On Dec. 8, 1941, in reaction to the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, thousands rushed to enlist, but some Black volunteers were turned away for lack of segregated facilities. When John Hope Franklin, a Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard Ph.D., and college professor, volunteered, a Navy recruiter told him he could only serve as a messman, cook, officer’s steward, or laborer. A disgusted Franklin walked away. Any African American who attempted to enlist in the Marines would have been mocked because they didn’t accept Blacks.
After World War I, African Americans were subjected to some of America’s worst anti-Black riots in multiple cities. At that time, the fight for equality and civil rights reached its nadir as KKK membership topped 3 million. However, despite being accorded second-class treatment, receiving limited opportunities for advancement, and being judged unfairly during courts martial, African Americans still willingly put themselves in danger. Some may wonder why.
WW II-era African Americans realized that when they entered the military, they weren’t the beneficiaries of all the rights and opportunities every other American automatically received. Nevertheless, they were determined to prove they were entitled to receive those benefits or pave the way for their descendants to receive them because America was their home as much as anyone’s. Two plaintiffs in the historic 1954 Brown decision were Black WW II veterans.
Jimmy Stewart narrated an Army Air Forces film to recruit desperately needed pilots, bombardiers, and navigators, but the Army still severely limited the number of Black men who could be trained for these positions. Once the initial group of Tuskegee Airmen was trained, they waited nearly a year before being deployed. Initially, they weren’t even permitted to fly alongside white pilots. By war’s end, the Red Tails had more than proven themselves — but the refusal to accept illegal segregation at an officers’ club kept some fully trained officers of a Black bomber group from being sent overseas.
Four Liberty Ships were named for Black merchant seamen, three of whom were cooks, who demonstrated outstanding bravery after their ships were torpedoed. After Dorie Miller received the Navy Cross for his heroism at Pearl Harbor, the Treasury Department used him in war bond drives. Despite obvious familiarity with an anti-aircraft gun, when Miller returned to duty, it was in his ship’s galley.
In 1944, 16 African Americans were permitted to train as Navy officers. They achieved the Navy’s highest class average exam grade, despite being given eight, rather than the standard 12, weeks of training white candidates received. The Navy suspected cheating and forced them to retake the test, which they handily passed. Their record high final exam average still stands. Nevertheless, racism only allowed 13 to be commissioned; no reason was given to the three not selected. Eventually, 187,000 Black sailors served during the war, but only 64 as officers.
In 1942, African Americans were allowed to join the Marines after a 144-year ban. Two years later, the Montford Point Marines were deployed overseas for essential combat-support roles. After the Battle of Saipan, Lt. Gen. Alexander Vandergrift, commandant of the Marine Corps, declared: “The Negro Marines are no longer on trial. They are Marines, period.”
During fall 1944, the mostly Black Red Ball Express drivers supplied troops with the essentials of war: food, fuel, and ammunition. Their efforts undoubtedly shortened the war in Europe, which was taking about 300 lives a day.
The 76st Tank Battalion, initially part of Patton’s Third Army, never took a day off in six months of fighting across France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, and Austria. Later, they were attached to two other armies and were highly effective during the Battle of the Bulge.
After the tremendous losses suffered during the early days of the Battle of the Bulge, President Eisenhower permitted 2,500 Black cooks, drivers, and engineers to volunteer for combat. Racism prevented deserving African Americans from receiving Congressional Medals of Honor immediately after the war. After a 1997 re-examination of WW II military records, two of the seven Black soldiers who were finally awarded our nation’s highest military award came from the ranks of those 2,500 volunteers.
African American engineers composed a healthy percentage of the work crews, who toiled under very trying conditions on two of WW II’s largest construction projects, the Alaska Highway and the Ledo Road.
December 7 will always be commemorated as a sad day in American history, but in a bit of irony, it opened opportunities for African Americans. They embodied the message of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1919 editorial: “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America or know the reason why.”
Paul L. Newman is an amateur historian specializing in African American history of the first half of the 20th century. He has created a mini-series docudrama that highlights the events in this essay.
My Dad, John Rennel Clyne, was in the first group of African American sailors who were tested and became radio operators. These sailors took the surrender of the Japanese while they served aboard the Navy command and communications ship the USS CATOCTIN. Even in his 80s, my Dad remembered Morse code.