My father started by serving in the Red Ball Express, which was a famed truck convoy system that supplied Allied forces moving quickly through Europe after breaking out from the D-Day beaches in Normandy in 1944. My father, the red Ball Express trucks, and the Black men who drove and loaded them made the United States Army the most mobile and mechanical force in the war. They also demonstrated what military planners have long understood-logistics shape what is possible on the fields of battle. This service was unlike combat units, it was a rear echelon unit, and that type of unit was often disproportionately African American, as exemplified by the Motor Transport Service. This unit comprised approximately 73 percent African American soldiers in the ETO. This service was used to expedite cargo shipments to the front, and the trucks were emblazoned with red balls that followed a similarly marked route that was closed to civilian traffic.
African Americans in Nazi Germany:
African Americans encountered the Nazis before and during World War II. Before the war, some African Americans visited Nazi Germany as tourists, Olympic athletes, or for other reasons. Many compared and contrasted racism in Nazi Germany with their experiences at home in the United States where discrimination was pervasive. During World War II, African Americans fought against the Nazis as members of the US military. Some even liberated and witnessed concentration camps.
African Americans, like my father, experienced racial prejudice, and discrimination at home in the United States, and as part of the American military. They also experienced racial prejudice abroad in Nazi Germany.
According to my father and other information researched, the US military was racially segregated during World War II. More than one million African Americans fought for the US Armed Forces on the Homefront, in Europe, and in the Pacific. In many cases, African Americans were put into support roles, rather than in direct combat. Most American military units were racially segregated, but a few had integrated combat companies.
In Europe, my father, like other African American Soldiers, helped defeat Nazi Germany and guaranteed an Allied victory. They served in engineering, medical, and combat units, as well as support staff. A select few served as
pilots, who became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Some African American soldiers were captured and became German prisoners of war. Others were summarily executed.
My father was ordered with his trucks and other heavy engineering equipment, to bury the Jews and Germans, which he described as a very detestable duty to be part of. He said he would use bulldozers and dig massive holes and bulldoze the bodies into the holes and there were hundreds and hundreds of bodies to bury regularly. He said that was the beginning of his alcoholism addiction. He said they were permitted to drink and drive, and that was one way they dealt with all the trauma they experienced. However, he said it was a job that needed to be done. He also received a purple heart, as he was wounded and survived when his convoy of trucks came under fire when it was attacked by the German Army.
After battling for freedom and defending democracy worldwide, he never gave up hope that life would change for African Americans. The African American soldiers would return home in 1945, only to find themselves faced with existing and pervasive prejudice and “Jim Crow” laws. Thanks to men like my father, and many other Black soldiers, who paid the price, and fought to make the difference, making life so much better for me, and so many other African Americans that came afterward.
My Dad’s story.
Larry Thornton, PhD