regiment since before the war and who, by example
and strict adherence to traditions and customs of the Regiment and the service,
have demonstrated what proper leadership can accomplish under the most trying
conditions in the field." 102
-
- When the survey group informed the
Commanding General, Pacific Ocean Areas, of the performance of the 24th,
he undertook to inform the 24th that its members were eligible for both
the Combat Infantryman's Badge and a battle star
for their theater service ribbon. The Inspector General asked that the group's
report be forwarded to the Operations Division for consideration in the
future employment of Negro troops in the Pacific.103
When informed of the matter, Under Secretary Patterson, citing the report,
gave it to the press at his 31 May press conference.
-
- The 24th left Saipan and Tinian
in July 1945 and proceeded to the Kerama Islands, west of Okinawa in the
Ryukyus, to continue mopping up remnants of Japanese forces there. Shortly
after their arrival in early August, the Japanese capitulated. On 22 August,
Colonel Hearne, with representative officers and enlisted men, accepted
on Aka Island the first formal surrender of a Japanese Army garrison.
- [535]