Black and Japanese Soldiers in WWII
Segregated Troops Encounter Racism, Show Courage
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 57
It’s easy to picture the American forces in WWII as all white. Wartime photographs, newsreels, and official histories rarely show otherwise. Flo’s own scrapbook from two years overseas with the American Red Cross and the Third Division contains no mention or images of Black soldiers. Yet more than one million Black men and women served in the U.S. armed forces during the war. Their service was essential, though often invisible.
Flo herself was no stranger to racial injustice — before the war she had been active in the YWCA’s anti-racism campaigns and in efforts to integrate the organization.
Historian Matthew F. Delmont, in Half American, argues that the United States could not have won the war without the contributions of Black troops. At the outset, however, the military tried to exclude them entirely. The Army, dominated by white supremacist segregationists, turned away Black volunteers after Pearl Harbor. Officials feared the political consequences of arming Black men. But as the war expanded, the need for manpower forced a compromise: a segregated military.
Many training camps were located in the South, where local white residents often harassed or assaulted Black soldiers. Abroad, Black Americans saw stark parallels between Nazi ideology and U.S. racial laws. The Pittsburgh Courier, a Black newspaper read nationwide, launched the “Double Victory” campaign — calling for victory over fascism overseas and victory over racism at home.
Segregated combat units fought bravely despite facing discrimination from their own commanders. The 92nd Infantry Division served in Italy beginning August 1944, possibly crossing paths with the Third Division. The Montford Point Marines, the 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion, and the celebrated Tuskegee Airmen also saw combat. Black soldiers fought and died at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge.
Most, however, served in unheralded but vital support roles. They built roads, hauled supplies, cooked, repaired equipment, and maintained the machinery of war. Seventy percent of all soldiers in U.S. supply units were Black. “WWII,” one historian wrote, “was a battle of supply,” and these troops kept that battle moving. There was even an all-Black American Red Cross contingent that ran segregated service clubs for Black troops.
The U.S. military and press often hid these contributions. Photographers were instructed to avoid showing Black soldiers in official images. When the war ended, Black veterans returning to the South were targeted for violence — beaten, harassed, and in some cases murdered — for wearing their uniforms. This had happened after WWI, and it happened again. Many veterans, like decorated soldier Medgar Evers, became leaders in the postwar civil rights struggle.
Alongside Black troops, the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team of Japanese American soldiers fought in the European Theater. Formed in 1943, the 442nd was made up largely of Nisei — second-generation Japanese Americans — many of whom had families incarcerated in U.S. internment camps. Beginning in 1944, they served in Italy, southern France, and Germany, becoming one of the most decorated units in U.S. military history.
The contributions of these segregated units — Black and Japanese American alike — were essential to Allied victory. Yet their service has been downplayed or erased from the dominant WWII narrative. Restoring these stories helps reveal a fuller, truer picture of the war that Flo witnessed.
