Sidelights on Negro Soldiers

by Charles H. Williams

With all of their good service, however, the stevedore organizations were not popular with the Negro soldiers. One reason for this was the lack of opportunity in them for promotion. One incident will illustrate the situation. A colonel who was organizing one of these regiments out of recently drafted men, in an attempt to stir up enthusiasm, said, “Men, we are going overseas in two weeks. We are going to see the country and have some fun. You’ll probably never hear a gun fired.” There was no applause, and the colonel seemed not to realize that the lack of it was due to the fact that the men not only wanted to hear guns fired but wanted to fire some themselves. Continuing, he said, “This is the first opportunity Negroes ever had to serve as engineers. It is all an experiment. It’s up to you men to make good.” After concluding his remarks he asked if there were any questions. “Sir, Colonel, what about promotions?” asked one man. This turn rather surprised the officer, but he recovered and said, “The officers will be white.” A moment later he added, “The non-commissioned officers will also be white.” Then he paused, and the soldier repeated the question. The colonel then said, “There will be twenty-five first class privates, who will carry rifles, and you know they get three dollars a month more pay. You know cooks are needed. A lot of men will want that job, but it takes a —— good man to be a cook.” The silence which greeted this remark indicated great disappointment on the part of the men. Seeing this, the colonel tried to hold out some hope by saying that some non-commissioned officers would be made in France when new organizations were formed. As a matter of fact, as the war progressed, many appointments as non-commissioned officers were made, the commanders of Negro soldiers ultimately realizing that they as well as other soldiers were prompted to do better work when there were even remote possibilities of securing promotions.

The kind of treatment accorded the men was due almost entirely to the attitude of the officers who immediately commanded them. In some organizations commanding officers were more like foremen and overseers over railroad gangs and plantation workers than like officers in command of American soldiers. Very frequently little interest was taken in the personal appearance of the men, and military law was practically disregarded in dealing with them. One commander did not hesitate to say that if the men did not move as he thought they should, he helped them with his foot, and the soldiers were placed in the guardhouse on the most trivial pretense. “The spirit of St. Nazaire,” said one officer, “is the spirit of the South,” and in the early days of this great camp there were constant clashes caused by racial feeling and by drinking. There were several colored French women at this base. White officers and soldiers were frequently seen with them, but if a Negro was seen with a white French woman a good deal was likely to be said, and trouble was generally started by the marines. Discriminatory orders were often issued, and stevedores experienced difficulties in visiting cafés and other public places. Sometimes they were also forbidden to enter French homes or to be seen in company with French civilians. With the military police there was special trouble, as the men received the impression that they made a special effort to use their authority to abuse Negro soldiers. Sometimes they conducted an “era of ruthlessness,” and many of the fights and “near riots” were due to such efforts. In the railway terminal in one cantonment city, when large numbers of soldiers were returning to camp, every Negro was required to show his pass, but the passes of the white men were not required. This sort of thing made for friction, as did also the manner in which the soldiers were often approached by the M. P.’s.

On the other hand, the Negro soldiers themselves were not without faults. Some of their difficulties were due to their own ignorance and to customs that they brought into the army from civil life. On plantations and public works some had been used to “ducking the boss” and slipping away, and attempts to continue this practice in the army sometimes resulted in their being placed in the guardhouse.

In such a situation it is pleasant to recall that two junior officers in one organization were always working in the interest of the men and heartily disapproved of the treatment they received. In their camp discriminatory orders were not issued. While moreover some of the roughest treatment given the stevedores was by Southern officers, it is also true that some of the best and fairest officers commanding Negro troops were Southern men. Such officers saw that their men were well equipped, if it was possible to equip them, and provided for their recreation by organizing athletic teams and by giving full co-operation to the “Y” in its program. The 313th Labor Battalion was commanded by such an officer in France and its fine record was largely due to his impartial attitude. For the 542nd Engineers, one of whose companies worked on the roads in the Remaucourt region in France, there was built a little auditorium. This was wired by one of the officers, and the scenery for the shows was painted by one of the men. There were pictures every night and people from the village near by were free to attend. One of the men, Frank Johnson, won the middleweight championship of the S. O. S. and his only defeat was at the hands of the French champion. That the stevedores appreciated their commanders in such organizations was shown by the fact that when they sailed for America they often presented to them gifts costing hundreds of francs.

The story of one camp will serve to illustrate both types of officers that commanded Negro troops. Camp Williams, located at Issurtille, was the second largest supply depot in France. During the last days of the war 12,000 Negro soldiers, mainly engineers and stevedores, were stationed there. They built warehouses and railroads and supplied the combat troops with wood, food, clothing, medicine and shells and ammunition of all kinds. The camp adjutant said that they did their work without grumbling. The non-commissioned officers were both white and colored, mainly white. Very often they were ignorant men. Illiterate Negro men were often selected in preference to educated men and sometimes were made to serve as “stool pigeons.” For nine months at this camp there was in force a special order bearing date July 3, 1918, which said: “All colored enlisted men of this command are hereby confined to the limits of the Camp and Depot until further advised.” The enforcing of this order was a great cause of trouble. When white troops were permitted to visit not only Issurtille but all the surrounding towns, many of the colored men broke the rules and left the camp without passes; this brought them into conflict with the M. P.’s, and ended by their being placed in the guardhouse. On arresting the men the M. P.’s frequently cursed them and on the slightest provocation threatened to use revolvers. Conditions finally made necessary a change in the camp commander. Colonel S. V. Ham, a regular army officer who had been wounded twice at the front, assumed command. He found a filthy camp with practically no morale. Segregation was everywhere and prejudice was intense. At once he issued the following order: “The restrictions against visiting towns in this district by colored troops are hereby removed until further notice. It is the desire of the Commanding Officer to place the colored troops on the same status as the white troops.” This was dated March 26, 1919. Colonel Ham also issued an order forbidding the use of the word “nigger” in the camp. All officers attended officers’ meetings when they were held; previously colored officers never went, for they did not know when the meetings were to be held. Lectures were given on the treatment of the soldiers; military discipline was enforced in the case of both officers and men; and the Colonel himself pulled down some of the discriminatory signs. The result was that within three weeks the number of men in the guardhouse was reduced from three hundred to fifty; sometimes several days would pass without a man’s being placed there. Complaints were reduced 60 per cent within the first week. Interesting also is the fact that the rate of venereal disease in the camp was also lowered. The general attitude of Colonel Ham changed the spirit of both officers and men, and before long the feeling of racial antagonism gave way to one of comradeship.

PIONEER INFANTRY ORGANIZATIONS

There were fourteen other organizations in France, known as Pioneer Infantry Regiments, which did mainly stevedore work. These were composed largely of men who were drafted during the summer of 1918 and who were given from one to three months of intensive military training in American camps and then sent overseas. The commissioned officers were white, and the enlisted personnel colored. In France a small number of colored dental officers, chaplains, and band leaders were assigned in some of the regiments. It appears that the idea of the War Department in forming these organizations was to have men trained to fight, if needed, and also to have sufficient men to do the work necessary for the maintenance of a big army.

Most of the regiments reached France during the months of September and October, 1918, and consequently did no actual fighting. They worked in the S. O. S. and in the advanced section, sometimes in the back area of shell fire, and in a few instances near the front lines. Their work consisted of road building, assistance at the base ports, salvaging the battlefields, demunition and demolition work, and the building of ammunition dumps with material moved from the battlefields to the roads and then to central stations. The removing of ammunition after the Château-Thierry drive was so satisfactorily done that Lt. Col. Ord, chief ammunition officer of the S. O. S., wrote a letter in which he said: “These two depots were transformed from a heterogeneous pile to this remarkable condition in seven days, and I desire to compliment the officers and twenty-six men who went from these headquarters as well as the 801st Pioneer Infantry for this remarkable achievement.”

Before the Armistice several regiments worked behind the front lines in the Argonne Forest and at St. Mihiel, where they built narrow- and wide-gauge railroads and macadam roads for the movement of light and heavy artillery and supplies. It was also the task of some to bury the dead, working under shell fire. Sometimes bombs dropped among them, killing and wounding them; but because of their late arrival in France they did not work long in such danger. After the Armistice some did guard duty, looking after the German prisoners. Companies of the 806th and 811th Pioneer Infantry regiments did a part of the concrete and grading work for the Pershing Stadium, the $100,000 structure erected by the Y. M. C. A. for the inter-allied games held in July, 1919.

While the Pioneer Infantry regiments and the stevedores did the same kind of work for the most part, the former received the better treatment, as their officers generally insisted on a square deal for their men. In one battalion the major, an Alabamian, discouraged segregation by removing all objectionable signs, and he made no effort to prevent his men from associating with respectable French people. The commander of the 815th Pioneer Infantry regiment gave wholesome lectures to his men as a means of education and encouragement. These organizations also, with few exceptions, were liberal in granting leaves and in issuing week-end passes, and some of the men were sent to the universities in France when the A. E. F. conducted its great educational program.