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O n September 29, 1918, Cpl. Lawrence Leslie McVey was hunkered down in Séchault, a farming hamlet in northeast France, engulfed in the Meuse-Argonne offensive—one of the last and deadliest encounters in World War I.
Not far away, a crew of German soldiers unleashed bursts of machine-gun fire, aiming at the trench occupied by McVey and other soldiers in the U.S. Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment, an African American unit drawn mostly from New York City. Hot shrapnel from exploding shells fell like rain. Enemy biplanes roared overhead. The ground shuddered with the impact of incoming artillery.
McVey—a genial farm boy who’d found his way to Harlem from Flatonia, Texas, at age 18 and was known as Mac—had orders to lead an attack on the German machine-gun nest the following day and to neutralize it by any means, including hand-to-hand combat. The odds were high he wouldn’t make it back.
The squadron had been formed as the 15th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard in June 1916, after Harlem civic leaders lobbied New York Gov. Charles Whitman to let black men prove themselves as soldiers. The unit was commanded by Col. William Hayward, a white former officer in the Nebraska National Guard. During training in South Carolina, the soldiers weathered Jim Crow laws and racial slurs. When the United States entered the war, in 1917, Hayward deployed with the unit to France, and the 15th was soon recommissioned as the Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment. The men were forbidden to associate or train with white troops. Their initial duties included cooking and digging latrines.
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www.smithsonianmag.com
There is a picture of McVey in the link. There are a lot of emotions in his eyes.
Not far away, a crew of German soldiers unleashed bursts of machine-gun fire, aiming at the trench occupied by McVey and other soldiers in the U.S. Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment, an African American unit drawn mostly from New York City. Hot shrapnel from exploding shells fell like rain. Enemy biplanes roared overhead. The ground shuddered with the impact of incoming artillery.
McVey—a genial farm boy who’d found his way to Harlem from Flatonia, Texas, at age 18 and was known as Mac—had orders to lead an attack on the German machine-gun nest the following day and to neutralize it by any means, including hand-to-hand combat. The odds were high he wouldn’t make it back.
The squadron had been formed as the 15th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard in June 1916, after Harlem civic leaders lobbied New York Gov. Charles Whitman to let black men prove themselves as soldiers. The unit was commanded by Col. William Hayward, a white former officer in the Nebraska National Guard. During training in South Carolina, the soldiers weathered Jim Crow laws and racial slurs. When the United States entered the war, in 1917, Hayward deployed with the unit to France, and the 15th was soon recommissioned as the Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment. The men were forbidden to associate or train with white troops. Their initial duties included cooking and digging latrines.
The Unmatched Bravery of the Harlem Hellfighters
A salute to the all-Black World War I fighting unit
www.smithsonianmag.com
There is a picture of McVey in the link. There are a lot of emotions in his eyes.
