The Negro Service of Supply men acquired a great reputation in the various activities to which they were assigned, especially for efficiency and celerity in unloading ships and handling the vast cargoes of materials and supplies of every sort at the base ports. They were a marvel to the French and astonished not a few of the officers of our own army. They sang and joked at their work. The military authorities had bands to entertain them and stimulate them to greater efforts when some particularly urgent task was to be done. Contests and friendly rivalries were also introduced to speed up the work.
The contests were grouped under the general heading of "A Race to Berlin" and were conducted principally among the stevedores. Prizes, decorations and banners were offered as an incentive to effort in the contests. The name, however, was more productive of results than anything else. The men felt that it really was a race to Berlin and that they were the runners up of the boys at the front.
Ceremonies accompanying the awards were quite elaborate and impressive. The victors were feasted and serenaded. Many a stevedore is wearing a medal won in one of these conquests of which he is as proud, and justly so, as though it were a Croix de Guerre or a Distinguished Service Cross. Many a unit is as proud of its banner as though it were won in battle.
Thousands of Service of Supply men remained with the American Army of Occupation after the war; that is, they occupied the same relative position as during hostilities—behind the lines. The Army of Occupation required food and supplies, and the duty of getting them into Germany devolved largely upon the American Negro.
Large numbers of them were stationed at Toul, Verdun, Epernay, St. Mihiel, Fismes and the Argonne, where millions of dollars worth of stores of all kinds were salvaged and guarded by them. So many were left behind and so important was their work, that the Negro Y.M.C.A. sent fifteen additional canteen workers to France weeks after the signing of the armistice, as the stay of the Service of Supply men was to be indefinitely prolonged.
The Rev. D.L. Ferguson, of Louisville, Ky., who for more than a year was stationed at St. Nazaire as a Y.M.C.A. worker, and became a great favorite with the men, says that during the war they took great pride in their companies, their camps, and all that belonged to the army; that because their work was always emphasized by the officers as being essential to the boys in the trenches, the term "stevedore" became one of dignity as representing part of a great American Army.
How splendidly the stevedores and others measured up to military standards and the great affection with which their officers regarded them, Rev. Dr. Ferguson makes apparent by quoting Colonel C.E. Goodwin, who for over a year was in charge of the largest camp of Negro Service of Supply men in France. In a letter to Rev. Dr. Ferguson he said:
"It is with many keen thrusts of sorrow that I am obliged to leave this camp and the men who have made up this organization. The men for whose uplift you are working have not only gained, but have truly earned a large place in my heart, and I will always cherish a loving memory of the men of this wonderful organization which I have had the honor and privilege to command."
Lester A. Walton, who went abroad as a correspondent for the New York Age, thus commented on the stevedores and others of the same service:
"I had the pleasure and honor to shake hands with hundreds of colored stevedores and engineers while in France. The majority were from the South, where there is a friendly, warm sun many months of the year. When I talked with them no sun of any kind had greeted them for weeks. It was the rainy season when a clear sky is a rarity and a downpour of rain is a daily occurrence. Yet, there was not one word of complaint heard, for they were 'doing their bit' as expected of real soldiers. Naturally they expressed a desire to get home soon, but this was a wish I often heard made by a doughboy.
"Members of the 'S.O.S.' will not came back to America wearing the Distinguished Service Cross or the Croix de Guerre for exceptional gallantry under fire, but the history of the great world war would be incomplete and lacking in authenticity if writers failed to tell of the bloodless deeds of heroism performed by non-combatant members of the American Expeditionary Forces."