Patton reviewed the battalion and made a speech to the men which offered a guarded vote of confidence in their abilities: The unit saw action in Northern France from October 1944, it fought in the Battle of the Bulge, later proceeding to the Rhineland, and spent the final months of the war on German soil.Īs the 761st was about to enter combat, General George S. The unit arrived (with six white officers, thirty black officers, and 676 black enlisted men ) and was assigned to General George Patton's US Third Army at his request, attached to the 26th Infantry Division. After a brief deployment to England, the 761st landed in France via Omaha Beach on 10 October 1944. The battalion aboard the British troop carrier Esperance Bay from New York and arrived in Britain on 8 September 1944 and was initially assigned to the Ninth Army. Second Army, rated the unit "superior" after a special review and deemed the unit "combat ready." After the two-year training session in Texas, 761st Tank Battalion received the order in 9 June 1944 for overseas movement 3 days after the D-Day landings in Normandy. After the war, he was instrumental in desegregating professional baseball.ĭeployment US tank battalion structure, November 1944. The post commander transferred Robinson to the 758th Tank Battalion, whose commander was willing to sign the insubordination court-martial order. Bates refused to consider the court-martial charges put forward by the arresting military policemen. Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Paul L. During the 761st's training, a white bus driver told Robinson to move to the back of the bus. The most famous member of the 761st was First Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson. They commandeered six tanks and a half-track but were persuaded to stand down by Lieutenant Colonel Bates who promised to straighten the situation out. Several members of the 761st vowed to retaliate. Racial Tension īlack soldiers of that time and place were subject to many racist crimes perpetrated by white soldiers, including a bloody riot between members of a neighboring segregated tank battalion and white military policemen in Alexandria, Louisiana on 10 January 1942. The men of the 761st trained for almost two years, conscious of the fact that white units were being sent overseas after much less training. In the days before the civil rights advances made in the 1960s, black people were still treated harshly in the South and often considered an inferior race there. Most of the black tankers had to train in installations located in Southern states such as Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas. 50 caliber machine gun, and a two-inch smoke mortar. Final training was at Fort Hood, Texas, where they were upgraded to the M4 Sherman medium tank, which had a 75 mm main gun, two. They learned how to maneuver, mount, dismount, and maintain the vehicle's 37 mm main gun and. The battalion began training in M5 Stuart light tanks. The 761st was constituted on 15 March 1942, and activated 1 April 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. Army began to experiment with segregated combat units in 1941 the program was supported by, and given national exposure in, Life magazine. McNair, the commander of Army Ground Forces, successfully argued that "colored" units should be employed in combat. military leaders had reservations about using African American soldiers in combat. Immediately before and during World War II, U.S. In addition, a large number of individual members also received medals, including 1 Medal of Honor, 11 Silver Stars and approximately 300 Purple Hearts. During the war, the unit received a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions. The 761st were known as the Black Panthers after their distinctive unit insignia, which featured a black panther's head, and the unit's motto was "Come out fighting". Its ranks primarily consisted of African-American soldiers, who by War Department policy were not permitted to serve in the same units as white troops the United States Armed Forces did not officially desegregate until after World War II. The 761st Tank Battalion was a separate tank battalion of the United States Army during World War II.
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