• U.S.

Army & Navy: Black Division

2 minute read
TIME

For the first time in World War II. Negro soldiers will have a division of their own. At Fort Huachuca, near Phoenix, Ariz., where 6,500 black troops of the 25th and 368th infantry regiments are stationed, plans are being made to accommodate an extra 11,300 soldiers. The new division, which will be six months in formation, will be set up along triangular lines, include three infantry regiments, quartermaster, medical and engineering battalions, artillery and service units. It will probably be staffed by white officers, as most Negro outfits are today. Since there is no Negro officer* with the major general’s rank that is required to head a division, its commander will certainly be white.

Many a Negro was hopeful that the new division would be given a better chance to show its stuff than regular black units were given in World War I.

Only a few Negro regulars were sent to France. Most of the men of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions—the only two Negro divisions of World War I—were National Guardsmen and draftees.

The new division, 17,000 strong, will include more blacks than there were in the whole Army at the outset of World War II. But it will take in barely one-sixth of the 115.197 Negroes in the Army.

The blacks are expected soon to have as many men in khaki as they had in World War I, when their top strength was 415,000.

Already many Negro troops have been given World War II assignments. One regiment is busy guarding New York City; another contingent is patrolling railroad property in Connecticut; and Negro Coast Artillery men are watching over Philadelphia.

* Ranking Negro officer is 64-year-old Brigadier General Benjamin Oliver Davis who, although past retirement age, has been kept in service by Franklin Roosevelt because he is an able soldier and a fine good-will ambassador for 13,000,000 U.S. Negroes.

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