761st, 332nd, 477th, 369th, African American Warriors
The 761st Tank Battalion was an independent armored unit of black soldiers who fought in the United States' Army in World War II. This highly decorated black unit was "independent" because federal law forbade blacks' integration into the main "white" army, due to political, entrenched, racial segregation. As ever, however, necessity trumps frivolity, when times get toughest.
https://www.google.com/…/761st-tank-battalion-black-panther…
They spearheaded Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army, having been specially chosen by him due to their accuracy firing their 105 mm guns, adaptability, maneuverability.
The fought for 186 CONSECUTIVE days under enemy fire, when other white tank units fought but one or two weeks in such campaigns.
In this respect, extreme longevity under enemy fire, the 761st tank unit evokes a comparison to the 369th Infantry a/k/a the "Harlem hellfighters" of World War I.
These earlier black men fought under French command, due to persistent American racism, and also served under fire about half a year, continuously, heroically. Yet, they were treated badly (often lynched) after returning back home from European battlefields. It was in these battle zones, that they not only had displayed valor but, had produced and perfected "jazz" music, an African American music form, under James Europe, bandleader, which swept away not only American racists' inhibitions, for the genre, over there; but jazz did the same thing to local natives, especially the females, which infuriated their white compatriots!
More famous than either of the above African Americans were the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group known as the "Tuskegee Air Men." Movies have been made of these magnificently adept airmen, who never lost a bomber to enemy fire in World War II , whose P51 "Redtails" were even known to have shot down new top-secret, Nazi jets with their deadly accuracy, along with Nazi Luftwaffe Nazi conventional fighter planes.
This persistence of racism against black Americans and the continued white commanders' "doubts" about their "fighting capabilities" is all the more curious, reprehensible, given irreplaceable black battle history of black men and women going back to before the Revolutionary War, when Blacks preserved the nation!
That segregation ended in 1948, in law, by President Harry Truman in the American armed forces, before it did in the rest of the country, in 1954, is doubtless, in part due to the black troops, soldiers, sailors, airman, mechanics, drivers, and women, who fought, served, died!
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
761ST INDEPENDENT TANK BATTALION AND FRIENDS
761st, 332nd, 477th, 369th, African American Warriors
The 761st Tank Battalion was an independent armored unit of black soldiers who fought in the United States' Army in World War II. This highly decorated black unit was "independent" because federal law forbade blacks' integration into the main "white" army, due to political, entrenched, racial segregation. As ever, however, necessity trumps frivolity, when times get toughest.
https://www.google.com/…/761st-tank-battalion-black-panther…
They spearheaded Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army, having been specially chosen by him due to their accuracy firing their 105 mm guns, adaptability, maneuverability.
The fought for 186 CONSECUTIVE days under enemy fire, when other white tank units fought but one or two weeks in such campaigns.
In this respect, extreme longevity under enemy fire, the 761st tank unit evokes a comparison to the 369th Infantry a/k/a the "Harlem hellfighters" of World War I.
These earlier black men fought under French command, due to persistent American racism, and also served under fire about half a year, continuously, heroically. Yet, they were treated badly (often lynched) after returning back home from European battlefields. It was in these battle zones, that they not only had displayed valor but, had produced and perfected "jazz" music, an African American music form, under James Europe, bandleader, which swept away not only American racists' inhibitions, for the genre, over there; but jazz did the same thing to local natives, especially the females, which infuriated their white compatriots!
More famous than either of the above African Americans were the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group known as the "Tuskegee Air Men." Movies have been made of these magnificently adept airmen, who never lost a bomber to enemy fire in World War II , whose P51 "Redtails" were even known to have shot down new top-secret, Nazi jets with their deadly accuracy, along with Nazi Luftwaffe Nazi conventional fighter planes.
This persistence of racism against black Americans and the continued white commanders' "doubts" about their "fighting capabilities" is all the more curious, reprehensible, given irreplaceable black battle history of black men and women going back to before the Revolutionary War, when Blacks preserved the nation!
That segregation ended in 1948, in law, by President Harry Truman in the American armed forces, before it did in the rest of the country, in 1954, is doubtless, in part due to the black troops, soldiers, sailors, airman, mechanics, drivers, and women, who fought, served, died!