Courage Has No Color

by Tanya Lee Stone

  Present-day smokejumpers from Idaho and Montana traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the ceremony there. As distinguished as ever at eighty-nine years old, Morris focused his light-brown eyes and easy smile on the jumpers as he reminisced. Smokejumper Jesse Burns said, “It was so awesome. They are some of the pioneers, and it was great to listen to their stories.”

  General George W. Casey Jr. (left) talks with Roger Walden at the March 25, 2010, event at the Pentagon. During his military career, Walden fought in the Korean War and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

  There is a 555th monument at Fort Benning, as part of the Airborne Walk, and another marking the exact spot where the 555th graduated. At the time of this writing, funds are being raised for a larger monument to be built for the new National Infantry Museum.

  At his paratrooper graduation, Walter Morris’s grandson may have said it best for all who follow in the 555th’s footsteps: “There’s a great responsibility on my shoulders. I have to represent [my grandfather] well . . . with dignity and respect.” It is respect for all people, in fact, that propels change. As with any story about people who challenge stereotypes and push boundaries, growth didn’t stop with the Triple Nickles. More milestones went on to be achieved — in the face of more setbacks.

  Today, African Americans make up 17 percent of the armed forces. To date, there have been only ten black four-star generals. One of those is Colin Powell — an honorary Triple Nickle — who went on to make history as the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first black U.S. secretary of state. History was made again when Barack Obama became president in 2008. About that landmark moment, Triple Nickle Ted Lowry said, “To tell you the truth, I never thought I’d live to see the day that a black man became president. This will be something that we’ll never forget.”

  Barack Obama honors Lincoln’s commitment to racial equality by giving a speech during his inaugural celebration in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial.

  Improvements still need to be made. Prejudice is a flaw of human nature, but awareness and education are powerful weapons against it. The Army now has an equal opportunity program to protect against discrimination of all kinds. Hubert Bridges Jr. took after his father — one of the original test platoon members. He became a paratrooper and military man as well and went on to serve as the director of military equal opportunity in Washington, D.C.

  There has been a major shift in thinking since the days of World War II, when the top brass was not necessarily sympathetic to the issue of equality. As African-American General Lloyd J. Austin, who became Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army in 2012, said, “We treasure diversity because it brings in a lot of different viewpoints and blends in a lot of cultures. It makes us better.”

  Progress is not perfect. It is not achieved quickly. There will be setbacks, but the hope is that there will always also be forward movement. The story of the Triple Nickles is a shining example of that hope.

  Beginning with the Korean War, the U.S. military has been integrated. There is still progress to be made, but the process is headed in the right direction. The military now includes Americans of all races, as well as accepting women as equal participants in the armed forces.

  November 20, 1950. A n integrated unit of the 2nd Infantry Division during the Korean War..

  Black and white soldiers fought together in the Vietnam War. these men are part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. June 1966.

  This 2012 graduating class of paratroopers from The Parachute School in Fort Benning, Georgia, shows a typical class, which now includes women as well as people of color.

  In the words of Walter Morris, “We succeeded where we were not expected to succeed. And we overcame the pitfalls that were put there. We overcame. And it’s a warm feeling to know that, that color has nothing to do with it. It’s what’s in one’s heart. One’s spirit. And that . . . should be a lesson to all of us. We should have, and we will have, a colorless society one day. And that will be the crowning jewel in this great country’s history.”

  Walter Morris at his home in Florida, at the young age of ninety

  A group of Triple Nickles assembles by a Troop Carrier Command plane in the summer of 1945. Between July and October 1945, they bravely made 1,200 smokejumps and helped control 36 fires.

  This has perhaps been my hardest book to write to date. Tiny bits and pieces of this story have been scattered in obscure places for decades. There have been articles written about the Triple Nickles, as well as one slim book by Bradley Biggs, which is primarily an autobiographical perspective, but putting all the events and the complete story together in historical context has never been done. Telling this whole story for the first time from beginning to end was a huge challenge as well as a thrill. My hope is that by sharing it, the Triple Nickles will become a well-known part of history. After all, at its peak, there were 1,800 enlisted men and 3,200 officers who were part of the groundbreaking 555th.

  THE RESEARCH

  I would like to share a little about how I researched and wrote this book. First, there was much I had to leave out. The topics of military history, black military history, and race are enormous ones, and they have been written about in great detail in scores of books, many of which I read. But it is impossible to examine all of that history here. My focus remained on the Triple Nickles, so I chose parts of the larger history that were needed to give readers the context to better understand the importance of this story. I used many different sources to put the pieces of the puzzle together: books and articles, letters, presidential documents, audio interviews, documentary short videos and full-length movies, print interviews, direct conversations, and photographs.

  There were times when I got sidetracked for days by the overwhelming amount of information about discrimination in the military and in our society. The section on Japanese balloon bombs alone was a fascinating month-long diversion. And then there were the letters from soldiers detailing violence and pleas for investigations, as well as from those who were convinced that if they contributed to a victory overseas, they would return to a country that would embrace them for what they were — Americans who had risked their lives for the ideals our nation is based on. But more often than not, that didn’t happen.

  Sometimes I had to make decisions about what to do with stories told over the years by men remembering things that happened to them forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years in the past. For example, Ted Lowry’s several accounts of the German POWs taunting him on a bus contained some inconsistencies, but they had to do with whether the event took place on a public bus or a military bus. The emotional truth of the story was strong and intact no matter when he told it.

  Another interesting thing occurred when I was trying to figure out who the three test platoon men were who did not graduate (twenty began training, seventeen earned their wings). It is generally accepted that one of them, Emerald Jones, was the man who did not jump from the thirty-four-foot tower and became the company’s mess cook. But who were the other two? Unofficial lists included a few names in addition to the ones I knew, but there were errors in some of those lists. I needed to be sure. After repeated conversations with surviving members and examination of the original payroll list for the 555th from June 1944, I was able to confirm that the last two men were James S. Williams and Cleo Washington. That alone was an exciting detail to nail down! But I still didn’t know what caused each of them to leave the program — although I did know that one of them sustained a groin injury.

  Then came a conversation with Clarence Beavers, who had a vivid memory of one of the two men being unwilling to leave the “sweat shed” and board the plane for one of the qualifying jumps. This was news to me! Clarence didn’t remember the man’s name, but he did say that Walter Morris was there as well, and the two of them had asked the man if he wanted any help. So I called Walter. Walter did not remember the man. OK, I had to accept that I had done all I could and my time for making changes was up. But a few hour
s later, the phone rang. It was Walter’s daughter, and I could hear Walter talking in the background, saying the words “groin injury” and “James S. Williams.” Eureka! I had never once spoken the names Cleo Washington or James S. Williams to him as I didn’t want to plant those seeds, but his memory had triumphed and Walter was certain that Williams had suffered a groin injury. That left Cleo Washington as the man in the sweat shed! Mystery solved.

  Now I had another decision to make. Amend the text, or tell this story here. I chose the latter because, although the pieces had finally fallen in place, and I was as sure as I could be about them, taking into account margin of error is important. What if I was wrong? These are real people, with surviving family members, not just names in a book. Part of being a responsible narrator means not forgetting that. Better to tell the story here, in the context of sharing with readers how exciting researching and writing nonfiction can be, than to make that type of an error.

  As you can surmise, I was able to speak with a few of the 555th many times, especially Walter Morris, Clarence Beavers, and Joe Murchison, and it was my great honor to get to know them. Walter actually read my initial version of this story for the first time in 2003, when it was still in picture-book form. Eventually, I came around to the realization — with the help of savvy editors Hilary Van Dusen and Marc Aronson, as well as Sarah Aronson, who insisted I stop being stubborn about keeping it a picture book — that the story needed to be told in long-form nonfiction, so I dug back into the research and started again. (This is the same process I went through with my book Almost Astronauts, so perhaps this is simply what I must do to find where I am going.) I am so grateful that Walter Morris was able and willing to read this version for me again in 2012, at the ripe young age of ninety-one.

  THE IMAGES

  My research extended beyond the text to include finding all the photographs — of which there are 103 — and there were times I thought I might have to get a degree in detective work to complete it. At one point a smokejumper out in Missoula, Montana, was ready to crack a safe for me to get to some old photos his predecessor was sure were in there (thanks, Wayne Williams and Dan Cottrell!). The image selection process is as crucial to the authorial process as writing is. I spent a few years — off and on — looking for any archive or minor museum that might have an image or two related to the 555th, as well as locating surviving family members in hopes that their photo albums might yield just one image of a Triple Nickle.

  Once I had exhausted my photo possibilities, the process of choosing each image to best help me tell the multiple layers of this story took several months. Finding some of these photographs was like uncovering hidden jewels or buried treasure — images that had been in shoe boxes, obscure archives, family scrapbooks. Those images that were loaned to me from some of the men’s families are the images you see treated with a white border. And one of these pictures (on page 8) led to an exciting and unexpected development! Walter loaned me that photo, which was taken in front of the house where he and his young family had lived at Fort Benning. Historian Ed Howard had been trying to locate Walter’s house for some time, but Walter couldn’t remember the address. When I sent Ed the layouts to review for me, Ed quickly got in touch to ask if there was any more to the picture. I sent him the whole image and he was ecstatic. An hour later, he had enlarged the front stoop, analyzed specific cracks and chips in it, compared it to a front stoop on the street in question, and — bingo — Walter’s house was found! Ed plans to have a historic marker put there. The power of research!

  And then there is the artwork created by Ashley Bryan while he was a soldier in World War II. In addition to Walter Morris, Ashley also read my picture-book version way back in 2003, and then graciously read it again in 2012, in its present long-form. After the second reading, Ashley and I talked, and then he sent me some of the artwork he had made during the war. Scan after scan began arriving in my inbox. I was overwhelmed by his generosity and excited by what his images could add to this story. As with all the images in this book, I have been entrusted with them and have tried to hold them in their greatest light.

  As I finished writing this story on a sunny Memorial Day morning, I was struck by how much more that national holiday now means to me. That was the morning I knew to whom this book would be dedicated. I feel privileged to have been able to take the time to put this story together and share it, in hopes that the Triple Nickles will become a more permanent and vivid part of the fabric that is our American history.

  September 14, 1940

  Selective Training and Service Act is passed.

  June 25, 1941

  FDR issues Executive Order 8802, prohibiting discrimination in the defense industry.

  July 1941

  Air Corps trains first African-American pilots (the Tuskegee Airmen).

  August 1942

  Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies is formed.

  February 1943

  General George C. Marshall directs that a parachute company be created.

  December 30, 1943

  The 555th Parachute Company is activated.

  January 1944

  Original 555th test platoon begins training.

  February 18, 1944

  Original 555th test platoon earns their silver wings.

  March 4, 1944

  Original 555th officers earn their silver wings.

  November 1944–April 1945

  Japanese launch balloon attacks on U.S.

  December 1944

  Eisenhower invites black soldiers to fight “shoulder to shoulder” with white soldiers.

  March 1945

  Black replacements fight alongside white soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge.

  May 5, 1945

  Triple Nickles board train for Pendleton, Oregon.

  July–October 1945

  Operation Firefly

  October 1945

  Triple Nickles Battalion returns to Camp Mackall.

  December 1945

  Triple Nickles Battalion is transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and attached to the 13th Airborne Division.

  January 12, 1946

  Triple Nickles participate in a victory parade as part of the 82nd Airborne Division.

  December 9, 1947

  The 555th is deactivated and integrated into the 505th Parachute Infantry Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division.

  March 30, 1948

  A. Philip Randolph testifies to the Senate Armed Services Committee that African Americans would refuse to serve if a new draft law did not forbid segregation.

  July 26, 1948

  President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, calling for “equality of treatment and opportunity” in the armed forces “without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.”

  September 18, 1948

  The White House announces the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy Committee).

  January 16, 1950

  The Fahy Committee approves the Army’s integration plan, after two rounds of rejection and revision.

  March 18, 1951

  The Department of Defense announces that all basic training in the U.S. has been integrated.

  October 1953

  The U.S. Army reports that 95 percent of African-American soldiers are serving in integrated units.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “As first sergeant . . . something about it.” O’Donnell, p. 106.

  “It is hard to identify . . . is dig ditches.” Goodwin, p. 566.

  “to act like soldiers, not servants.” O’Donnell, p. 106.

  “We wanted to be a full partner . . . eat up the whole world.” Nickles from Heaven.

  “The Negro should not . . . combat soldier,” and “The Negro must be . . . moral qualifications.” Colley, pp. 18–19.

  “World War I . . . who the enemy really was.” Motley, p. 40.

  “draftees be . . . impartial manner,” and “there should be . . . training
of men.” Wynn, p. 22.

  “been proved . . . period of years,” and “would produce situations . . . national defense.” Wynn, p. 23.

  “It seemed as if . . . awaiting any misstep.” Wilkerson, p. 62.

  “contentedly pick cotton,” and “dance and perform for their master.” Bogle, p. 12.

  “They didn’t make me . . . anything else either.” Bogle, p. 127.

  “They could call him . . . now and was free.” Wilkerson, p. 247.

  “I do hereby . . . or national origin.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Act.

  “We have a lot . . . a pick and shovel.” McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, p. 180.

  “On the post and off . . . in this slave camp.” McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, p. 182.

  “We are treated . . . Please help us.” McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, p. 191.

  “We’re not even . . . a colored soldier.” McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, p. 192.

  “a natural thing . . . an inferiority complex.” Awosika, Sarasota Herald Tribune.

  “At four o’clock . . . we took over.” Nickles from Heaven.

  “Within weeks . . . morale was up.” Morris, “Baseplate.”

  “An amazing thing . . . act like soldiers.” Morris, Veterans History Project.

  “When you talked . . . in the eye.” O’Donnell, p. 106.

  “They had found . . . white students.” Morris, “Baseplate.”

  “I was so nervous . . . sleep that night.” Morris, Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “When I walked . . . scared to death.” Trapp, U.S. Army TRADOC News Service.