Black Rattlers in the Great War
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A summary of the WWI service of the 15th NY Infantry, the African American regiment that went on to fame as the "Harlem Hellfighters"
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Black Rattlers in the Great War
- 2. The 15th NY Infantry in the Great War, 1914-1918 Col. Richard Goldenberg New York National Guard
- 3. The 15th NY Mobilization Welcome to France All that Jazz In the Fight Battle of Henry Johnson Homecoming What did it achieve
- 15. • Leading NYC band leader in 1910 • Led 15th NY Regimental Band across 2,000 miles for performances across France “My success had come ... from a realization of the advantages of sticking to the music of my own people.”
Editor's Notes
- The biggest question leading up to 1917: Whose war was this anyway? When the US entered the war in April 1917, would African Americans be a part of the war effort?
- Over 350,000 African-Americans served overseas for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during the war. The African American community largely set aside the challenges of the homefront in order to earn the right of citizenship through combat. Not unlike many of the American immigrant communities. Would service eliminate discrimination? Most toiled away in important but menial positions—as stevedores, camp laborers, clerks. But between about 40,000 and 50,000 black American troops served under French commanders in the war, largely in the 93rd Division of the AEF, consisting of the 369th through the 372nd regiments. No black troops experienced as much combat as those assigned to the French military.
- Albany, NY and NYS have unique contributions to the Great War, especially for African Americans. But other historical highlights include the famous 42nd Rainbow Division, created in NY. The 69th Infantry, the famed Irish Regiment of NYC. The 7th “Silk Stocking” Regiment of midtown and the draftee 77th Division.
- With the election in 1914 of the Republican and Union League Club member Charles Seymour Whitman as governor of New York, the prospects of the regiment movement improved. Two years would pass, however, before the approaching war and manpower shortages in the New York National Guard provided Whitman the opening to act on the 1913 law. In May 1916 he announced his intention and by June the seemingly impossible had been realized, but not without disappointing terms—a white commander and an almost all-white officer cadre would lead the unit. Yet, if the commander had to be white, William Hayward—a native Nebraskan, Public Service Commissioner, Union League Club member, and close friend of the governor—was an ideal choice. For the most part, he lived up to his belief that blacks “ought to be given an opportunity to shine in the National Guard without prejudice.”[9] Many more blacks viewed the war as an opportunity for victory at home and abroad. W.E.B. Du Bois, a founder of the NAACP in 1909, urged his fellow African Americans to “Close Ranks” in a (now infamous) piece he wrote for the Crisis in July 1918, despite the persistent segregation of black officers at training camp. “Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy,” Du Bois advised. Prior to WWI, nearly 90 percent of all African Americans lived in the Southern United States in the shadow of slavery, with most working the same lands that their forbearers had toiled in as human chattel. These newly arrived transplants to the northern industrial centers helped establish a foundation for the future social, economic and political infrastructures needed for the development of a powerful black middle-class. As such, they became capable of challenging the stifling system of oppression and Jim Crow segregation responsible for impeding the advancement of the community. Recruits for the 15th NY came from across NYC, NYS and the northeast. Including Henry Johnson, 5’4” an d130 pounds, who took the train down to Harlem to enlist in June 1917.
- Black Rattlers “The French called them the ‘Men of Bronze’ out of respect, and the Germans called them the ‘Harlem Hellfighters’ out of fear,” explains Max Brooks, author of The Harlem Hellfighters, a new graphic novel about the first African-American infantry unit to fight in World War I.
- Newly formed the regiment had some 3,000 Soldiers, including some African American Officers. Not entirely unique. In Massachusetts, the 26th Yankee Division also had Boston’s African-American unit, Company L, 372nd Infantry, which was separated during mobilization and fought with the French army and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for collective unit gallantry. Like the 369th, the 372nd was part of the 93rd Colored Division. Although organized as an all-black division for the war, these regiments did not fight as one. Instead, each was assigned to French divisions, as the French were requesting the immediate use of American divisions to reinforce the French army. Each of the regiments took part in major combat operations and received battlefield accolades for their service with the French army.
- The recruitment took place in Harlem, New York. The battalion trained at Camp Whitman (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.); guard duty in New York City; in further training in South Carolina; shipped overseas 27 December 1917; Called into Federal service on 25 July 1917 at Camp Whitman, New York. While at Camp Whitman, the 369th Infantry learned basic military practices. These basics included military courtesy, how to address officers and how to salute. Along with these basics they also learned how to stay low and out of sight during attacks, stand guard and how to march in formation. After their training at Camp Whitman, the 369th was called into active duty in New York. While in New York, the 369th was split into three battalions in which they guarded rail lines, construction sites and other camps throughout New York. Then on 8 October 1917 the Regiment traveled to Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where they received training in actual combat. Camp Wadsworth was set up similar to the French battlefields. While at Camp Wadsworth they experienced significant racism from the local communities and from other units. There was one incident in which two soldiers from the 15th Regiment, Lieutenant Europe and Noble Sissle, were refused by the owner of a shop when they attempted to buy a newspaper. Several soldiers from the white, 27th Division came to aid their fellow soldiers. Lieutenant Europe had commanded them to leave before violence erupted. There were many other shops that refused to sell goods to the members of the 15th Regiment, so members of the 27th and 71st Divisions told the shop owners that if they did not serve black soldiers that they can close their stores and leave town. The white soldiers then stated "They're our buddies. And we won't buy from men who treat them unfairly." In December 1917, when Colonel Hayward's men had departed from New York City, they had not been permitted to participate in the farewell parade of New York's National Guard, the so-called Rainbow division. The reason Hayward was given was that "black is not a color in the Rainbow."
- Actually, Hamilton Fish, Jr., had almost not become a soldier. He came from a dyed-in-the-wool Republican political family and hailed from the same district as his later “friend” and bitter foe, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His great grandfather, Nicholas Fish, was a colonel in the Revolutionary War, the first Adjutant General of the State of New York, the first Supervisor of Revenue in New York, and, as he told it, “An intimate friend of Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton.” His grandfather, also named Hamilton Fish, was a member of the House of Representatives, Lieutenant Governor and Governor of New York, one of its two U.S. Senators, and U.S. Secretary of State under President Ulysses S. Grant. Our Hamilton Fish was born in Garrison, NY on December 7, 1888, while his father—also named Hamilton Fish—was Speaker of the New York Assembly at the state capital of Albany as well as a member of Congress. Our “Ham” Fish attended St. Mark’s School and graduated from Harvard University (as did FDR) at the age of 20 with a cum laude degree in political science. He was offered an appointment to teach government and history at Harvard, “which I regretfully declined,” he noted. As he added later, he was proud of his pre-World War I heritage and record, and had every right to be: “I am directly descended from Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam, and Louis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Robert Livingston, the first Lord of the Manor, and of Thomas Hooker.” (His later nemesis, FDR, was also of Dutch descent.) “I had served for two years in the National Guard,” he remembered later, “training at Plattsburg, N.Y., while I was an Assemblyman in the New York State legislature. My commanding officers were impressed by my performance and recommended that I be promoted to captain. An examination was required to achieve the promotion, but I had studied the drill regulations extensively and knew I could pass the exam.… “On the day of the examination, I was met by a major I did not know who himself had not been made captain until he was well over 50 years old. He asked me a number of questions that had nothing to do with military training and declared me too young for a captaincy. Fish ran into Colonel William Hayward of the National Guard, who was then organizing an all-black regiment to train for combat duty in France. “He asked me if I wanted to join the Regiment as a captain. I accepted his offer on the spot and became one of the first officers of what was later designated the 369th Infantry Regiment, the famed Harlem Hell Fighters.”
- "40 hommes ou 8 chevaux" is French for "40 men or 8 horses," which indicated the capacity of the railcar. American soldiers became acquainted with these cars in the First World War, when they were used extensively to transport troops to the front.
- When the African American National Guard Soldiers of New York's 15th Infantry Regiment arrived in France in December 1917, they expected to conduct combat training and enter the trenches of the Western Front right away. They could not have been more wrong. The black troops were ordered to unload supply ships at the docks for their first months in France, joining the mass of supply troops known as stevedores, working long hours in the port at St. Nazaire. “We had been trained to fight as soldiers, not to work as laborers, and all of us were anxious to get to the front lines, but the American military command was reluctant to integrate the armed forces by assigning black troops to white regiments. -- CPT Fish
- The African American regiment was a quick and easy source of labor, according to author Stephen Harris in his 2003 book, "Harlem's Hell Fighters." "First, Pershing would have a source of cheap labor," Harris wrote. "Second, he wouldn't have to worry about what to do with black Soldiers, particularly when he might have to mix them in with white troops." But officers, leaders and the combat Soldiers had not signed up for labor. They were committed to fighting the Germans and winning the war. "They had no place to put the regiment," said infantry Capt. Hamilton Fish, according to the Harris book. "They weren't going to put us in a white division, not in 1917, anyway; so our troops were sent in to the supply and services as laborers to lay railroad tracks. This naturally upset our men tremendously."
- What to do with black soldiers generally once they were trained bedeviled leadership. AEF commander General John J. Pershing and others refused to integrate the armed services, and military leaders struggled with how to assign the 93rd Division. By assigning it to the French army, Pershing fulfilled a pledge to supply combat regiments to the French, while also freeing “himself from the dilemma of how to use the African-American fighting regiments of the provisional 93rd,” The regiment's best advocate was their commander, Col. William Hayward. "It was time for us to try to do something towards extricating ourselves from the dirty mess of pick-swinging and wheel barrel trundling that we were in," Hayward had said to Capt. Arthur Little, according to Jeffrey Sammons in his 2014 book "Harlem's Rattlers and the Great War." "We had come to France as combat troops, and, apparently, we were in danger of becoming labor troops," Hayward said. Hayward argued his case in a letter to General Pershing, outlining the regiments' mobilization and training, and followed up immediately with a personal visit to Pershing's headquarters. He would bring with him the regiment's most formidable weapon in swaying opinion: the regimental band, lauded as one of the finest in the entire Expeditionary Force.
- Initial training on the wear and use of French gas masks for the 369th. The American mask had a nose clip that did not fit will with the black troops.
- While the regiment literally laid the tracks for the arrival of the two million troops deploying to France, the regimental band toured the region, performing for French and American audiences at rest centers and hospitals. The 369th Band was unlike any other performance audiences had seen or heard before, noted Harris. The regimental band is credited with introducing jazz music to France during the war. The military band would frequently perform a French march, followed by traditional band scores such as John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever." "And then came the fireworks," said Sgt. Noble Sissle, band vocalist and organizer, in the Harris account, as the 369th Band would play as if they were in a jazz club back in Harlem.
- Noble Sissle, a well-known musician in the band, “when the band had finished and people were roaring with laughter, their faces wreathed in smiles, I was force to say that this is just what France needs at this critical time.” Parisians’ enthusiasm for big band jazz soon developed into a fascination with African American music, art, and literature that fueled the creation of a vibrant expatriate community of black artists and intellectuals after the war.
- After some three months of labor constructing nearby railways to move supplies forward, the Soldiers learned that they had orders to join the French 16th Division for three weeks of combat training. They also learned they had a new regimental number as the now-renamed 369th Infantry Regiment. Not that it mattered much to the Soldiers; they still carried their nickname from New York, the Black Rattlers, and carried their regimental flag of the 15th New York Infantry everywhere they went in France.
- Col. Hayward summed up his situation this way, “we are les enfants perdus (the lost children) and glad of it. Our great American general simply put the black orphan in the basket and set it on the doorstep of the French, pulled the bell and went away.’ Hayward said this to a French colonel with an “English spoken here” sign on him, and he commented back, “weelcome leetle black babie.”
- The Rattlers soon had to turn in their American equipment and arms, including their Springfield model 1902 rifles. In return they received the French Lebel rifles, which the men regarded as an inferior weapon. French rations took time to adjust to as well, with large amounts of soup and bread rather than meat and vegetables. The wine ration was welcomed, although perhaps too enthusiastically at first. French Soldiers were more accustomed to watering their wine with water. The Americans, unused to wine on a daily basis, encountered a few incidents early on of drunken wild shooting, and the wine rations soon stopped.
- While the 369th Infantry would become part of the U.S. Army's 92nd Infantry Division, it would be assigned to fight with French forces. This solved the dilemma for Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces of what to do with the African-American troops. The black troops would see combat, but alongside French forces, who were already accustomed to the many races and ethnicities already serving in the ranks of their colonial troops. "The French army instructors literally welcomed their African American trainees as comrades in arms," Sammons wrote. "To the pragmatic French army instructors, the Soldiers were Americans, black Americans, to be trained for combat within their ranks. The trainees clearly excelled at their tasks." After learning valuable lessons in trench warfare from their French partners, the Soldiers of the 369th finally had their chance to prove their worth as combat troops when they entered the front lines, holding their line against the last German spring offensive near Chateau-Thierry.
- “French rifles, helmets, belts and canteens that had no water but, much to the delight of the men, were filled with French wine. After a month or so, we were judged ready to fight … and assigned to the French 4th Army under the command of the famous one-armed French Gen. Gouraud, with whom I became quite friendly, thanks to my fluency in French.” – CPT Fish
- the Colored Officers Training Camp (COTC). These men were to lead units in the all-black 92nd, one of two lone divisions reserved for black combatants. Accommodating 1,250 candidates between the ages of twenty-five and forty, the camp was supported by General Leonard Wood (1860-1927) and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker (1871-1937).[13] Of the African American men selected, a great majority came from black colleges and universities, such as Howard University, Hampton Agricultural and Industrial Institute, Lincoln University, Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and Morgan College. Under the direction of General Charles Ballou (1862-1928), the COTC candidates were trained to endure the physical and mental rigors of war. Ballou insisted that “strong bodies, keen intelligence, absolute obedience to order, unflagging industry, exemplary conduct, and character of the highest order” were required for success.[14] Yet, even with their college training, commitment to the war effort and the endorsement of officials in Washington, whites resisted the implications of the “so-called Negro” being capable of leadership, courage and bravery under fire.
- Former President Theodore Roosevelt called Johnson one of the “five bravest Americans” to serve in World War I. While standing watch in the Argonne Forest in May 1918, two 369th soldiers, Pvt. Henry Johnson and Pvt. Needham Roberts, were attacked by a 12-man German raiding party. Outnumbered and under fire, the two men fought off the initial attack, but after Roberts was badly wounded. Johnson remained with the injured soldier to keep him from being taken prisoner by the Germans. MoH in June 2015. ‘The least we can do is to say we know who you are, we know what you did for us, we are forever grateful,’ Obama said
- Pvt. Henry Johnson served as a member of Company C, 369th Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division, American Expeditionary Forces, during combat operations against the enemy on the front lines of the Western Front in France. While on night sentry duty, May 15, 1918, Johnson and a fellow Soldier, Pvt. Needham Roberts, received a surprise attack by a German raiding party consisting of at least 12 soldiers. While under intense enemy fire and despite receiving significant wounds, Johnson mounted a brave retaliation resulting in several enemy casualties. When his fellow Soldier was badly wounded, Johnson prevented him from being taken prisoner by German forces. Johnson exposed himself to grave danger by advancing from his position to engage an enemy soldier in hand-to-hand combat. Wielding only a knife and being seriously wounded, Johnson continued fighting, took his Bolo knife and stabbed it through an enemy soldier's head. Displaying great courage, Johnson held back the enemy force until they retreated. The enemy raid's failure to secure prisoners was due to the bravery and resistance of Johnson and his fellow comrade. The effect of their fierce fighting resulted in the increased vigilance and confidence of the 369th Infantry Regiment. The "Our Colored Heroes" lithograph, published by E.G. Renesch in 1918, depicts the German raid on then-Pvt. Henry Johnson and Pvt. Needham Roberts during World War I. The lithograph quotes Gen. Pershing, who praises the two African American sentries, who "continued fighting after receiving wounds and despite the use of grenades by a superior force." (Image courtesy of the Tennessee State Library and Archives)
- So by the end of the 369th Infantry's campaign in World War 1 they were present in the Champagne – Marne, Meuse – Argonne, Champagne 1918, Alsace 1918 campaigns in which they suffered nearly 1500 casualties. The 369th also fought in distinguished battles such as Belleau Wood and Chateau-Thiery. American troops arrived in Europe at a crucial moment in the war. Russia had just signed an armistice with Germany in December 1917 freeing Germany to concentrate her troops on the Western Front. If Germany could stage a huge offensive before Americans came to the aid of her war-weary allies, Germany could win the war. The 369th Infantry helped to repel the German offensive and to launch a counteroffensive. General John J. Pershing assigned the 369th to the 16th Division of the French Army. With the French, the Harlem Hellfighters fought at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood. All told they spent 191 days in combat, longer than any other American unit in the war. The 369th first saw combat in May 1918 and served in the trenches against German troops until July 3, 1918. After a brief period of relief, the 369th was put back into combat during the Second Battle of the Marne. While fighting in the trenches, German propaganda pamphlets were dropped on the 369th, asking why black Americans fight for people that discriminate against them, tempting them to join the German war effort. "My men never retire, they go forward or they die," said Colonel Hayward. Indeed, the 369th was the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine.
- 1st Lt. George S. Robb would also earn the Medal of Honor for his valor displayed in the fields of France. Despite being severely wounded several time while leading his platoon near Sechault, France, Robb displayed courage and tenacity by remaining with his platoon. When his commanding officer was killed, he assumed command of the entire company and continued to take out machine gun nests and sniping posts, greatly contributing to his battalion completing their objective. During World War I, the unit was credited with campaign participation in Champagne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Champagne 1918, Alsace 1918, and Lorraine 1918, earning a regimental French Croix de Guerre with Silver Star and Streamer, and more than 170 individual Croix de Guerre medals.
- On September 25, 1918 the French 4th Army went on the offensive in conjunction with the American drive in the Meuse-Argonne. The Harlem Hellfighters turned in a good account of itself in heavy fighting, sustaining severe losses. They captured the important village of Séchault. At one point the 369th advanced faster than French troops on their right and left flanks. There was danger of being cut off. By the time the regiment pulled back for reorganization, it had advanced fourteen kilometers through severe German resistance. Spending over six months in combat, perhaps the longest of any American unit in the war, the 369th suffered approximately fifteen hundred casualties but received only nine hundred replacements. The poor replacement system coupled with no respite from the line took its toll, leaving the unit exhausted by the armistice in November. “After a brutal struggle during which heavy casualties were sustained, Sechault was taken and the 369th dug in to consolidate their advance position. The action depicted earned the (French) Croix de Guerre for the entire Regiment, but the Meuse-Argonne claimed nearly one-third of these black fighting men as casualties. This distinguished National Guard Regiment left its proud mark on the AEF as “The Regiment that never lost a man captured, a trench or a foot of ground.” As for Fish, he recalled, “I rushed back to my company, just in time for the fighting, which raged incessantly for the next 48 hours in a horrifying exchange of machinegun and artillery fire. When it was all over, 30% of my Regiment had suffered casualties. For my part in the battle, I was awarded the Silver Star. The citation read: “‘… Constantly exposed to enemy machinegun and artillery fire, his undaunted courage and utter disregard for his own safety inspired the men of the regiment, encouraging them to determined attacks upon strong enemy forces. Under heavy enemy fire, he assisted in rescuing many wounded men and also directed and assisted in the laborious task of carrying rations over shell-swept areas to the exhausted troops.’”
- Melville Miller was 16 when he joined the Harlem Hellfighters, which was first formed as the 15th New York National Guard regiment. Decades after World War I, he could still recall marching through formerly German-occupied territory. "That day, the sun was shining, and we were marching. And the band was playing," Miller told an interviewer for the 1977 documentary Men of Bronze. "Everybody's head [was] high, and we were all proud to be Americans, proud to be black, and proud to be in the 15th New York Infantry."
- The praise he had received only served to heighten his sense of grievance for the way he and his buddies had been treated during the war – the way his people had always been and still were being treated. In March, he went to St. Louis as the star attraction of a program celebrating Negro contributions to the war effort. A series of “Colored preachers” began by calling for a new age of “equanimity” between the races -- equanimity as distinguished from equality. Then Johnson stepped up and delivered a “barrage.” War propaganda was a lie. There was no racial comradeship at the front. White troops refused to fight alongside blacks, not only because they were bigots but because they were cowards. “When it came to real fighting the Negroes were sent in,” not just because of their courage or skill, but because white officers wanted them dead: “Send the niggers to the front and there won’t be so many around New York.” The accusation may have been excessive and inaccurate, but the grievance it expressed was well-founded. The war had made Henry Johnson a hero, but it wasn’t his war, and it wasn’t a black man’s war. Look at what white men made out of it, he said, and see what little was conceded to black men: “If I was a white man I would be the next governor of New York.” The reaction in the hall was fierce. Some of the preachers apologized for Johnson’s “bitter and vindictive” speech. But “More than 5,000 negroes cheered, kissed, and fairly carried ... Sergt. Henry Johnson, negro hero, around the Coliseum.” The black press endorsed Johnson’s speech. The New Orleans Crusader printed a piece on the Hell Fighters titled “Fighting the Savage Hun and Treacherous Cracker ... [The] ‘Hell Fighters’ might as well have been fighting the [American Army] for all the support they received from it.”
- Even before the war concluded, thousands joined civil rights organizations to push for racial equality—from 1917 to 1919, the NAACP expanded its ranks sixfold. More militant veterans allied with the League for Democracy, organized by and for black veterans as a means to promote racial equality and democracy. The government took a dim view of the organization, including it in a 1919 report entitled “Negro Subversion.” In cities like Washington, D.C., Omaha, Nebraska and Chicago, Illinois, riots broke out when African Americans challenged their previous status as holdovers from slavery. Unwilling to back down from threats of violence, African American men who were trained to fight and defend themselves on the battlefield fought back against attempts to return them to their previous condition as defenseless human chattel. In the end, DuBois captured the attitude of black World War I veterans best in his 1919 poem, “Returning Soldiers”: We return We return from fighting We return fighting
- In February of 1919, the Harlem Hellfighters returned to New York for a parade up Fifth Avenue, where thousands lined up to cheer for a regiment that had amassed a record of bravery and achievement. Among the nearly 3,000 troops was a small man leading the procession from the convalescents’ section: Promoted to sergeant, Henry Johnson stood in the lead car, an open-top Cadillac, waving a handful of red lilies as the crowd shouted, “Oh, you Black Death!” along the seven-mile route. The Hellfighters’ arrival in Harlem “threw the population into hysterics,” the New York Times reported. Henry Johnson. Upon his discharge, the Army used Johnson’s image to recruit new soldiers and to sell Victory War Stamps. (“Henry Johnson licked a dozen Germans. How many stamps have you licked?”) He made it back home to Albany, New York, and resumed his job as a Red Cap porter at the train station, but he never could overcome his injuries—his left foot had been shattered, and a metal plate held it together. Johnson’s inability to hold down a job led him to the bottle. It didn’t take long for his wife and three children to leave. He died, destitute, in 1929 at age 32. As far as anyone knew, he was buried in a pauper’s field in Albany. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, a truth lost to history until his grave was rediscovered in the year 2002. In 1924, Needham Roberts was captured for wearing his uniform after he had been released from hospital. In 1928, he was arrested for a sex wrongdoing. He crossed paths with the law again in the late 1940s, when he was blamed for molesting an 8-year-old young lady. Roberts and his second wife hanged themselves in the year 1949.