Baltimore Afro-American - May 5, 1945 - Paratrooper
1 2019-03-12T23:57:48+00:00 Stanford University Press af84c3e11fe030c51c61bbd190fa82a3a1a12824 1 1 Baltimore Afro-American - May 5, 1945 - Paratrooper plain published 2019-03-12T23:57:48+00:00 AnonymousThis page is referenced by:
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May - Archived Posts
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Click on date to view post:May 1, 1954: Montgomery hires first African-American police officers, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Caitlin Sullivan, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 1, 1954: NAACP criticizes federal housing plans, reported in Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Matthew Lee, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 2, 1957: Court rules Philadelphia’s Girard College must open to black students, reported in the California Eagle. Guest post by Blake Miller, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 3, 1919: WWI passport dispute reported in St. Paul Appeal. Guest post by Andrew Mullinnix, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 3, 1958: New York Amsterdam News reports on socialites canceling wedding. Guest post by Kelly Monfredini, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 4, 1957: Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at rally in New York City, reported in New York Amsterdam News. Guest post by Charles Zazzera, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 4, 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. and protesters sentenced to ten days in Birmingham jail, reported in Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Aaron Nostwich, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 5, 1945: Baltimore Afro-American reports on 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (the “Triple Nickels”). Guest post by Daniel Obren, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 6, 1943: California Eagle on discrimination in war industries. Guest post by Niccolo Peterson, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 6, 1922: Dallas Express calls for more roles for African-American actors. Guest post by Ariel Sumendap, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 7, 1963: Washington Afro-American reports on black family fighting to keep land from developers. Guest post by Bryce Rooney, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 8, 1958: California Eagle reports on police brutality. Guest post by Paige Ross, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 8, 1929: Harlem teenager wins New York City oratory competition, reported in New York Amsterdam News. Guest post by Ellie Siwicki, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 9, 1970: Mother claims squatter’s rights in vacant apartment building owned by Columbia University. Guest post by Paige Champman, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 9, 1964: Black debutantes in the Indianapolis Recorder. Guest post by Lauren Sendlebach, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 10, 1947: Baltimore Afro-American profiles Darwin Turner, who was Phi Beta Kappa at fifteen and became a professor at the University of Iowa. Guest post by Andrew Spargo, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 10, 1919: Broad Ax reviews Eighth Regiment military band. Guest post by Katherine Garnett, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 11, 1912: Chicago Defender reports on dispute in Georgia over black chauffeur using employer’s car. Guest post by Denver Studebaker, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 12, 1926: New York Amsterdam News on prohibition movement. Guest post by Filomena Matoshi, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 12, 1899: Iowa State Bystander on lynching of Sam Hose. Guest post by Nathan Volkert, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 13, 1961: Cleveland Call and Post on deejay Eddie O’Jay and music in the city.May 13, 1921: Baltimore Afro-American on racial disparities in teachers’ pay. Guest post by Jordan Washington, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 14, 1904: Booker T. Washington on African-American education in The Appeal (Minneapolis & St. Paul). Guest post by Shelby Worth, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.May 15, 1993: New York Amsterdam News celebrates Malcolm X’s birthday. Guest post by Bridget McEvoy, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.May 16, 1935: Poet Arna Bontemps speaks at Vernon Library Book Club, noted in Los Angeles Sentinel.May 17, 1932: Teacher and Fisk University graduate Chrystal Tulli direct play, “Ballet Beautiful,” featured in Atlanta Daily World.May 18, 1954: Atlanta Daily World on the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision.May 19, 1962: Advertisement for electric clothes dryers in Philadelphia Tribune.May 20, 1948: Los Angeles Sentinel on lawsuit involving former boxing champion Henry Armstrong.May 21, 1936: Federal Negro Theater Project production of “Macbeth” at New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem.May 22, 1970: Atlanta Daily World reports on Essence, a new monthly magazine for black women.May 23, 1953: Pittsburgh Courier reports that city newspapers adopted a code of classified advertising which eliminates reference to race, religious creed, color, national origin, or ancestry.May 24, 1961: Chicago Defender reports that the Freedom Riders will continue their campaign against segregated interstate buses in the South.May 25, 1933: Philadelphia Tribune reports on murder of evangelist G. Wilson Becton.May 26, 1934: Torch singer Ivy Anderson in Norfolk Journal and Guide.May 27, 1944: Recruiting black workers to war industries in Cleveland Call and Post.May 28, 1955: Rebecca Stiles Dodson calls for release of Claudia Jones in Chicago Defender.May 29, 1926: Pittsburgh Courier reports that U.S. Supreme Court dismisses Corrigan v. Buckley and upholds legality of racially restrictive covenants.May 30, 1963: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads Freedom Rally in Los Angeles. Guest post by Mark Speltz.May 31, 1940: Burt’s Shoes advertisement in Atlanta Daily World.
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Guest post by Daniel Obren, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
On May 5, 1945, the Baltimore Afro American published “Paratroopers in Advance Training at Mackall”; this series of articles depicts two sides of a coin. The first side is one that shows how much experience, precision, and readiness the 555th Battalion (Bn.) had. The second side is one that loosely shows how mistreated the soldiers were (click to view PDF).
The 555th Battalion was pieced together from multiple army bases and soldiers on duty ranging from soldiers here in the U.S. to Hawaii, the South Pacific, the Aleutian Islands, and even Europe. A large group of the men came from the 92nd Division from Fort Benning after they graduated jump school and endured five weeks of advanced combat training. After these five weeks they were transferred to Camp Mackall. The 555th Battalion had over 3,000 individual jumps varying from training jumps to demonstration jumps for war bond rallies. These soldiers showed high morale at this point in their training and waited to get orders for combat. The experience, precision, and readiness of the 555th was indescribable. The battalion still had very few kinks to fix, but someone without experience would not know.
The 555th Battalion was highly respected by their officers and even the commanding general of the Army Air Forces, General H. H. Arnold. The 555th commanding officer, Captain James H. Porter, and his fellow high-ranked officers could not speak ill of their battalion. These officers held all their soldiers, enlisted and drafted, in high regard. After General Arnold observed a practice jump, he proceeded with inspection of the team including questioning each soldier about his background, experience, and individual view of being a paratrooper. This excellence of the battalion resulted in General Arnold assigning a jump group to Syracuse, New York, to instruct the 2nd Combat Cargo Group pilots in airborne operations. The commanding officer from Camp Mackall commended the group for conducting the familiarization course in a splendid manner. He added that this first experience helped further the group’s experience even though it was short.
Despite the high praises from the 555th Battalion officers and General Arnold, the battalion were still faced with racial segregation. In the area around Camp Mackall, there was only one movie theater in use. This theater segregated the colored men to one side of the theater, except the high-ranked officers. This issue, “jim crow is imposed on enlisted men in the post theatre located in their area,” was contrary to a War Department memorandum. The commanding officer of the post, Colonel L. L. Hathaway’s reaction to this discriminatory policy was not appropriate, and he believed it did not affect the training of the men. Despite this reaction, the morale of the men wavered little as they still had recreation facilities to keep active.
From my view the discrimination was not fully shown or addressed fully in these articles. These articles briefly mention the fact that to lead a paratrooper battalion, an officer of no lower than lieutenant colonel had to be in command, yet the highest ranking officer was a captain. The article briefly describes the difficulty to find a colored lieutenant colonel-ranked officer because none had fulfilled this ranking yet. I feel that the 555th Battalion was created as an all-colored paratrooper battalion to segregate the Army Air Forces. The fact that this battalion was exceptional at their duties and had the combat experience, the airborne precision, the readiness, and approval from the general of the Army Air Forces to see combat, yet not being dispatched doesn’t seem right. After multiple transfers and changes of the battalion and moving all across the United States, this group of men never saw combat and were disbanded in 1950.