Part 1
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My COLORED BATTALION
BY Major Warner A. Ross
DEDICATED TO THE American Colored Soldier
WARNER A. ROSS, Publisher 7367 North Clark St. CHICAGO
Copyright 1920 by Warner A. Ross
MY COLORED BATTALION
You have done me this honor tonight because you know that I was the commander of a wonderful fighting Infantry Battalion composed entirely (myself excepted) of American colored officers and colored men.
You know, too, that for some time, during the Great World War, we were in the very front lines of that magnificent wave of determined Allies in France who held and at last swept back the fiendish forces of autocracy and tyranny and made it possible for liberty loving people to continue their slow but steady progress toward true Democracy.
You would like to hear a great deal about that battalion from its white commander because you know it was made up of brave men and backed by brave women of your own color who did their duty by you and by their country and did it well. Your presence here and the expression on your faces proves that you are deeply, hopefully interested in the integrity and in the advancement of your race.
You would like to know something about me as a soldier too, I suppose, because you have been told I was the best friend the colored soldier had. I am afraid that word _best_ makes it unjustly strong, for the colored soldier has many white friends. Nevertheless, I am glad I had the privilege and the opportunity to prove that my efforts in the common cause, the Allies’ cause, were not one bit hampered or lessened because my officers and men were colored.
One thing is certain, there was no doubt about the Americanism of my outfit, no question of hyphens, no fear that their love for or their hatred of some other nation exceeded their love for our own. The devotion, the patriotism, the loyalty of the American Negro is beyond question. My only claim is that I treated him justly--that’s all he needs or asks.
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The Second Battalion of the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth United States Infantry (the battalion we are considering) was a remarkable organization, in many ways, in spite of many things, a wonderful organization. In the battle line and out of the battle line, before the armistice and after the armistice, there was not a phase of military art or of the awful game of war at which this battalion did not excel. At going over the top, attacking enemy positions, resisting raids and assaults, holding under heavy shell fire, enduring gas of all kinds, at patrolling no-man’s land, at drill, on hard marches, in discipline and military courtesy, at conducting itself properly in camp or in French villages, and in general all around snappiness, it excelled in all.
Much of this could be seen by going over the battalion and regimental records. But the greatest thing about that battalion is not a matter of direct record in the written data and reports. It is a matter of undying record in the minds and hearts of the men who were that battalion. I speak of the magnificent _morale_, their mutual pride, their teamwork, their spirit of earnest, cheerful willingness and their unsurpassed endurance and bravery in the performance of duty.
It will seem strange to most of you, almost impossible to many who saw service in other outfits, when I tell you that during my entire service with the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry, which I began as a Captain in December, 1917, and ended as a battalion commander when the regiment was broken up at Camp Upton, New York, in March, 1919, _not one_ colored officer under my command was ever placed under arrest, and _not one_ colored officer was ever threatened with an efficiency board. And during the many trying months that I commanded the Second Battalion, both in and out of the front lines, only two enlisted men were tried by me as summary court--and they were acquitted.
The same is true of the nine hundred officers and men from all units of the regiment who live in or near Chicago that I brought from Camp Upton to be mustered out of service at Camp Grant. Those of you who were in Chicago remember how proudly the Camp Grant Detachment of the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry paraded through the streets on March 10th, 1919, without a hitch or a single breach of discipline.
No doubt that is hard to believe, for it does upset a host of time honored theories and teachings and honest convictions about military discipline and efficiency, but the facts as stated can be verified. Members of that Battalion and Regiment are right among you. Ask them. These were by no means specially selected or picked outfits. The officers and men were of all kinds, all conditions, mostly draft men and from all sections of the United States. They were representative of their race as a whole, yet in every instance a little company or military police discipline or, in rare cases, a short conference with the captain or major did the work. Considering the excellent service rendered by the units in question and especially by the Second Battalion of that Regiment, I regard this as a great tribute to our American Colored Soldiers. There is much, very much that is worthy of serious consideration about the discipline, the efficiency and the morale of that organization.
And now at the outset, before I go any further with this lecture, I wish to tell you, my colored friends, that I am proud to have been the commander of that battalion. My talk necessarily will be mostly about that Battalion, for I commanded it during the Regiment’s experience in the battle lines and during the greater part of my service with the Division. And now more than ever I believe, as I had ample reason to believe then, that no battalion of any army whether white or black or of some other race or color could have done the same things and done them any better than did the Second Battalion of the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry, One Hundred and Eighty-third Brigade, Ninety-second Division of the United States Army in France.
It may interest you to know, especially after what I have said about methods of securing discipline--for results count--that I won my commission as a major and what was far more, my job as a front line infantry battalion commander for efficiency under fire. I have a few citations and letters and one signed testimonial by white and colored officers who were witnesses, for coolness, bravery and the like. Thirty-five or forty officers and men were cited for bravery in Division orders. Medals? No, I have received no medals or special decorations. Nor has any living member, officer or man, of my Battalion. In fact, to my knowledge, not one living officer or man of the entire Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry has received any decoration or medal of any sort whatever--American, French, Belgian or any other kind. This, on the face of it, to anyone who knows the facts, would seem either a most glaring injustice or mistake.
Many of the members of my Battalion and of the Regiment, especially those who were with us at the time of the armistice and during all or part of the awful days and weeks just preceding it, feel and resent this most keenly. In the army you know everything must go through “military channels”--from company to battalion to regiment to brigade to division and on up. I recommended some of my officers and men for decorations. And if I know anything about meritorious conduct, real achievement, bravery, valour and the like, they richly deserved them. These recommendations reached brigade headquarters. It is my opinion that certain regular army officers saw fit to head them off.
Soon after the armistice we had a succession of strange regimental commanders, who showed no interest in pressing our case and so because of a combination of unfortunate circumstances the Regiment is medal-less. I understand our Brigade has received some recognition. I do not begrudge any officer or man his medal or medals if he actually earned them, but I do regret it that my Regiment and my own Battalion could be thus ignored. You may believe it or not when I say that I care nothing about medals for myself. What little I did in the cause of Democracy--by that I mean what I did for my Colored Battalion as well as in trying to help whip the enemy--is a matter with me and my own better self.
The citations of which I am incomparably more proud than of the citations I did get or the medals I didn’t get were not printed with ink nor stamped on metal. They were written with a point of fire into the brave, true hearts of my colored soldiers.
And who knows (if I may indulge in a little sentiment)? Who can tell? Perhaps those who bravely endured the tourtures of hell, because of the foolishness of vain oppressors in this wicked world and who uncomplainingly and unselfishly gave all they had, all any one could give--_gave their lives_--in defense of our great nation and in the cause of Democracy. Perhaps, I say, some of the spirits of that Battalion’s dead have already whispered in the glorious Realm beyond where the great, all-powerful God of justice, of love, of peace reigns supreme and with Whom man’s character is the only thing that counts. Perhaps they have whispered or will whisper, “Our Commander not only braved the fury of the Hun, but he scorned the petty prejudices of a few white persons and treated _us_ like officers and men.”
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Officers designated for service with the Eighty-sixth Division, which was to be formed at Camp Grant, Illinois, were ordered to report for duty August, 28th, 1917. I so reported and was assigned to the Three Hundred and Forty-first Infantry. Being a captain I was selected to command “G” Company. I received my quota of the first drafted men to arrive, on the second of September. They continued to arrive and in a few weeks I had two hundred and ninety-two men in addition to my five training camp lieutenants. The new organization had just gone into effect. Arms and equipment arrived slowly. There was more or less confusion; no one was right sure what to do and a company commander had a real job on his hands. Day and night I labored--drilled, studied, taught, did paper work, and then after three months or a little over, just when I was beginning to pride myself, like all the other captains, on having the best company in the regiment, and when we were all seeing visions of entraining for France, they began transferring our men--thirty or forty from a company at a time--to other divisions, and our hearts sank.
I tried to get transferred myself, for like many others, I wanted to soldier in France, not at Camp Grant. Company commanders were not being transferred to other camps, but just before Christmas I was ordered to report to the One Hundred and Eighty-third Brigade, a part of which was attached at Camp Grant. I was then assigned to the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry, a regiment of that Brigade and of the Ninety-second Division (colored). I felt sure that the Ninety-second Division, since it was the only complete colored division, and there was not much danger of its men being transferred, would go to France long before the Eighty-sixth--and it did.
For a time I was with the supply company. Then I was transferred to the headquarters company, a rather uncertain and complicated organization in those days, with an authorized strength of seven officers and three hundred and fifteen men. I remained with that company until after our arrival in France.
In the infantry regiments of the Ninety-second Division the lieutenants and captains were colored with the exception of the regimental staff captains and the captains of the headquarters and supply companies. The majors commanding the battalions and the lieutenant-colonel and the colonel were old regular army white officers.
We had been in training in France but a short time when I was made regimental intelligence and operations officer. Here again was another phase of the actual war game to learn. I was in charge of a large number of selected and specially trained men who made up the intelligence and scout sections, and at the same time was the regimental commander’s assistant in preparing our own movements and operations. I had direct charge of all that had to do with our knowledge and information of the enemy. I was also a member of the highest division court-martial--the one that had power to inflict the death penalty.
I received orders to take the battalion intelligence and scout officers and part of the intelligence and scout personnel into the line several weeks ahead of the Division’s final arrival there, to study and learn the sub-sector our regiment was later to occupy. I was never sent away to schools or on special missions and was never on leave or in hospital but was on duty with fighting troops continuously.
I have mentioned these things to show you that I had had a large and varied experience under the new army organization and in the new methods of fighting that had developed during the Great War. It was just the sort of training and experience to fit one for the hard and responsible task of commanding an infantry battalion in the front lines. I had been in direct command of both white and colored officers and men. I knew the colored enlisted man. And I knew the recently-made colored officers as well, fully as well, as did any white officer in our army.
As I just said, I was sent into the lines ahead of the Regiment to study the sector, learn about the enemy opposite and about conditions in general. When we arrived within hearing of the big guns and a little later when our trucks came within range just north of St. Die, I was all interest and all attention, for at last I was getting into the sort of place I had been reading and thinking and wondering about since 1914, and had been working and training for every minute since I entered the training camp at Fort Sheridan, May 10th, 1917. It’s hard work getting ready to be killed in a modern war.
The Regular Army Fifth Division, already experienced in the line, was then holding this sector. For several days I was busy at regimental headquarters located in what was left of the village of Denipere. Then with the assistance of guides, I started out to thoroughly cover and learn the sector. This was by no means a small task: it meant many miles of walking and hard climbing for many days, to say nothing of thrills and mental exercise. Our boys had turned a quiet sector into a very lively one and a few days before the Fifth Division moved out they reduced and were partly successful in holding the Chapelle salient. Taken all in all it was somewhat exciting for a novice exploring the very first lines.
There were three battalion fronts or sectors in the front our regiment was to occupy. Each of the three battalions had two companies in front, one in support and one in reserve. The companies were shifted every nine or ten days. French artillery would be behind us. Ours was in training near Bordeaux. The center battalion sector was called C. R. Fontinelle. I soon learned that it got most of the enemy’s fire and raids because of the nature of the terrain, meaning lay of the land. This would be held by our Second Battalion, but I had little idea then that I would soon command it.
The entire front in France was divided into battalion sectors or centers of resistance, called C. R.’s. The battalion was the infantry fighting unit in this war. When in the line, it had everything attached to it to make it a complete organization in itself--machine gun companies, engineer troops, one pounder and Stokes mortar outfits, supply equipment, medical personnel and so on. Regimental and brigade fronts varied in size and in the way they were held. Often a regiment had but one battalion in front, sometimes two and rarely three, as in our portion of the St. Die sector.
There were three lines or systems of defense in this sector. First, the front or first line system of works and trenches, combat groups, dugouts, communicating ways, machine gun implacements, trench mortars, wire and, well, it would take a long time to even name them all. An entire evening easily could be spent telling about any one little phase of the thing. From two to three miles farther back in this sector was the secondary lines or system with trenches, wire and everything, all ready for occupancy. A little to the rear was most of the light artillery. Several miles farther back was the third line system and the heavy artillery. The front line system was most interesting and by far the most dangerous. There was this about it, too: In case of enemy attack they held. In other words, their occupants stayed and fought to the last man. Those were standing orders and at that time in my eyes it added a sort of awful fascination to the front line trenches and men.
One of the things that impressed me during my first days in the line was the extent, the magnitude of the works, the prodigious amount of labor that had been required to excavate and build these positions while under fire, the cutting and tunneling in many places through solid rock, also the military knowledge that had been brought to bear in the locating and construction of combat groups, observation posts, fields of fire and the like and the amount of system and pluck and energy required to hold them. But one awful, ugly, discouraging word, from a world standpoint, seemed written all over the enterprise--Waste--waste of life, waste of time, waste of governments’ money, waste of all those things misguided humanity loves and fights for. What a shocking, what a saddening lesson from the standpoint of _waste_ alone!
Then as I became accustomed and somewhat hardened to the idea of appalling and foolish waste, another thing began to appeal to me more strongly. The beauty of the scenery and the invigorating air and sunshine of the mountains. It was summer, radiant, glowing, glorious summer. All nature vibrating and tingling with life and kindness. The sky so bright, the air so crisp, so bracing; the trees so green and fresh. The flowers, the grass, even the weeds and the very moss on the rocks seemed charged and melodious with joy.
Little rivulets, cold and sparkling, leaped over great boulders through shaded ravines and joined the hilarious stream away below which farther on, where the big ravine had widened, calmly wound its way amid the ruins of the quaint village called Denipere and out through the wide valley beyond. And what a panorama that valley was from the road on a mountainside north of the town, especially at evening with the parting kiss of a great red sun glowing on the winding river between its green banks and its clumps of willows, and glistening on the tile roofs of the remaining white stone houses, the various colored fields and the patches of wood, the white roads and their rows of tall trees, the hills and shaded depressions, and the gorgeous background of mountains in the distance. It looked different each time I viewed it, but always there was the peaceful glow and glory of God’s handiwork. Here, indeed, was La Belle France.
Many a time, at first, I used to forget myself, lost in buoyant meditation, as I gazed over that enchanting valley or walked along the stately mountain roads enveloped in dense foliage, or as I traveled down some secluded pathway or lover’s lane beside a rippling brook, inhaling deeply the pungent odor of growing things and cool damp earth. Then, with a start, I would come back to the realization that those screaming shells, those metallic cracks, those weird, jarring blasts were meant to _mangle_ and _kill_! That an enemy bent on destruction was only a mile or so away; that those glittering airplanes buzzing high above were on missions of hate and murder; that those little mounds I saw everywhere with wooden crosses at one end were the graves of fine young men who had been mangled and slain by their fellow beings. All the surroundings so inspiring, so beautiful; all nature so smiling and so harmonious, and poor, deluded, vain man so out of harmony. Somewhere, somehow, something was wrong--terribly, damnably wrong.
Then down in the very front lines in the edge of the “abomination of desolation” called no-man’s land, I watched those fine young men of our Fifth Division, standing silently by their automatics or rifles, gazing with ashen faces and staring eyes over that torn dreaded expanse that separated them from a cunning and deadly foe, and gradually my feelings changed from happiness due to health, the mountain air and the charms of nature, to feelings of depression and sadness, and hatred toward those who advocate and perpetuate in their blind vanity and self-righteous greed those principles and policies that lead to strife, to heart-ache and to war.
Here, accentuated by the glories of nature, was the horror of war and the awful proof of the degradation of humanity--despite its so-called Christian civilization.
Graves and danger and death. Death over head, death under foot, death in every direction--suffering, loneliness, longing, agony, death--_Death!_ But the greedy fiends really responsible were not there. And a sort of awe came over me and a feeling of tender pity for those brave, unselfish men, mere boys, many of them, standing silently, majestically--facing death in those front line trenches.
Time passed quickly, for like all officers of our army who entered the lines, regardless of previous training, I had very much to learn. There was so much to wonder and think about, too, for my job took me to all parts of our sector and necessitated a careful study of the enemy. For example, I had soon noticed that the men of units occupying the most dangerous positions and suffering the greatest inconvenience and strain seemed most care free and calm. There was an expression on their faces, an atmosphere about them that had not been there during the training period behind the lines. This opened great fields for thought, and I’m still thinking.
Then one day, before I realized that it was time, I saw little groups of blue-clad soldiers--the soldiers of France, standing about in Denipere, and on the roads I saw more little groups; next day there were more, and the following morning, as though it had happened by magic, I found the entire position, front lines and all, occupied and held by those quiet, tired-faced, sturdy heroes of France. The boys of our Fifth Division had moved out during the night. The following night my regiment moved in. The French infantry left several days later when we had become established in our position. A short time after that I was placed in command of our Second Battalion, holding the center sector called C. R. Fontinelle.
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The day I took command the enemy put over one of his famous raids. For two and one-half hours he laid a heavy concentrated fire on the Second Battalion’s front line system, then changed it into an almost perfect box barrage around the two front companies and jumped us through our left flank. The raiding was done by one of their notorious, specially-trained shock battalions sent to the sector for that purpose. By excellent work on the part of the two front companies and the support company assisted by a company of engineers, they were soon driven out. They managed to drag most of their dead and wounded with them, but left considerable equipment including several machine guns they had brought over and set up in our trenches.