research questions the 92nd division

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92nd infantry division (1917–1919, 1942–1945).

The 92nd Infantry Division, a military unit of approximately fifteen thousand officers and men, was one of only two all-black divisions to fight in the United States Army in World War I and World War II. The 92nd Division was organized in October 1917 at Camp Funston, Kansas, and included black soldiers from across the United States. Before leaving for France in 1918, it received the name “Buffalo Soldier Division” as a tribute to the four Buffalo soldier regiments that fought in the regular U.S. Army in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

After their arrival in France, the soldiers were deployed to the front lines in August 1918. The division saw action primarily in one of the last Allied operations of the war—the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that begin in September and ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918. The 92nd Division, unlike the 93rd , the other all-black division in World War I, fought under American command.  When World War I ended, the division returned to the United States and was deactivated in February 1919.

After the United States entered World War II, the 92nd Infantry was reactivated on October 15, 1942, and trained at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, with the 93rd Infantry, the other all-black division.  After that training was completed, the 92nd was deployed to Italy while its counterpart was sent to the South Pacific. On July 30, 1944, the first units of the 92nd arrived in Naples, Italy, and by September 22, the entire division was stationed in the Po Valley in North Italy. Assigned to the U.S. Fifth Army, the 92nd Division also included the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the all-Japanese American (Nisei) unit that both suffered some of the heaviest casualties of the war and became one of the most decorated U.S. military units.

The division first saw significant action against German troops and Italian troops in September, and by October, they were engaged in offensive campaigns in the Serchio River Valley and along the coast near the city of Massa. On April 29, 1945, elements of the 92nd Division liberated the Italian cities of La Spezia and Genoa. They participated in other battles in Northern Italy, often in fighting that involved both advances and retreats until May 2, 1945, when all German forces in Italy surrendered. During this fighting, First Lt. John R. Fox won the Medal of Honor for his action in the Serchio Valley on December 26, 1944, and First Lt. Vernon J. Baker won the medal for his action near Viareggio on April 5–6, 1945. Both medals were not awarded until 1997. The 92nd Division returned to the United States on November 26, 1945, and was deactivated two days later on November 28, 1945.

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Source of the author's information:.

James Harden Daugherty, The Buffalo Saga: A Story from World War II U.S. Army 92nd Infantry Division known as the Buffalo Soldiers (Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris Corporation, 2009); Daniel K. Gibran, The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II (Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Company, 2001); Hondon B. Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy: Black Americans in World War II (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1985); Robert Hodges, Jr., “African American 92nd Infantry Division Fought in Italy During World War II,” HistoryNet , June 12, 2006.

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Over There: A Buffalo Soldier in World War I

Offered in celebration of Black History Month and in recognition of the 100th anniversary of America's participation in World War I, the Buffalo Soldier objects in the Division of Armed Forces History serve as a fascinating intersection of African American and World War I history.

In the fall of 1918, through the thick haze of gun smoke and mustard gas, French soldiers, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), and German soldiers toiled in their respective trenches, fighting and scrapping through dirt and the leftover splinters of a forest, the destruction of World War I surrounding them. Fought from September 26 to the Armistice on November 11, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive included the 365th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division "Buffalo Soldiers." Corporal Benjamin Blayton was one of those who served in this historic American regiment.

Benjamin Blayton was born on December 6, 1897, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. He worked on his family's farm from a young age before eventually moving to Washington, D.C., and becoming an electrician. At the age of 20, he enlisted in the United States Army on January 5, 1918, and became a member of the Buffalo Soldiers. The  Buffalo Soldier division  was formed on September 21, 1866, primarily comprised of African American soldiers from the 9th and 10th Calvary Regiments of the U.S. Army. The Buffalo Soldiers were primarily responsible for supporting westward expansion by helping to build new settlements and to protect settlers. It was their role in campaigns against American Indians  in the West that led to their regimental nickname. The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum explains, "The combat prowess, bravery, tenaciousness, and looks on the battlefield, inspired the Indians to call them Buffalo Soldiers… Buffalo Soldiers, down through the years, have worn the name with pride."

Mustered out of Camp Funston, Kansas in October 1917, the 92nd Division of the 365th Infantry Regiment drew African American soldiers from all over the United States. Although they were part of the United States Army, prejudices of the era prevented most African American units from participating in combat with the American or British forces. As a result, most African American soldiers served as laborers. However, a few units, including the 92nd, served in combat with the French Army, whose soldiers did not object to fighting alongside African Americans. Blayton served in France from June 1918 until February 1919 when he returned to the U.S. after the end of the war.

The 92nd Division saw combat during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the ultimate battle of World War I, which claimed over 26,000 American soldiers. Blayton survived and was awarded the World War I Victory Medal with Meuse-Argonne and Defensive Sector battle clasps. He was honorably discharged March 19, 1919. Upon returning to Washington, he was awarded the District of Columbia World War Service Medal in recognition of his wartime service.

Blayton remained in D.C. for the rest of his life. In 1920 he married Oletha Brown and they had four children together. He told his children about his wartime experiences, both the good—eating in French restaurants and learning to speak French fluently—and the bad—enduring the trenches and watching friends die in battle. Blayton passed away in 1991 just months before his 94th birthday. His daughter Gwendolyn Robinson, who donated his uniform and related objects to the museum in 1994, remembered her father as a gallant and eloquent man who was active in his community, who worked hard to provide for his family, and who instilled in his children a sense of their own self-worth.

Christy Wallover is an assistant project manager in the Office of Project Management and Editorial Services. Patri O'Gan is a project assistant in the Division of Armed Forces History.

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The Brave Buffalo Soldiers

The African-American soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 92nd Infantry Division experienced combat and racism in Italy during World War II.

This article appears in: October 2022

By Michael D. Hull

Despite their gallant service in the Civil War, on the Western frontier, and in the Spanish-American War, black soldiers were used mostly for labor and given only a limited fighting role when the U.S. Army entered World War I.

Unfortunately, African-American soldiers in the U.S. Army faced the same prospect when their country was thrust into World War II on December 7, 1941. The War Department still viewed black troops as unsuitable for combat, and again relegated them to labor and support battalions.

But, because of the constant need for manpower and spirited lobbying on the part of the black community and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, changes eventually came about. Late in the war, African-Americans were given a chance to prove their worth in action, including most notably the Tuskegee Airmen of the Mediterranean Air Force’s 99th Pursuit Squadron and 332nd Fighter Group, the 761st (Black Panther) Tank Battalion of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army, and the hell-bent-for-leather truck drivers of the legendary Red Ball Express.

The Army activated three “colored” divisions in 1941 and 1942—the 2nd Cavalry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas, on April 1, 1941; the 93rd Infantry Division at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, on May 15; and the 92nd Infantry Division at Fort McClellan, Alabama, on October 15. Civil-rights leaders were encouraged, but their hopes soon dwindled when the three divisions were kept undergoing endless training while white divisions shipped out for the Pacific and European theaters. It was not until 1944, a campaign year, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt began pushing the back-pedaling War Department to deploy black troops.

The 2nd Cavalry Division, which comprised the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments of frontier fame, was shipped to Oran, Algeria, in March 1944, but saw no action. It was inactivated two months later and its personnel sent to labor battalions for the duration. It was an inglorious end for the “Buffalo Soldiers.”

The 93rd Infantry Division arrived at Guadalcanal on February 7, 1944, but its elements were parceled out for defensive and labor activities for the rest of the war. Only one unit, the 24th (Separate) Regiment, saw combat. After departing from Guadalcanal on December 8, the unit landed on Saipan and Tinian in the Marianas for garrison duty. It joined black U.S. Marines in mopping up Japanese resistance and was awarded a unit commendation.

The 92nd Infantry (Buffalo) division was the only black division to see combat in Europe, and this came about because of heightened demands from civil rights leaders and a critical manpower shortage in the Italian theater during the summer of 1944. Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark’s multi-national Fifth Army had been stripped of almost 100,000 men for the Normandy campaign.

After its activation in Alabama, the 92nd Division moved to Fort Huachuca in May 1943. It took part in Fourth Army maneuvers in Louisiana in early 1944, and returned to Arizona that April. At Fort Huachuca, a 19th century cavalry post situated in southeastern Arizona, 15 miles north of the Mexican border, the men of the 92nd were led and trained by white staff officers and company commanders. They were mostly southerners.

The divisional commander was 51-year-old, Virginia-born Maj. Gen. Edward M. “Ned” Almond, a World War I infantry veteran who had taken over the 92nd in October 1942. It was said that he owed his command to his marriage to the sister of General George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff. Energetic but tactless and dictatorial, Almond believed that he knew how to manage African-American soldiers and lacked sympathy for them.

Addressing one of his regiments, Almond said, “I did not send for you. Your Negro newspapers, Negro politicians, and white friends have insisted on your seeing combat, and I shall see that you get combat and your share of casualties.” Another white officer noted later, “He most certainly kept his word.”

The first element of the 92nd Division to go overseas was the 370th Infantry Regiment, which was shipped to the Mediterranean theater in the summer of 1944. Wearing the division’s distinctive shoulder patch bearing a black buffalo on a green background, the soldiers were raw but eager to get into action. Lt. Vernon J. Baker, a platoon leader from Cheyenne, Wyoming, said, “We were young and dumb and thought we were going to whip the Germans’ behinds and drive them back home as soon as we got there.” Baker was later awarded the Medal of Honor, upgraded from the Distinguished Service Cross, for leading an attack that wiped out six German machine-gun nests near Viareggio in April 1945.

The men of the 370th Regiment disembarked at Naples on August 1, and black soldiers in the service units on the docks cheered loudly as they filed down gangplanks. Private Edward Winn, a quartermaster, observed, “Most times you would see a black soldier, he was carrying ammunition, cans of fuel, or chow for the front line—anything but a gun. These guys were carrying rifles. A black G.I. carrying a rifle was not a normal sight to see every day in Europe in 1944.”

Three weeks later, on August 23, the regiment went into the line with Maj. Gen. Vernon E. Prichard’s 1st Armored Division and advanced against negligible German resistance across the muddy Arno River toward the walled city of Lucca and the ultimate Allied objectives in northwestern Italy, the naval base at La Spezia and the port of Genoa. Then, hampered by torrential autumn rains and relentless enemy shellfire, the 370th Regiment tried but failed to break through the main Gothic Line in the northern Apennine Mountains.

One of the major obstacles to the British Eighth and U.S. Fifth Armies, the heavily fortified Gothic Line stretched 190 miles east to west across Italy from the Ligurian Sea to the Adriatic. After the fall of Rome, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s 10th and 14th Armies had retired behind its 2,376 machine-gun nests, 479 gun and mortar positions, and miles of anti-tank ditches. The enemy troops had been ordered to hold the line at all costs.

As the 370th Regiment moved toward the Serchio Valley in northwestern Tuscany, the rest of the 15,000-man 92nd Buffalo Division shipped out to the Mediterranean theater in stages. Elements departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, on September 22, 1944, and arrived in Italy on October 16. That month and in November, they joined the 370th Regiment in the rugged mountains north of Pisa, facing the western anchor of the Gothic Line. Lieutenant Baker reported, “It was some of the worst country you could fight a war in, but I had grown up in the mountains and knew how to survive in them. From the time I first pulled a trigger at the age of 12, my job was keeping my family going during the Depression by hunting game.”

Besides the harsh weather, terrain, and stubborn enemy, the Buffalo Soldiers had to fight the racism which had plagued them since basic training; they groused that General Almond and his “southern crackers” were using them as “cannon fodder.” Baker said, “We wanted to defend our country, but we faced the most vicious kind of racism, and that soured a lot of the guys. I tried not to let this get to me; I focused on being a soldier and surviving, but sometimes it was hard to tell who the bigger racists were—the Germans in front of us or the commanders behind us.”

In two operations during the harsh winter of 1944-45, the 92nd Division was routed by seasoned German mountain troops. The white commanders blamed the defeats on inexperience and cowardice, an Army report branding the black soldiers as “entirely undependable” and “terrified to fight at night,” and General Clark later called the division the worst in Europe.

All this was denounced by the division’s Lieutenant Frederick Davison, who said the units performed with distinction and that the high number of casualties was due to Almond and his staff. Their orders, said Davison, “were so flawed, so inept, that there was no way that success could have been achieved.”

Rothacker C. Smith, a conscientious objector and medical corpsman who was wounded and captured in one of the battles, agreed that the black soldiers fought bravely. He recalled later, “After the war, I read these reports that the Buffalo men ‘melted away’ in combat, but the men I watched fought with spirit and guts.”

Lieutenant Baker echoed, “There was disharmony in the 92nd, but I had no problems with my platoon when the shooting started…. When I went forward under fire, they followed.”

During their offensive in the fall of 1944, the Allied forces managed to breach the Gothic Line in mid-September, but exploitation proved impossible, and both sides suffered heavy casualties in the protracted fighting. During the lull, the exhausted, mud-covered Allied troops regrouped for a third great push.

When the Christmas season arrived, the Buffalo Soldiers and their comrades celebrated as best they could in their foxholes and in friendly Italian communities. On Christmas Eve, a black platoon delivered a truckload of surplus food, cheese, and chocolate to the village of Barga. “We had never seen so much food,” reported 17-year-old Irma Biondi. “They were wonderful, so nice to us.” The soldiers and villagers shared wine, danced, and sang carols.

But the merriment was short-lived. During the night, the Germans had launched a surprise counterattack—part of an attempt to seize the Tuscany port of Livorno—against the 92nd Division’s positions along the Serchio River. Preceded by an artillery barrage at dawn on Christmas Day, German, Austrian, and Italian Fascist troops advanced, overrunning the Buffalo Division outposts and precipitating a general withdrawal. The invaders penetrated Barga and other neighboring villages, including Bottinaccio and Sommocolonia.

The action was bitter and bloody as the Buffalo Soldiers engaged the enemy swarming through the streets. There was much confusion because some of the invaders were dressed in civilian clothes. Almond’s troops fought desperately and bravely, and a number of Silver Stars were later awarded for heroism. In the village of Sommocolonia, where the enemy sought to roll up the 370th Infantry Regiment’s line, the G.I.s and Germans fought from door to door while the besieged 366th Regiment struggled to drive the invaders away. But the situation deteriorated as black battalions and companies were disorganized and forced to withdraw with heavy casualties.

Sommocolonia was the site of one of the most remarkable and tragic feats of heroism in World War II. The hero was 29-year-old Lieutenant John R. Fox, a forward observer with Cannon Company of the Buffalo Division’s 598th Field Artillery Battalion. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 18, 1915, John Robert Fox studied biology and science at Wilberforce (Ohio) University, where he participated in the ROTC program and met his future wife, Arlene. They had a daughter, Sandra. Fox was commissioned in 1940 and graduated from the Fort Benning, Georgia, Infantry School in August 1941.

On the night of December 25-26, 1944, Lieutenant Fox was directing defensive artillery fire. When the Americans were forced to withdraw, he volunteered to stay behind with a handful of defenders. He positioned himself on the second floor of a house. When the Germans and Austrians attacked in strength at 8 a.m. on December 26, surrounding the house, Fox radioed for closer gunfire.

The 105mm artillery battery questioned the order and said that the next adjustment would bring salvos directly onto Fox’s position. “Fire it!” he replied. “There’s more of them than there are of us. In three or four minutes they’ll be all over us. Fire directly on the house.” Fox said that the gunfire was the only way to defeat the attackers. The battery opened up again. The house was blasted, and the heroic soldier perished.

When a later counterattack retook the position, Fox’s body was found amid the remains of about 100 enemy troops. A citation said later that Fox “greatly assisted in delaying the enemy advance until other infantry and artillery could reorganize to repel the attack.” He was buried at Colebrook Cemetery in Whitman, Massachusetts.

In a postwar assessment, Lt. Gen. Maximilian Fretter-Pico, a Wehrmacht veteran of the Eastern Front, defended the Buffalo Soldiers’ performance in the fighting around Sommocolonia. He said it was a situation in which good soldiers were poorly assigned. “Your troops were deployed on a front which was too long for the number of men available,” he stated, “and your reserves were too far in the rear, which prevented their being deployed immediately.” While the American press generally criticized the black division, a white officer from another division stated in a letter to The New Republic, “The 92nd didn’t break nearly so badly as white divisions did under similar conditions at the Kasserine Pass.”

A posthumous Distinguished Service Cross was presented to Fox’s widow at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1982, by Maj. Gen. James F. Hamlett, who had been a 1st lieutenant in the hero’s company. The decoration was eventually upgraded to the Medal of Honor, citing Fox’s “gallant and courageous actions, at the supreme sacrifice of his own life.” Mrs. Fox received the medal from President Bill Clinton at a White House ceremony on January 13, 1997, during which the nation’s highest honor was awarded to six other black veterans of World War II. Lieutenant Baker was the only living recipient.

After the war, the villagers of Sommocolonia erected a monument to Lieutenant Fox and eight Italian soldiers who were killed in the Christmas 1944 artillery barrage. In 2005, the Hasbro toy company introduced a 12-inch action figure of Fox as part of its G.I. Joe Medal of Honor series. Fox’s other decorations were the Combat Infantryman Badge, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star.

He had delayed the enemy advance on December 26, 1944, but only one American officer and 17 enlisted men were able to escape from the village. The Germans pushed back the 92nd Division, which had been holding a 17-mile front across the Serchio Valley. Supported by 4,000 sorties by fighters and bombers, the Allies rushed in reinforcements to plug the hole in their lines and retake the valley. The Buffalo Division was reinforced by two brigades of the British Eighth Army’s 8th Indian Division and two regiments of the U.S. 85th Infantry (Custer) Division. By January 1, 1945, the opposing armies were back at their original positions and the stalemate lingered through the winter.

The Buffalo Division fought on from January to April. Despite more heavy losses and bouts of low morale, its general performance was rated exemplary. A tragic setback on February 6-10, however, shook the black troops. Assigned to a sector south of Viareggio, the 366th Regiment was pinned down for four days by intensive fire from German artillery and coastal guns. A total of 47 officers and 659 enlisted men were killed, wounded, or missing in action.

“The Germans mowed us down like clay pigeons,” reported Sergeant Willard A Williams. He said that his comrades performed “far above and beyond the call of duty.” Yet the 366th was deactivated on March 14 and converted into two general service regiments. Officers and G.I.s wept at the humiliation.

Starting on March 1, 1945, the 92nd Division was thoroughly reorganized, with some regiments withdrawn and others attached. Then, on April 5, it began to attack along the Ligurian coast, spearheaded by its 370th Infantry Regiment and the famed 442nd (“Go for Broke”) Regimental Combat Team. The division, which took more than 11,000 prisoners during April and May, overcame disorganized resistance, captured La Spezia, and reached Genoa on April 27. The Buffalo Soldiers were in the vicinity of Alessandria and Pavin when the German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945. The division returned to New York on November 26, 1945, and was inactivated at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, two days later.

The Buffalo Division emerged from the European war with a mixed record of reverses and gallant service, and many of its officers and men proudly wore the Distinguished Service Crosses, Silver Stars, Purple Hearts, Combat Infantryman Badges, and Bronze Stars. Its fighting was over, yet it continued to come under fire from committed racists and others.

These views were not shared, however, by three decorated veterans of the Italian campaign who became U.S. senators—Robert Dole of Kansas, Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, and Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts.

Senator Dole, a Republican leader for several years, was wounded while fighting with Maj. Gen. George P. Hays’s crack 10th Mountain Division during the North Apennines and Po Valley campaigns in January-April 1945, and was proud of his association with the 92nd Division. Inouye, who served in the Senate from 1962 until his death in 2012, won the Medal of Honor and 15 other decorations for heroism while serving in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and had “a special, personal memory of the 92nd.” After his right arm was shattered while leading his platoon against three German machine-gun nests on the Gothic Line in April 1945, he received 17 blood transfusions from African-American soldiers. Brooke was the first black elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction and served from 1967 to 1979. A captain in the 92nd Division’s 366th Infantry Regiment who also spied behind the enemy lines in Italy, he lauded his comrades for their fighting spirit and sacrifices.

In the Pacific theater, the 93rd Infantry Division was engaged in defensive missions and port operations in the Treasure islands, New Guinea, and Morotai until the end of the war. After serving in the Philippines, it returned to San Francisco on February 1, 1946, and was inactivated at Camp Stoneman, California, two days later.

The U.S. armed forces were still segregated when World War II ended, but this changed in 1948 when President Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9981 mandated equal treatment and opportunity regardless of race. Beginning in 1951, reverses in the Korean War led to the end of all-black units in the Army and Marine Corps. All of the services integrated the enlisted ranks, though the officer corps remained largely white. The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of African-Americans ever to serve in an American war.

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• Edward M. Almond and the US Army: From the 92nd Infantry Division to the X Corps

In this Book

• Michael E. Lynch
• Published by: The University Press of Kentucky
• Series: American Warriors Series
• View Citation

Table of Contents

• Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
• List of Tables
• List of Maps
• List of Abbreviations
• pp. xii-xiv
• Chapter 1 Coming of Age 1892–1916
• Chapter 2 Introduction to Combat 1916–1919
• Chapter 3 Soldier as Teacher 1919–1933
• Chapter 4 Education of a Senior Officer 1933–1941
• Chapter 5 Almond Takes Command 1941–1943
• Chapter 6 Trouble at Fort Huachuca 1943–1944
• Chapter 7 Initial Success in Italy 1944–1945
• pp. 103-117
• Chapter 8 Winter of Discontent 1945
• pp. 118-133
• Chapter 9 Tragedy and Redemption 1945
• pp. 134-156
• Chapter 10 New Challenges in Japan 1946–1950
• pp. 157-175
• Chapter 11 Planning for War 1950
• pp. 176-197
• Chapter 12 Initial Success in Korea September–November 1950
• pp. 198-225
• Chapter 13 Winter of Discontent 1951
• pp. 226-249
• Chapter 14 Tragedy and Redemption Spring 1951
• pp. 250-274
• Chapter 15 A Final Assignment Back to School, 1951–1953
• pp. 275-292
• Chapter 16 Retirement and Epilogue 1953–1979
• pp. 293-303
• Acknowledgments
• pp. 304-307
• Appendix 1 Life and Career of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond
• pp. 308-311
• Appendix 2 Task Organizations
• pp. 312-314
• pp. 315-352
• Select Bibliography
• pp. 353-370
• pp. 371-410

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Ninety-Second Infantry Division

By gramond s. mcpherson.

While most black soldiers during World War I served in support roles in Quartermaster and Engineer units, over 40,000 black soldiers served in two combat divisions. 1 As black civil rights leaders demanded more opportunities for black soldiers to prove their worth in battle, the War Department eventually created the Ninety-second and Ninety-third Divisions; these units served overseas in France. However, unlike the Ninety-third, which included only four infantry regiments, the Ninety-second was a fully organized infantry division with its own supply, artillery, and trench mortar units along with other necessary support components. Additionally, the Ninety-second remained strictly under American command throughout its service.

The Ninety-second, established on October 24, 1917, welcomed various volunteers and draftees representing nearly every state in the country who assembled at various camps in the North stretching from Kansas to Long Island, New York, for training. Due to fears from whites, the War Department scattered black soldiers to ensure that African Americans were always the minority at any camp. Critics then and years later argued this limited the division’s training and ability to fight overseas as a cohesive division. While whites made up the senior officers of the division, the division contained black junior commissioned-officers who trained at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. The division arrived in France between June 19 and July 18, 1918. 2

The Ninety-second served in the St. Die, Vosges, and Marbache sectors in France participating in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive––the last offensive of the war. However, the division experienced various challenges in France, including being caught in a feud between their division commander, Major General Charles J. Ballou and General Robert Bullard, who commanded the American 2nd Army, the Ninety-second’s parent unit. In addition,

the collapse of the 368th Infantry Regiment at the start of the Meuse-Argonne in September of 1918 tarnished the reputation of the entire division and allowed whites to demean black combat soldiers’ service. While inadequate training, difficult terrain, and poor equipment played a role in the collapse, other white divisions, with no combat experience, also performed poorly. As a result, the entire Ninety-second division was pulled from the front lines and did not see much active fighting until the final days of the war. Additionally, white superior officers charged black officers with cowardice and incompetence, blaming black company-level officers for the failure. Originally blacks made up eighty-two percent of the divisions’ officer ranks, by the end, blacks only made up fifty-eight percent of officers in the Ninety-second. 3

After the war, Commanding General John Pershing complimented the unit. “The American public has every reason to be proud of the record made by the 92nd Division.” 4 Yet Pershing’s praise, the accolades from American and French officers, along with awards and decorations did little to overcome racism. The same stereotypes shaped white Americans’ views of black combat soldiers until after World War II. However, the Ninety-second division provided critical combat capability during World War I in the face of mistreatment and racial discrimination proving their loyalty and patriotism to America. When World War II came, the Ninety-second welcomed a new generation of African American heroes.

Further Information

Dalessandro, Robert J. and Gerald Torrence. Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2009.

Fife, Thomas William. “African-Americans in the Great War 1917-19.” Military Images 27, no. 4 (January/February 2006): 4-46.

Ferrell, Robert H. Unjustly Dishonored: An African American Division in World War I. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. 2011.

Keene, Jennifer D. World War I: The American Soldier Experience. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.

Williams, Chad. Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Wilson, Adam. P. African American Army Officers of World War I: A Vanguard of Equality in War and Beyond. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015.

1 Jennifer D. Keene, World War I: The American Soldier Experience (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 101.

2 Robert J. Dalessandro and Gerald Torrence, Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2009), 93.

3 Keene, World War I , 97.

4 Dalessandro and Torrence, Willing Patriots , 99.

© 2018, University of Central Florida

Memoirs of a World War II Buffalo Soldier

In a recently published memoir written over 60 years ago, veteran James Daugherty details his experiences as an African-American in combat

Abby Callard

On his dining room table James “Pat” Daugherty had arranged some old faded photographs from his Army days, his Bronze Star, a copy of his recently published World War II memoir, The Buffalo Saga , and his olive-drab steel helmet, marred near the visor by a chunk of now-rusted iron.

“If you feel the inside of the helmet, you can see how close it was,” he says of the shrapnel from a German mortar that struck the young private in Italy in the fall of 1944. A few more millimeters, and he might never have lived to write his memoir, which is what I went to his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, to learn about.

Daugherty, 85, served in the Army’s storied 92nd Infantry Division, which was made up almost entirely of African-Americans and was the last racially segregated unit in the U.S. armed forces. Known as the Buffalo Soldiers—a name that Native Americans had bestowed on a black cavalry unit after the Civil War—men of the 92nd division were among the only African-Americans to see combat in Europe, battling German troops in Italy. In 1948, President Truman issued an executive order that ended racial segregation in the military.

Daugherty, drafted at age 19, was so deeply affected by his two years in the division that he wrote an account of the experience soon after he returned home in 1947. He self-published the story this year, virtually unchanged from the manuscript he had scribbled in longhand. The Buffalo Saga promises to be a significant addition to the history of African-American troops in World War II because it was written by a participant almost immediately following the events in question, rather than recollected or reconstructed years later.

Daugherty says he put pen to paper because friends and family members were always asking, “ ‘What did you do when you were over there?’ ”

Years ago he tried once to find a publisher, with no success. “I think the content was too caustic,” says Dorothy, his wife of 59 years.

The Buffalo Saga is indeed a raw, unvarnished, often angry account of a decorated young soldier’s encounter with institutionalized racial prejudice. Once, while fighting in Italy in 1945, another soldier in the 92nd Infantry Division said his company had lost too many men to continue fighting. Daugherty asked why the officers couldn’t just call up replacements. “Look, bud, they don’t train colored soldiers to fight,” the soldier told Daugherty. “They train them to load ships, and you don’t expect them to put white boys in a Negro outfit, do you? What do you think this is, a democracy or something?”

Daugherty’s memoir also recalls the time a black soldier got shipped out to the front lines in Italy after confronting a white officer. Word was the officer had threatened to send him where he’d get his “smart Negro brains” blown out. “I merely wondered how many men were here to be punished because they had dared to express a desire to be treated like men,” Daugherty writes.

But the book isn’t a screed. It’s an honest, even poignant account of a young man fighting in a war.

One night in late December 1944, Daugherty’s platoon got orders to patrol a mountain and not come back until it had a prisoner. He and the rest of his company ducked under friendly fire, and Daugherty advanced ahead of the troops. “The first thing I knew I had stumbled upon a barrier constructed of wooden plank and heavy-cut branches,” he wrote. “I was about to try to cross this when I caught the movement of a form in the darkness. I looked up, and it was a Jerry.” He and another private captured him and returned to camp. For this, Daugherty earned his Bronze Star.

The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II arouse intense scholarly and popular interest (a recent treatment is  Miracle at St. Anna , a 2008 film by director Spike Lee based on the novel by James McBride). Their long-overlooked achievements gained national prominence in 1997, when seven African-American soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Only Vernon Baker, who served with the 92nd Infantry, was still alive.

“It was something that I felt should have been done a long time ago,” Baker said at the time. “If I was worthy of receiving a Medal of Honor in 1945, I should have received it then.” In 2006, Baker published his own memoir,  Lasting Valor , with the help of journalist Ken Olsen.

The medals were issued after a historian documented that no African- American who fought in the war had even been nominated for one. “At the end of World War II, the white officers in particular wanted to wash their hands of the Italian campaign experience with the 92nd Division,” says historian Daniel Gibran, author of  The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II . “It was an experience that a lot of white officers didn’t really want, and they might as well soon forget that kind of experience.”

At the end of the war, Daugherty returned to his hometown, Washington, D.C., determined, he wrote at the time, “to help make it a place that shows compassion for, humility for, high regard for, and values all its citizens alike.” Of course, Daugherty and his fellow Buffalo Soldiers returned not to a hero’s welcome but to segregated schools and job discrimination. “The road has been long and hard; blood and sweat, death and destruction have been our companions,” he wrote. “We are home now though our flame flickers low. Will you fan it with the winds of freedom, or will you smother it with the sands of humiliation? Will it be that we fought for the lesser of two evils? Or is there this freedom and happiness for all men?”

Daugherty didn’t let his own flame go out. He went on to study at Howard University in Washington, D.C. on the G.I. Bill and to work as an administrator in the U.S. Public Health Service. He was the first African-American to serve on the board of the Montgomery County Public Schools, among the nation’s largest public school districts. Following publication of his book, Daugherty has become somewhat of a celebrity in his adopted hometown—July 28 is now officially “Buffalo Soldier James Daugherty Day” in Silver Spring.

He sits in the living room of the ranch-style house he built nearly five decades ago and in which he and his wife raised their four sons. He recalls that his work in the public health system also taught him about inequity.

“The majority of the health centers were in poor, black areas where people couldn’t get health care and all that,” Daugherty says. “But I also had to go up into West Virginia to the coal mines, and they were mistreated something terrible. A lot of these weren’t black, they weren’t Asian; they were white, Caucasian.”

Daugherty’s original handwritten manuscript remains sealed in two yellowed envelopes. Daugherty mailed them to himself more than half a century ago, in lieu of obtaining an official copyright. The postmarks read April 28, 1952. It’s his way of proving that  The Buffalo Saga  is his story.

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Abby Callard is an assistant editor at Milwaukee Magazine.

92nd Infantry Division

The Germans did a lot of talking about being the “Master Race.” They invented a long list of inferior peoples, conspicuous among whom were Negroes. But that was before the Nazis ran into the 92nd Division. The Buffalo outfit had a few theories of its own, too, including the motto “Deeds Not Words.” That turned out to be pretty effective counter-propaganda against the Germans—especially the hundreds of them who were captured by the colored soldiers of the 92nd during its nearly nine months of action on the Italian front.

The 92nd, many of whose officers and all of whose enlisted personnel are Negroes, was activated on October 15, 1942, and among the camps at which it trained was Fort Huachuca, Arizona. There, many years ago, when the American Army was chiefly concerned with Indians, a detachment of colored soldiers was assigned. To keep warm during the cold winter on the prairies, the soldiers killed buffalos and clothed themselves with the hides. The startled Indians began to call them “Black Buffalos,” and the 92nd’s shoulder patch and nickname carry on the tradition of those early American fighters.

This war’s Buffalos embarked for North Africa in June 1944, and soon thereafter were assigned to the Fifth Army front in the Italian Apennines. In September elements of the Division crossed the Arno River and took the city of Lucca. Then the 92nd began to live the usual routine of foot soldiers in that theater—long waits, slow gains, constant patrols, and endless suffering in the cold, bleak hills of central Italy.

The 92nd’s first large-scale attack as a division occurred in February 1945, when the Buffalos were given the mission of seizing Monte Cassala, a peak dominating the western coast ports vital to Allied operations. Striking out from along the line of the Fiume-La Force, some three miles south of the stronghold of Massa, the Buffalos stormed the mountain and took it, to the considerable dismay and embarrassment of its Aryan defenders.

During the winter months, the 92nd kept two German divisions tied down in its sector and worked up the Ligurian coast. Not only did it capture the ports of La Spezia and Genoa, but it accomplished the feats so swiftly that the Germans were unable to put into effect plans they had made to render the ports useless when the Allies finally got into them.

From then on, the Division rolled northward, taking Alessandria and Turin on its way. When the war in Italy ended, its accomplishments were summed up by General Mark Clark, commander of the 15th Army Group and better qualified than most otfier people to appraise the work of the 92nd. In a letter to Major General Edward M. Almond, leader of the Buffalos, General Clark said, “To the 92nd Division went an important assignment in the offensive which ended in unconditional surrender of German forces in Italy. Please convey to your officers and men for me the fact that I value most highly the manner in which that assignment was carried out. We relied upon you to gain ports along the Ligurian coast and you carried out the attack in a most aggressive and successful way. You took La Spezia and then swept on to Genoa, not only taking that great port, but preserving it from terrible bombardment by heavy German guns. With the ports in hand, elements under your command swept into the cities of Alessandria and Turin. These actions played an important part in the victory achieved by the 15th Army Group.”

From Fighting Divisions , Kahn & McLemore, Infantry Journal Press, 1945-1946.

Patches - Insignia

92nd Infantry Division World War II Missing in Action

There are 50 soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division World War II still listed as missing in action.

• Staff Sergeant Joseph Barksdale
• Private Albert Brown
• Private First Class George H. Brown
• Private First Class James H. Brown
• Private Lloyd L. Brown
• Private First Class William A. Cornwell
• Private Benjamin Davis
• Private First Class Henry D. Davis
• Private First Class Lemuel Dent
• Private First Class Limus Duhart
• Private First Class Lonnie Eichelberger
• Private Penn Franks
• Private Melton Futch
• Private First Class St. Clair M. Gibson
• Private First Class Henry Gorham
• Private Richard Graham
• Private First Class Joe Green
• Private First Class James R. Heigh
• Private Nathaniel Johnson
• Private Rudolph Johnson
• Sergeant Roger Jones
• Second Lieutenant William P. Jordan
• Private William B. Lambert
• Private Jose A. Lopez
• Private First Class A D. Luckett
• First Lieutenant John M. Madison
• Private First Class James T. Mathis
• Private William T. McFadden
• Private Wesley Melton
• Private First Class John Moore
• Private Evans Owens
• Private Cleo Penny
• Sergeant Ruffus B. Pitts
• Private First Class Paul W. Pompey
• Private First Class William T. Saunders
• Private Montroit Scott
• Private First Class William C. Scott
• Staff Sergeant Joseph A. Seymour
• Private Anderson J. Slaughter
• Private James L. Strong
• Private Ira Stubblefield
• Private First Class Alfred L. Sutton
• Private Herbert Taylor
• Private First Class Ira L. Thompson
• Private First Class Ernest L. Vesley
• Technician Fourth Grade Edison H. Walters
• Private James E. Warren
• Private First Class Robert Williams
• Staff Sergeant Henry W. Wilson
• Private Carl Wimes

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The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian campaign in World War II

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92nd Infantry (Buffalo Division)

World war ii association.

The purpose of the 92nd Infantry Division World War II Association is to commemorate the reactivation of the 92nd Infantry Division in 1942 and the outstanding combat participation of its troops; develop a non-biased history of the Division; perpetuate the memory of those members who gallantly gave their lives for their country; and provide a vehicle through which its members may share their experiences with each other, reflecting significant parts of their lives.

Share this:

56 thoughts on “ mission ”.

Thanks Soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division for serving our Country, We are very grateful for the job you did in WWII.

My thanks to the 92nd Infantry Buffalo Soldiers. I have only some years ago found out about their heroic contribution to free my homeland, Italy, during WWII. I am the daughter of an Italian Army’s Official and anti-nazifascism Partisan (Freedom Fighter) in WWII.

Just found out my father was a Soldier in the 92nd Infantry. He was a Buffalo Soldier!

What was your father’s name?

my father also served in the 92nd division in n. africa and italy,his name was orlando ivey, from cleveland, ohio , 365th regiment…did you know him?

I did not know him personally. But by putting your comment on the web, I’m hoping anyone who did will contact you.

my father was an mp at fort huachuca az in1942 i have a picture with104 men

my grandfather was stationed in AZ as well I would love to see the pic you have he may be in it

My father’s name is Charles Lewis Sims. He served in World War 2 in the infantry and saw combat in Germany. On the photo entitled 92 infantry division (Buffalo division) in the first row 3rd from the left it looks remarkably like him. It would be much appreciated if you can assist in this matter.

Mr. Sims, most of the pictures that were provided to me don’t have names or any other identifying information. And, since they’re digital copies, I can’t look on the back to see if there’s anything written there. I will, however, ask around and see if anyone has a copy with the names listed

I just found out that my grandfather was a buffalo soldier in WWII, he also received a Purple Heart.

Dana – thanks for sharing with us! What was your grandfather’s name?

John Francis Frederick from Maryland. He went by Francis.

Was your grandfather at the WW2 memorial on the 70th anniversary of D-day?

I am doing a family tree. My uncle William M. Perrin was a Buffalo Soldier. He died in Italy in 1945. I am trying to locate pictures or any stories related to him.

I will review the info I have to determine if I may have some info about him.

May 28, 2015

Hello my uncle, Second Lieutenant Johnny E. Birdsong was also killed in 1945. The battle was b l o o d y. North Italy was one of the last if not the last stronghold of the Germans who had lost the War. Eligible relatives can request a copy of his record from the National Personnel Records Center 1 Archive Drive St. Louis, Mo 63138 Personnel Records are protected. You need to show proof of your identity to the Soldier.

I am the daughter of the Soldier’s sister.

May 29,2015

i reviewed information yesterday evening after I returned to my apartment. The best place to start for information is: National Archives at College Park 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740 Dear Research Team, Re: Soldiers Name/ID No. Buffalo Soldier WWII Mediterranean Theater (Italy Please research . . . or I would like to know

My brother Vernon E. Woodland served in the 92ND, was KIA in Italy, and is interred there. I recently received his Purple Heart and other commendations. Prior to his service, Vernon was a renown boxer in Philadelphia, PA

Just learning about the 92nd which I believe my father was a member. His enlistment was 11/42 to 3/45. I have his iindividual picture but am looking for any additional info on his service. He was wounded and received a Purple Heart but we can’t locate it. His name is David McClain

May 29, 2015

The best place to start for information is The National Archives at College Park. I submitted address to an earlier reply today.

Jackie Birdsong Johnson

My brother was KIA in Italy other circa 2/1945. I managed to acquire the PH he was awarded including citations. It took four (4) years but I may have info. to assist you. Give me a little time to locate the data. I look forward to a discussion.

Hello James. I’m so happy that you received the information. My Uncle Second Lieutenant Johnny E. Birdsong was KIA on April 10, 1945. My dear mom was his only sibling (sister).. She never recovered from “I’m sorry to inform you . . . . Before she died I wanted her to know if his body had been brought back to the states. I was not tenacious enough and did not find out until after her death. As you know it is possible for relatives to request the Soldiers’ record.

Google the above

Replace Veterans’ Medals, Awards, and Decorations http://www.archives.gov/veterans/replace-medals.html#nok

Dear, I’m starting a research on the events related to the liberation of Genoa (Italy) in April 1945. In particular, with regard to the 472 and 473 infantry and an episode of the capture of about 3,000 soldiers German-Italian neighborhood of Genoa, presumably occurred April 27, 1945. There is an official report of the army? Could I have this documentation? I thank you and greet you cordially.

Federico Garbarino Genoa Italy.

I correct: Nisei 442, not 472. Thank you.

June 11, 2015 Hi Federico, Our Army Personnel is very protective of military records. However you could write to National Archives at College Park in Maryland and ask how you would go about getting the information you desire. I imagine there are information WWII WAR Journals in regard to your concerns. You probably could ask any Librarian on US Government War Journal data base. Research begins with what researching any data base that serves your topic. Jackie B. Johnson

June 11, 2015 Hi Federico, I forgot to mention that the Italian government is also a good place to begin your research. I’m sure that your government has WAR Journals.

Jackie B. Johnson

My Uncle, SGT Lawrence V. Blanchet, B Company, 365th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Infantry, was Killed in Action 10 Feb, 1945. He was awarded the Silver Star, posthumosly, for his actions that day in killing a number of snipers his unit had encountered. The last one killed him. He was buried and his remains were not sent home for 6 years. His Silver Star was mailed to my grandarents.On Sunday June 14th 2015 at 1:00 pm there will be a graveside service to present my uncle his Silver with full military honors. LIncoln Cemetery, 12300 Sout Kedzie Chicago, IL. 60655. Any and all 92nd Inf Div veterans are invited t attend. My number is 773-259-6967

Dear Philip, My prayers today are for two Uncles, yours and mine.. My uncle Second Lieutenant Johnny E. Birdsong was shot in the heart the same day. I was his shinning star, the first child of his only sibling, his sister who is my mom. Unfortunately and with regret I can’t be in Chicago physically in June but in spirit I will be there shinning on the shoulder of my Uncle. My Uncle served as a Buffalo Soldier Intelligence and Reconnaissance leader, 5th Army Division, who opened the path for your uncle’s Regiment and others to pass securely. I pray for your family and its loss. It was a bloody battle in North Italy, rivers to cross, hills and mountains to climb. I am proud of your uncle and mine. The Silver Star is missing from my Uncle’s Record but I am working on its replacement. He received the Legion Of Merit Award and Italy’s Valor Cross.

My heart reaches out to you

Jacqueline Birdsong Johnson

Dear Phillip, My Uncle Lieutenant Birdsong was KIA on April 10, 1945. I still meant everything I said above. The 10th is the 10th.

Mr. DePriest. My congratulations to you and your family on receiving the overdue posthumous award of the Silver star for your uncle’s service and sacrifice.

Regrettably I will not be able to attend the military honors scheduled to be afforded to your uncle Mr. Lawrence V. Blanchette on June 14, 2015 at Lincoln Cemetery. I truly wish I had been able to attend and join you and other well wishers ion this occasion and pay my personal respects to the life and legacy of this heroic American.

Vince Saunders Lt. Col. Ret. (126th ARW ILANG) 1st Vice President Chicago Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen

Does anyone know where a complete roster of all men who served in the 92nd Infantry Division in Italy? I am looking for an illusive relative, whose name I don’t know, but hot to match a name with a relative by the same name. Any suggestions are welcomed.

Ms. McLane: contact Dr. James Pratt 224 Cobb Street Groton, NY 13073 [email protected]

He is a valuable resource !

Another resource would be the National Archives in Maryland

Thank you, I will. I appreciate the prompt reply. AM

Does one have to go the the National Archives in Maryland or do they have an on-line search capacity or documents one can download from a website? Any idea?

Hello, You have a choice. You can go there to research your concerns or you can write and request the information. However, if you don’t know the name that may pose a challenge. They have research technicians but you need to provide information to lead the research. There is a book about Buffalo Soldiers in Italy. I don’t have the name of the author with me but I can get the info if you need it.

Niece of a Buffalo Soldier

May 29, 2015 May 29, 2015 Hello again,

The name of the book is : Buffalo Soldiers In Italy Black Americans in WWII by Hondon Hargrove

May 29, 2015 Hello Niece of a Buffalo Soldier. I am also the niece of a Buffalo Soldier. You may be able to download some information but only from a Military Archive Center. We have one in San Francisco, California where I was able to locate my Uncle’s Military ID Number. However, I could not get information on his Military Record because the center had records of only California Soldiers. It did have the appropriate forms that I needed to submit to the National Archives at College Park in Maryland along with the request. You can download those forms. There is a standarized form that you need to submit with request for information.

Be persistent and Good Luck,

June 11, 2015, Re: Ivan Houston Author BLACK WARRIORS Does anyone know How I can contact Mr. Houston who is the author of the above book, a memoir of his experiences as a WWII Buffalo Soldier.

Hello Jackie, Professor James Rada has forwarded your request. I can help you contact Mr. Houston. We have been working with Ivan J. Houston, author of Black Warrriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of WWII – on the documentary, With One Tied Hand ( http://pacificfilmfoundation.org ). The movie is nearing completion. Mr. Houston’s email address is [email protected] . I’m sure he would be delighted to speak with you. My email is [email protected] , and I would enjoy speaking with you, as well.

June 12, 2015

Hello Joe Hartnett, It is my pleasure to speak with you. i am a music historian and I am happy to hear that a Professor is involved with the 92nd Infantry WWII Association. I understand the importance of academia. My mom, Uncle Johnny’s only sibling, spoke of her brother once when I was a little girl. She never got over his “missing.” They had a lot of male cousins who spoke of his “missing” even until their deaths. He was the first to buy a brand new car in the family. I remember riding in it not long before his death. He suffered a nervous breakdown at the end of 1944. However, he didn’t stay home long because orders had been sent to upgrade from Sgt. to Second Lieutenant. His commanders wanted him to lead the 370th Reconnaissance & Intelligence Command which he did until he was killed while scouting for the enemy. When he first was sent to Italy he was in Second command of that Platoon. Between you and I the upgrade command was his death warrant. He was my surrogate father. He sent money monthly to my mom for the welfare of my brother and me. Prior to my mom’s death I wanted her to know whether or not his body was returned home. Unfortunately I received the information I sought after she died. The Silver Star that he received is not documented in his record and I am presently working to have it restored. He received the Star after he crossed the Arno river. The R&I Platoon was sent to Italy first to cross the river and bring back information on Germanic locations. The captain in charge somehow(the record does not explain how) became separated from my Uncle who completed the mission with a few men and brought back information to Command Headquarters. His record clearly states he was first to cross the river August 29-30 1944. In addition, after returning to the other side his record states he observed that one soldier was missing. Uncle Johnny crossed the river again by himself and safely brought the missing Soldier across. No Soldiers was lost during their first mission. Uncle Johnny was recommended and received the Legion Of Merit for Leadership. As far as I am concerned all Buffalo Soldiers should be awarded the Silver Star. Uncle Johnny’s military record continues to state his valor on other occasions, one which is stated by General Almond.

Thank you for your immediate response,

June 15, 2015

Dear Professor James Rada, I very much appreciate your attention, help, and concern.

Respectfully,

June 16, 2016 Thank you Ivan J. Houston, Uncle Johnny, and ALL Buffalo Soldiers for the safe -guarding of our home–AMERICA. Regardless whether you were an enlisted Soldier or an officer ENEMY WAR GUNS do not distinguish between the two. Out of Africa was a “One Way Ticket!” My bloodline is both African and Cherokee while my culture is African American. Thank you 92nd Infantry Division WWII Association and professors who are attentive and involved. Because we can’t afford to forget our HISTORY. We must read, write, reflect and safe-guard the truth even when others show the greatest DOUBT. Thank you ALL

July 1, 2015 Re: WAR Department Curriculum Needed at US Universities During the documentary, “One Tied Hand,” Ivan J. Houston asks, “When will the Buffalo Soldiers be recognized?” As a music student I studied with the Music Department. My uncle’s record and information concerning the 92nd WWII Infantry Division indicate to me that professional WAR studies are a need. For instance the 92nd was comprised of several Infantry Regiments and other battalions ALL under the insignia of “BUFFALO SOLDIERS!” My Uncle was with The Third Army prior to being transferred to the 92nd. To add more confusion the 92nd (WWII) was temporarily attached to The First Armored Division in Italy. At Headquarters he drove dignitaries around including the first woman congress woman who wrote to my mom upon his death. I know little of WAR that is opposite of music which is an aesthetic, however, it seems I may need to study WAR (smile). Dr. James Pratt ‘s research is a light for us all. He researches the 366th Infantry in which his father was a Captain. His work so far can be viewed at the Rare Book Department at Cornell University.

I was working as an as an archive intern at our library, where a patron had unearthed a basket full of letters from a bricked-over fireplace. They were primarily from Sgt. William “Ray” Whittaker to his girlfriend/wife Jane Dean Whittaker during 1942/1943 as he was stationed in Arizona and Alabama. He was medically discharged in 1943 and they subsequently moved to New Rochelle, NY. I feel like I have really gotten to know him through the huge stack of letters I went through, and I wish I could find of the rest of his story. I felt privileged to be a part of his history.

My name is Sergeant Major Irwin Whittington the son of Frank O’Dell Whittington, a Buffalo Soldier of I 365th Combat Infantry Regiment. He was an Anti-Aircraft Artillery Crewman from April 1942 to November 1945. I’m trying to research more about the war in Italy. His campaigns are Appenes and Po Valley. I’m excited to know he was a Buffalo Soldier and part of a special part of of history. I would love to know more

SGM Whittington

Is there any chance that my father’s uncle is in that photo? Walter “Pete” Archer. Died in Italy. He entered service in 1992 and after training, was assigned to 365th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Infantry division.

My grandfather was a Buffalo Soldier. Served 1940-46, Germany and Italy. Have a picture of him in his uniform with Buffalo on his scarf.

I was wondering if anyone on this site could help me find information about the circumstances surrounding death of my cousin SGT Green T. Tukes. He was killed in action in December 1944 while attached to the 92nd Infantry Division (Co. H. 366th Infantry Regiment). His death was particularly painful to our family because he was the last born male to have the Tukes surname. Although he had many sisters and female cousins, all married and passed down other names. He died long before I was born, but I learned of his service from stories told by my mother and her sister who were his younger first cousins. Unfortunately, they don’t recall much about how he died. To find out details, I formally requested information regarding his death from the Army, but after two years of waiting they only provided documents regarding the re-internment of his body from Italy back to the US. There was nothing on awards, previous assignments, promotions, medals, or how he died. Having this info would mean a lot to his relatives.

Dear Michele Hirsch, I am a fellow documentary filmmaker and friend of James Rada, the founder of this site. Our current documentary, WIth One Tied Hand (View Promotional Trailer here –

, describes the massacre by German troops of many soldiers of the 366th Infantry Regiment, possibly including your cousin. The tragedy occurred in the remote mountain village of Sommocolonia, Tuscany, Italy on Christmas Day, 1944. General Edward Almond, the racist commander of the 92nd Division, resented the pride and independence of the 366th, which was an all-Black unit including its officers (unlike the segregated 92nd Division, which had White officers at the top levels). Following Almond’s orders, the 366th was broken up, and many of its troops were sent to Sommocolonia in December 1944. Worse, despite the fact that a German attack was imminent, none of the 366th men were warned. A White officer was heard to say at the time, “Let them fend for themselves.” Historians and authors have repeatedly and diligently sought records of the 366th over the years, as did we on behalf of our film. At this point, we fear that these records were in fact destroyed at the end of World War II by one or more senior officers of the 92nd Division, with Almond being the prime suspect. I’m sorry I could not provide more, or more hopeful information. I believe that if SGT Green T. Tukes was there in Sommocolonia with the ill-fated men of the 366th that Christmas Day, 1944, he died in service to his country. If America didn’t or doesn’t deeply appreciate this, please know that I do. Kindest regards, Joe Hartnett, Director

Hi. My grandparents were rescued by Buffalo soldiers during WW2, in a small village close to the Gothic Line (Retignano). I hope somebody might know where I can find records of which soldiers were in my village during 1944/45. I really wish I could find them or their families to say thank you.

Lorenzo: I regret to say that I don’t know of any Veterans of the 92nd that are still with us. If you’re looking for records of where they fought, I would suggest contacting the Army War College.

Hello, I am looking into finding some information on my grandfather, Douglas Robinson from Virginia. His headstone says he was in the 370th Infantry Regiment and I later found out it was part of the 92nd Infantry Division. Any info would be appreciated.

Have you tried https://www.archives.gov/veterans

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Collection Veterans History Project Collection

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Personal Narrative Manuscript/Mixed Material Photo, Print, Drawing Audio Recording Rothacker Childs Smith Collection

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Veterans History Project Service Summary:

• War or Conflict: World War, 1939-1945
• Branch of Service: Army
• Service Unit/Ship: 366th Infantry Regiment
• Location of Service: Italy; European Theater
• Collection Number: AFC/2001/001/44158

View full service history

"Our regiment was a political football. We were trained for infantry, we were not supposed to be ready for combat, and they really did not know what to do with us." (Audio Interview, 1:11)

A conscientious objector, Rothacker Smith served in the 366th Infantry Regiment as a medic. The 366th shipped out to Italy but was assigned to guard duties, making Smith's life as a medic a fairly easy job. When they were attached to the 92nd Division in December 1944, he was called upon to use his training in combat. On December 26, he was wounded by friendly artillery fire that he later found out was called in by Medal of Honor recipient John Fox on his own position in Sommocolonia to stop an enemy advance. Smith was subsequently captured by the Germans and held until the end of the war. He attended the White House ceremony when Fox's widow received his medal from President Clinton.

Rothacker Childs Smith Collection Interview / Recording

• Play His unit, the 366th Infantry Regiment, was a political football: trained for infantry but not supposed to be ready for combat; was a conscientious objector and a medic; the 366th going to Italy to guard supplies and bases, so there was no combat and little need for his services. 00:00:48.0 - 00:02:15.2
• Play Attached to the 92nd, going on the front line; told by a general that he hadn't asked for them and didn't want them; ammunition was rationed; on Dec. 26, wounded by shrapnel; had to treat another soldier in worse shape; heard the German took no black prisoners, so he was sure he was going to die; more shelling; only later learned that the shelling was called in by a comrade, John Fox, on his own position, to slow the Germans; Fox received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously and Smith was at the ceremony; was taken prisoner by the Germans for several months. 00:03:10.2 - 00:09:48.8
• Play How he was wounded; after he was captured, being held in Sommocolonia; mortar shell injuring him and when he was being treated by a German medic, house next door hit by a 500-pound bomb; marched by Germans away from town; numb from the waist down and barely able to walk, counting off his progress in increments, knowing that if he stopped, he would be shot. 00:24:32.4 - 00:36:32.5

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About this Item

• Rothacker Childs Smith Collection
• Smith, Rothacker Childs
• Morna Battle
• Dixon, Minneola L.
• -  Smith, Rothacker Childs
• -  World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal Narratives
• -  United States. Army.
• -  Prisoner of War -- United States
• Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
• Black or African American

Service History

World war, 1939-1945.

• Dates of Service: 1943-1945
• Prisoner of War: Yes
• Entrance into Service: Drafted
• Military Status: veteran
• Service History Note: The veteran served as a medic with an all Black infantry regiment. In 07/1944, the regiment was attached to the 92nd Infantry Division, and engaged in combat for the first time.
• Audio: CD [1 item] -- Oral history interview (collected 2006-03-24; 1994-12-31)
• Manuscript: Transcript [1 item] -- Transcription of audio recording (collected 2006-03-24)
• Photograph: Copy photographic print [2 items] -- Portrait (collected 1945-1948)

Collection Number

• AFC/2001/001/44158

Online Format

• online text

Additional Metadata Formats

• METSXML Record

IIIF Presentation Manifest

• Manifest (JSON/LD)
• Buffalo Soldiers (9)
• Healing With Honor: Medical Support (16)
• Veterans History Project Collection (92,262)
• American Folklife Center (171,220)

Wars & Conflicts

• World War, 1939 to 1945

Service Branch

Location of service.

• European Theater

Service Unit/Ship

• 366th Infantry Regiment
• Prisoner of War

Highest Rank

Service entrance, discharge status, interviewee, interviewer, rights & access, using vhp material in publication or exhibition.

The Veterans History Project (VHP) at the Library of Congress collects, preserves and makes accessible the firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans who served from World War I through more recent conflicts and peacekeeping missions, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service. The Veterans History Project Collection includes oral histories along with documentary materials such as original letters, diaries, photographs, and memoirs.

Veterans and interviewers contribute these materials to the Library for scholarly and educational purposes, retaining any copyright they may hold. Therefore, permission must be obtained before using the interview or other materials in exhibition or publication. Researchers or others who would like to make further use of these materials should contact the Veterans History Project for assistance.

As a publicly supported institution, the Library generally does not own rights to material in its collections. Therefore, it does not charge permission fees for use of such material and cannot give or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item from the Library’s collections and for securing any necessary permissions rests with persons desiring to use the item.

Please contact us with questions.

Obtaining Copies of VHP Materials

In order for VHP materials to be duplicated, we must receive written permission from the interviewee for you to obtain a copy of the recording unless the proposed use is limited to personal use, research, or other uses permissible by copyright law. If the interviewee is deceased, their next-of-kin may grant written permission.

Please contact VHP for assistance if you need to contact a veteran for permission to use their materials in exhibition or publication, or if you have received permission from the veteran and need access to high-resolution copies of VHP collection materials.

Citing VHP Materials

Please use the following formats when citing Veterans History Project materials (substituting the appropriate name and collection ID number).

Materials as a whole:

• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Manuscript material:

• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Memoirs (MS02), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Transcript (MS04), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Correspondence (MS01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Audio recording (SR01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Video recording (MV01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Photograph:

• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Photographs (PH01), photographer unknown, Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Photographs (PH03-PH14), Ralph Williams photographer, Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Computer file:

• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Computer file (CF01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Artifact (AR01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Smith, Rothacker Childs, Morna Battle, and Minneola L Dixon. Rothacker Childs Smith Collection . 1943. Personal Narrative. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.44158/.

APA citation style:

Smith, R. C., Morna Battle & Dixon, M. L. (1943) Rothacker Childs Smith Collection . [Personal Narrative] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.44158/.

MLA citation style:

Smith, Rothacker Childs, Morna Battle, and Minneola L Dixon. Rothacker Childs Smith Collection . 1943. Personal Narrative. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.44158/>.