Black veterans of World War II received few of the honors their white brothers got

Some wounds still fresh

By Nurith C. Aizenman
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- A few months after the Allied victory in World War II, 24-year-old Capt. Harold Montgomery returned to the General Accounting Office here to reclaim his job with the U.S. Post Office Department.

Since leaving 4 1/2 years earlier, Montgomery had led a heavy weapons company of the Army's all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldiers" Infantry Division up the western coast of Italy through barrage upon barrage of German fire. He had watched wounded men die as shrapnel sliced through the plasma bags set up to give them transfusions. He had grinned and waved as cheering residents of liberated cities pressed flowers and bottles of wine into his hands.

But when he walked into the GAO's grand, high-ceilinged lobby, it was as though time had stood still. A large plaque honoring postal employees who had served in the war did not list Montgomery or any other African American veterans, he recalled. And a personnel manager informed him he would not receive a pay raise given to returning white soldiers.

"To hell with that," retorted Montgomery, who resolved to find other work.

With the dedication of the National World War II Memorial this weekend, the memory of their homecoming still gives Montgomery and many other black veterans a bitter twinge. At events honoring the roughly 1 million African Americans who served in the war, they recall a fight waged on two fronts: against fascism overseas, and against racist laws and attitudes at home.

African American newspapers of the time called it the "Double V Campaign." And although the victory over the Axis powers was complete, the results of the second struggle were decidedly mixed.

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Comments

[Iris McGraw]

I'm interested in info on the basic training camp in Martinsurg, West Virginia in June 1944