The Harlem Hellfighters

by Walter Dean Myers

  “He told us of a time when he and another private ran out into the open, lifted a soldier who had been badly wounded on a stretcher, and started back to the French-American lines. They hadn’t gone but a few feet when his partner was killed. Daddy dragged the stretcher as the wounded man held on for dear life. Somehow they made it back safely.”

  Many times neither the wounded nor those trying to help them made it back to the safety of the trenches. The losses of the 369th grew larger each day. So did its pride.

  For the next month the French and the Americans pushed the Germans slowly backward, with both sides taking considerable losses. The 369th was gassed a number of times, and the constant fighting was taking a toll on morale. But the German prisoners—and there were thousands being captured—were equally despondent. The 369th had not lost any of its men as prisoners, although there had been close calls.

  On the night of August 17, 1918, a small group of soldiers from the 369th was in the frontline trenches, unable to move back to the safer reserve trenches due to the intensity of the shelling. Then there was a lull in the shelling, and the men considered moving back when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a German squad.

  They were quickly disarmed and hustled forward, prodded by the muzzles of the Germans’ pistols. As they stumbled forward through the darkness, they neared a concealed Allied listening post. Inside the post was Sergeant William Butler, of Salisbury, Maryland. A slight, soft-spoken man, Butler had done odd jobs before joining the army. He had adapted well to the discipline and rigors of army life and had raised himself to the position of sergeant.

  Formation at Maffrecourt

  Butler allowed the Germans and their black prisoners to come near enough for him to see them clearly. He quickly devised a plan that, while putting his own life in danger, would have the best chance of rescuing the members of his company. If he attacked hard enough, and with enough ferocity, he could take advantage of the darkness and the confusion of combat. He took a deep breath, shouted a warning, and opened fire.

  The Germans, knowing that they were in the vicinity of the black Americans and not knowing how many they were facing, began an immediate withdrawal. Butler allowed the men from the 369th a few seconds to disengage themselves from the Germans before he opened fire again. How many Germans were killed by Butler is uncertain, but because of him the 369th’s record of never losing a man as a prisoner was intact. He was yet another hero of the regiment.

  With the failure of the German offensive in the summer of 1918, the outcome of the war was certain. The Allies had fresh American soldiers and were being backed by an American economy that hadn’t been drained by years of supporting the war effort. Still, the German military would not concede defeat. As the fighting continued, diplomats on both sides began tentative discussions of terms for a surrender as the fighting went on. The war that had already seen millions killed, and had caused so much suffering, continued to claim victims.

  Casualties mounted quickly

  The Germans, at this point in the conflict, knew that they could not win the war. Their only hope was to strengthen their position at the peace talks. The Central Powers had been the aggressors and reasoned that the Allies would demand a high price to stop the bloodshed.

  14

  THE BATTLE OF MEUSE-ARGONNE

  September 1918

  The Allied offensive in the Meuse-Argonne region was designed to push the Germans back beyond their forward supply lines. The 369th Infantry, still attached to the French, would be a vital part of that push. Arthur Little, now a major, received orders to move the 1st Battalion into position. All along the front it was the Allies who were on the offensive, and they were taking a great many casualties. To the north the 372nd was engaged in heavy fighting and losing a lot of men.

  The Germans had retreated, abandoning the trenches they had occupied. Some German positions had been quickly overrun by forward troops, and the men of the 369th saw a stream of enemy prisoners being taken into Allied lines. The prisoners looked tired and weary of war.

  The land between the forces had been ripped up by years of artillery bombardment, which made pushing the heavy cannons almost impossible. Mules, horses, and men were used to nudge the huge guns forward through the heavy mud. There were trenches to go over, plus miles of barbed wire, much of it hidden in the mud, and the bodies of the dead.

  The trenches were particularly dangerous, for the Germans knew exactly where they were and could zero their artillery with amazing accuracy on the twisting lines. Major Little found the bodies of a dozen men from the 2nd Battalion who had taken an enemy trench only to be killed when the shelling began. Still, his men moved forward.

  The 1st Battalion was in the third wave of attackers, just out of range of the small-arms fire but subjected to the heavy shells of the cannons.

  September 28

  During the early hours the 2nd Battalion attacked the ridge at Bellevue Signal along with two French battalions. They took the ridge, but at an enormous cost. The wounded were being carried back through the lines to get what medical treatment they could. When it was possible, the dead were buried in shallow graves, with the hope that their bodies would later be recovered.

  The 1st Battalion was due to move to the front lines. On the twenty-eighth they sat in whatever cover they could find and endured the steady rain. Their tents were made in two halves, with wooden pins to fasten them to the ground. The men took the halves and pinned them down over narrow portions of trenches to keep as much of the rain out as possible.

  Looking across no-man’s-land toward the enemy

  September 29

  The 1st Battalion moved up to the Bellevue Signal Ridge and relieved a French unit. After assembling in the grim darkness of the early morning, they checked their equipment and prepared to go over the top. Their orders were to move toward and take the town of Sechault.

  Sechault is a small town with neat, multistoried houses laid out in straight rows. It was surrounded by relatively flat land that would not conceal their movements. Major Little knew that the Germans had occupied the city and were ready to defend it. The enemy would know the layout of Sechault better than the men of the 369th and would have a plan of defense ready. If the 369th could take the city, the cost would be high. But Little had been given orders to do exactly that, and as day began to break, the Harlem fighters moved out.

  Silhouetted against the sunlight, they soon came under enemy artillery fire. The flat lands surrounding the town were a nightmare. The men, crouching low and running as quickly as they could under the weight of their equipment, could only pray that they would not be hit by artillery shells.

  Once within the town’s borders the men began working their way through the streets. Heavy machine guns often have a range of more than a mile. The German machine gunners aimed their weapons down the relatively wide avenues of Sechault, daring any man to cross them. Soldiers began to time the firing as the guns sprayed death from side to side.

  Combat map showing position of the 369th

  The fighting raged all day, with the men of the 369th measuring their success through the town in yards. There were Germans in the town itself, left to defend their positions or die.

  As the evening wore on, a German plane circled overhead, diving now and again to spot the positions of the invading battalions. A number of the 1st Battalion’s officers had been wounded. Scouts reported that the 2nd Battalion was down to about half strength, and enemy activity at the north end of the town might mean a counterattack.

  Night fell swiftly. Sechault was dark except for burning buildings here and there. The town was still being raked by machine-gun fire and artillery shells; the constant booming of the big guns and the subsequent explosions continued into the night. The Germans sent up flares. First there would be the silent, dim trace of a glowing object as it headed high over the town; then there would be the explosion of the flare into a brilliant light arcing across the dark sky, making the area below almost daylight bri
ght for several seconds before the flare fell to the ground. Each time a flare went up, the men would look down to keep the light from reflecting off their faces.

  That night the Germans didn’t know if the men had stayed in the town or had retreated. The 369th had moved into a series of irregular trenches around the town to avoid the pinpoint accuracy of the German guns. Major Little told his men to resist firing into the darkness, to keep their positions hidden.

  The Germans remaining in Sechault, as well as the Americans, were within the gun sights of German machine gunners firing from as much as a mile away. But slowly, methodically, the men of the 369th silenced the guns within the town. It was September 30.

  The cost of war

  Dozens of men lay dead or wounded, thousands of miles from home, in a town whose name few knew even as they attacked. The battalion was now at less than two-thirds strength. Just beyond Sechault several companies were trying to push their way into the Argonne Forest. The Germans were masters of defending wooded areas, and from the hastily set up command post on the edge of Sechault the German machine-gun fire could be seen flashing like angry fireflies through the trees. There were instant reports of even more casualties, and Major Little commanded his men to retreat. He called for supporting artillery fire, knowing it would do little good in the heavily bunkered woods.

  Burying the dead

  The Allies sent up observation balloons. Major Little described what happened to one of them: “One day a Boche [German] plane came over, pounced down out of a cloud, set fire to our observation balloon, shot and killed with machine guns the poor observer who leaped from the flaming balloon and was peacefully descending in his parachute. This Boche scoundrel then came still lower and darted over our headquarters so low that some of the men threw stones at him, having no time to run and get rifles which were a few rods away.”

  The 369th pushed forward, and no man present could escape witnessing the carnage. Major Little reported the results of the attack:

  The French commemorate American dead

  “There were many gruesome sights continually before us. I noticed that our men and the French, when killed, generally cuddled up in a heap. The Boche, however, was all sprawled out. Maybe because we were always attacking and most of the time crouched down…. We crossed a small cemetery, used until a few weeks before the attack by the civilian community. Our artillery and theirs had pounded this spot until the graves were literally blown out of the spot.”

  After the attack on Sechault and the first bloody assault on the forests west of the city, Major Little was informed that the attack had been a success and was asked to resume the assault. The major looked around at the wounded men being treated and the bodies being stacked for burial. He felt sick at the loss of life around him.

  Yes, they would advance if ordered, Little replied; but he felt the cost would be extremely high and said as much in his message.

  The barrage by the big guns continued until evening, when the men were ordered to cease the attack. The killing had stopped for the day.

  The fighting continued through all of October, with both sides aware that it would soon be over. The 369th moved to the Vosges Mountains, a few miles from the German border, to prepare for the next attack. They were shelled daily, but sustained few casualties until the twenty-eighth of the month, when four men were killed and eight more wounded.

  The men were tired. Many of their friends—their fellow soldiers, black and white—had been killed and buried in shallow graves throughout France. But they had triumphed. They had been part of the Allied force that had defeated the mighty German army. Needham Roberts and Henry Johnson had been awarded the Croix de Guerre. The entire 369th had also won the French award as a fighting unit.

  They had come from the streets of New York, from Trenton, from Albany. They had been nearly invisible as porters and clerks and factory workers. Now the entire world knew who they were. They were the black heroes of the 15th, the Harlem Hellfighters.

  On November 11, all the rumors and press reports proved to be true. An armistice had been declared; the fighting had ended.

  The 369th marched proudly into Germany. They were victors in an unbelievably bloody and useless war. None of the designs of the aggressors had been successful; more than ten million humans had lost their lives, and countless more would suffer for decades to come.

  Don V. Estill (circled) plays clarinet with the James Reese Europe Band

  Harlem Hellfighters

  But the men from Harlem had shown their bravery, their patriotism, and their abilities. As they marched through the streets of Germany and France, and the band under James Reese Europe played American melodies to crowds weary of war, they knew what they had done, and were proud of their accomplishments both as African Americans and as men.

  Don V. Estill, who had served as a medic and spent much of the war dashing through no-man’s-land, avoiding instant death, now joined Europe’s band as a musician. He was thankful for the end of the killing and, finally, the end of the war.

  15

  THE PARADE

  As the men of the 369th returned from the front, there was no mistaking what they had accomplished. They had confronted the enemy and had prevailed. And they had done so without losing a man to the enemy as a prisoner and without giving up an inch of ground. They were the Harlem Hellfighters.

  In a small town in France a white American military policeman saw French girls kissing the black soldiers and ordered the men, who had been marching in casual formation through the town, back into the middle of the street.

  “Who won the war?” the soldiers asked. “Who won the war?”

  The Allies had won the war, and the 369th had been an integral part of that effort. They had fought and bled and died in the woods and the fields and the towns of France. If the world was now safe for democracy, they had helped make it so.

  “Who won the war?” they asked again.

  Soldiers were welcomed by the French

  The 369th arrived at Camp Pontanezen, which was used as an embarkation camp, in mid-January. The men were tired, their job was finished; but for two weeks they were given petty labor jobs, once again reduced to doing service jobs while white troops waiting for embarkation relaxed. The company officers knew the men were on edge and warned them not to mar their record at this late date, and they didn’t. Finally the orders came for them to leave, and on January 31, 1919, they marched to the pier. James Reese Europe’s band played as the men boarded the small boats that brought them to the ships that would take them home.

  Salvation Army workers with the troops

  James Reese Europe and band headed for home.

  On February 17, 1919, the 369th was in parade formation on Twenty-third Street in New York City. At eleven o’clock in the morning Colonel Hayward gave the order the men had been waiting for.

  “Forward, march!”

  Black soldiers—triumphant!

  Proud spectators.

  Parade in New York City

  Parade in New York City

  Harlem celebrates its young heroes.

  They marched up Fifth Avenue from Twenty-third Street. Thousands of cheering New Yorkers on their lunch hour filled the sidewalks and applauded wildly as the soldiers marched past them.

  The entertainer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson marched with them for a part of the way. The band played, and the men marched smartly in the bright sunlight. Then they reached Harlem.

  Harlem was so proud

  Children welcome the marchers

  They had fought for the country’s pride and for their own, for world democracy and for their own share of it. Now they marched proudly through the streets from which many of them had come. Harlemites were cheering, and some were crying. Wounded vets, some with missing limbs, saluted as their fellow soldiers passed.

  When James Reese Europe and his band started playing the popular song “Here Comes My Daddy Now,” people began to break into the ranks and hug their sons and husbands. As Majo
r Little remarked in his book, From Harlem to the Rhine: “It was a regiment of men, who had done the work of men.”

  It was a day of triumph, a moment of glory that would remain in the hearts of Harlemites for years to come.

  16

  RED SUMMER

  World War I was a war of hopelessly muddled causes rooted in the imperialism of the past and with no clear victory for any of the combatants. In January 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had delivered a speech in which he outlined Fourteen Points that would have to be agreed to for a lasting peace if all nations were to have a hope of living in an atmosphere of self-determination and unfettered sovereignty. But these were quickly cast aside in favor of the narrow interests of the victors. Germany was reduced both physically and economically and saddled with enormous debts. Japan took advantage of its wartime military preparedness to take over Chinese territory. Many colonial soldiers who had helped the Allies win the war found themselves stranded far from home and unrewarded for their efforts.

  American soldiers returned home with the same hopes as all the victors. They wanted to be lauded, to have their sacrifices appreciated. But they were returning to a changing nation. The United States was moving away from its agricultural roots and becoming more and more industrialized. Both blacks and whites were leaving the South and heading toward Northern cities.

  Emmett J. Scott replies to concerns on black migration

  America had become a great industrial power, but the economy was changing rapidly. The farms that had supported much of the population were now suffering as prices dropped in America and exports to Europe also dropped. As the northern factories switched from war production to civilian products, jobs became scarce. Returning white soldiers found themselves competing for jobs against blacks. A number of race riots broke out across the United States. The root causes of the riots were the same issues that America had been dealing with during the war: What was to be the role of blacks in American life?