![]() Scott in Scott’s Official History of The American Negro in the World War, the first major chronicle of African American contributions to WWI, published in 1919. “They proved apt pupils,” wrote journalist and educator Emmett J. They also beefed up the 369th’s military training: in trench construction, machine gun operation, the construction and use of grenades, and preparations for a gas attack. Seeing the shoddy equipment given to America’s black troops, the French re-kitted the Hellfighters with French rifles, helmets, belts, gas masks and canteens (with wine). to help replenish their badly depleted armies, Pershing handed the 369th over to their allies. ![]() They ultimately did see the trenches-and combat-in northern France, where they played a crucial role in helping to blunt the German advance across the Western front.Ī page from Horace Pippin’s notebook detailing his experiences in World War I, 1921 Fighting for the Frenchīut it wasn’t alongside American forces that the Hellfighters made their mark. “We did not think it right to go there and not see it.” “It were a place we all wanted to see,” he wrote. But the black troops were eager to fight from the front-line trenches. “It were slow work and wet work and you would go to bed wet, for there would be no fire to dry by,” Pippin wrote of the latter duty. “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, the Hellfighters initially toiled as laborers, constructing a railroad yard, building roads and unloading ships. Eager to Fight, Hailed as HeroesĪssigned to the infantry under General John J. Roughly 10 percent of the 380,000 African Americans who served in the war actually fought, according the U.S. military’s all-white leadership questioned whether black soldiers had the intelligence or courage to fight, so most were relegated to support roles. In the heyday of Jim Crow discrimination, the U.S. They landed on the Atlantic coast of France the following month.įrom the time the Hellfighters arrived in France late in December 1917, it was unclear if they would ever see combat at all. That November, during training, he earned his corporal stripes. entered the war, Pippen volunteered for the 15th New York National Guard, later christened the 369th regiment and nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters. At this point, there was little evidence he would go on to become one of the most renowned African American artists of the 20th century. He took an array of menial jobs (hotel porter, coal-wagon driver, feed-store helper) lived intermittently in New York City as a laborer then moved to Patterson, New Jersey in 1912, to work as an iron molder. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania and raised in Goshen, New York, he left school after the 7th grade to help support his family. entered World War I in 1917, Horace Pippin was almost 30 years old. Despite their courage, sacrifice and dedication to their country, they returned home to face racism and segregation from their fellow countrymen. The Harlem Hellfighters were an African American infantry unit in WWI who spent more time in combat than any other American unit. regiment of African American soldiers during WWI. But the stories-even in Pippin’s muted, matter-of-fact telling-offer a rare first-person account of the harrowing combat experience of the Harlem Hellfighters, the most celebrated U.S. The humble drawings are rendered in pencil and crayon. The spelling and grammar are often makeshift. Pippin poured out his war memories into a few small composition books, filling page after page with his tidy handwriting. And the trauma of being hit by a German sniper and then pinned in a foxhole, bleeding out. The forays across fields littered with wounded and dead. ![]() The gas clouds that suddenly appeared from the sky. The foul trenches, with their unending soundtrack of screaming artillery shells and staccato machine-gun fire. There was the terrified young recruit who hauntingly foresaw his own death. So in the decade after the war he captured them, and tamed them, inside sketch-filled journals. Like many veterans of the killing fields of World War I, Horace Pippin had a tough time shaking off the memories.
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