Local voices: Tell the whole story on black World War II veterans

March 16, 2016 10:30:07 AM

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After pacing the floor of my living room, clutching and reading an article by Mr. Rufus Ward in which he paints a vivid picture of the Southern hospitality visited upon the German prisoners of war interned in the camps at Aliceville, Alabama, during World War II, I thought, "Come, come, now Mr. Ward. Why not paint the whole picture, warts and all?"

In fact, the way these Nazi soldiers were treated relative to the black servicemen returning home to Aliceville during and after the war was downright gut-wrenching. But before I get into the meat of these despicable contradictions too often seen in the world that was then, allow me a few words on the pride I feel for these black servicemen fighting for a country that despised them.

Of the over 900,000 black servicemen enlisting and commissioned in World War II, many served as quartermasters, engineers, and in the transportation corps, including the famed Red Ball express which convoyed components and materials all over the European theater. Some served in the merchant marines. An exceptional body of them flew as bomber and fighter pilots and became the stuff of legend. Women were incredibly valuable in the nursing corp and in delivering the mail in the Central Postal Battalion. And of course, many saw grunt battle, becoming injured and lame for life, many dying in incredible and unheralded acts of heroism. But God, the way they were treated when they returned home, especially in the South!

I have read and heard of stories where black service people were greeted with jeers at the train depots. Indeed, on those very trains bearing those servicemen across the length and breadth, many had to ride on the cargo cars while the German prisoners rode in regular or even first class passenger accommodations. When these Nazis traveled under guard, the black MPs had to sit at the back while their detainees sat upfront. How humiliating it must have been for black soldiers to be singularly forced by their American white officers (as a matter of policy) to hold salute to German POWs, the very people they fought against to "make the world safe for democracy!" It was not uncommon for returning blacks serviceman to face beatings or worse when they wore their military uniforms in civilian settings. According to the book, "An American Atrocity," and an expose featured on "60 Minutes," several hundred black soldiers returning to McComb, and still clad in military fatigues, after serving their tour of duty, were mowed down by whites firing Tommy guns when they disembarked at a local terminal.

But the scene at the Aliceville POW prison camps strikes a shockingly lurid theme too familiar to those of us who know. At this camp, as in others mostly concentrated throughout the South, German soldiers were practically unguarded; they could practically come and go at their leisure. They were treated well at commercial venues, ate in restaurants, drank from fountains, and used restrooms not permitted to black servicemen. There were oft repeated stories of American servicemen having to give place in line, give up their seats, and move off sidewalks at the approach of German POWs. Eerily enough, it was these same American contradictions that the Nazi defense lawyers used to justify their ill-treatment of the Jews at the Nuremberg trials. These Nazi POWs were treated so fine that many chose not to go back to Germany after the war and to this day still live in Aliceville where they registered to vote, joined Civitans and Lions Clubs, went to Lutheran churches, and sent their children to public schools venomously barred to blacks.

I would respectfully urge Mr. Ward and others to tell the whole of the story of the South. I promise you, we can take it. Those who continue to white-wash and blatantly expurgate the history of the South only sew the seeds of disfavor for future generations. It brings to mind so much of what Fredrick Douglas said over 150 years ago, of those who wanted freedom without agitation: "They want crops without ploughing the fields; they want rain without lightning and thunder; they want the oceans without the roar of its many waters."

Jim Terry was a former city councilman in Columbus.