They made a good first impression, but I have no faith in the inherent fighting ability of the race. This was what General Patton declared after inspecting the 761st Tank Battalion in 1944, on the eve of their baptism of fire. The renowned military leader was merely reflecting the prevailing opinion among U.S. commanders regarding the capabilities of African American soldiers, who had been incorporated into the army during World War II and subsequently assigned to a segregated unit. However, these soldiers carried a resolute motto, “Come Out Fighting”, which they embodied so effectively that they earned more than three hundred decorations, living up to their nickname, the Black Panthers.
The truth is that Patton, like many others, held somewhat contradictory feelings. His earlier remark was steeped in the racism typical of that era. In fact, he not only continued to express derogatory comments about Black soldiers but also documented his beliefs in his book, War as I Knew It, a wartime memoir in which he stated, A colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in a tank.
Yet, when he was commander of a garrison in El Paso before the war, he prevented the lynching of a Black soldier. By 1944, he needed every reinforcement available, leading him to extend a measure of trust to the 761st.

During the aforementioned troop review, he even delivered an emotional address:
Gentlemen, you are the first Black tankers to fight in the United States Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good. I have nothing but the best in my army. I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons of bitches. Everyone is watching you and expecting great things. Above all, your race is counting on you to succeed. Don’t let them down, don’t damn yourselves, and don’t let me down! They say it’s patriotic to die for your country. Well, let’s see how many patriots we can make out of those German sons of bitches.
In other words, Patton distrusted African Americans as a group but was willing to recognize individual soldiers’ merit. Facing a shortage of troops, he could not afford to exclude them. Consequently, he became the first commander to integrate them into his forces. Later, members of the 761st expressed pride in having served under his command. This marked a turning point in the peculiar and anomalous situation of Black troops being barred from combat. Anomalous because, in reality, they had already fought in the Civil War, with the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment, composed primarily of former slaves, being the first unit of its kind to engage in battle during the skirmish at Island Mound on October 29, 1862.
Black soldiers also served in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (immortalized in the film Glory) and the 10th Cavalry Regiment. Members of the latter were known as Buffalo Soldiers—a name given by the Kiowas, likely because their curly hair reminded them of bison. The term later came to refer to other regiments collectively known as the United States Colored Troops. These soldiers participated in the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War of 1898, the 1916 intervention in Mexico, and the Philippine-American War. However, in the 20th century, aside from these exceptions, they were largely relegated to support roles and did not take part in World War I combat.

As World War II loomed, the initial situation remained similar. Military leadership still harbored reservations, which were not addressed until the conflict was underway, when Lieutenant General Lesley James McNair initiated changes. McNair, often called the “architect of the U.S. Army,” was responsible for designing and reorganizing it to meet the demands of the times. For instance, he implemented an individual replacement system for casualties, introduced realistic training methods, and championed mobile warfare concepts over the static strategies of previous conflicts.
McNair recognized the need for the army to reflect the proportion of Black Americans in the population and ordered the creation of segregated units in each service branch, also opening the door for African Americans to rise to officer ranks and lead these units. Segregated units were established because it was believed that their officers’ inferior education left them behind their white counterparts (though a lack of Black officers sometimes led to these positions being filled by white personnel). An earlier General Staff proposal to integrate Black soldiers at a ratio of one Black soldier to every 10.6 white soldiers was rejected.
These groundbreaking measures became reality in 1941, receiving national media attention. By 1943, approximately 170,000 African Americans were enlisted, comprising 10.5% of the army’s total and reflecting the 10-11% Black population in the U.S. They were distributed among the 90th and 92nd “colored” Infantry Divisions, the 2nd Cavalry Division, the 452nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, and the focus of this discussion, the 761st Tank Battalion. Formed on March 15, 1942, the battalion began operations the following month at Camp Claiborne, a 93-square-kilometer training camp in Louisiana established in the 1930s.

The 761st recruits trained with the M5 light tank, an American-made model named Stuart in honor of Confederate General Jeb Stuart. The tank was armed with a 37mm gun and three Browning M1919 machine guns. Their final training phase took place at Fort Hood—another military installation named after a Confederate general—in Texas. There, they learned to operate a medium tank, the M4 Sherman, named after a Union general, which featured a 75mm gun, three machine guns of varying calibers, and a two-inch mortar.
As seen, both bases were located in the South, where segregationist laws persisted, and there were numerous incidents in this regard, both with the local population and among officers and soldiers of other units. These tensions culminated on January 10, 1942, when a massive fight broke out between Black and white troops from different corps in Louisiana. The members of the 761st nearly mutinied and took control of half a dozen tanks, an action only prevented by the intervention of their colonel, Paul L. Bates.
It was also Colonel Bates who refused to court-martial a Black officer who refused to sit at the back of a bus and was subsequently arrested by the military police at Fort Hood. That officer was Jackie Robinson, who, despite his superior’s defense, was brought before a court-martial. He was acquitted but was forced to leave the 761st… only to later become one of the greatest stars in American baseball. Robinson never forgot the support of Lieutenant Colonel Bates.

However, what truly angered the Black Panthers was the fact that units with far less training, composed of white soldiers, were being sent to the front while they continued to wait. Finally, their time came. General Benjamin Lear (nicknamed Yoo-Hoo for the joking whistles recruits directed at him when they passed by in trucks and saw him playing golf in shorts), who commanded the Second Army and oversaw training operations, deemed the 761st ready for combat and sent them to England, where preparations for the continental invasion were underway. On October 10, 1944, the African American soldiers landed at Omaha Beach, the same sands of Normandy that had been stained with blood four months earlier.
The unit consisted of 676 men, including around 30 Black officers and six white officers, assigned to the U.S. Third Army, which had recently been transferred from General Walter Krueger to General Patton. As mentioned earlier, Patton, despite his initial reservations, accepted the 761st after reviewing their troops. They entered combat on November 7, fighting in successive French towns such as Moyenvic, Vic-sur-Seille, and Morville-lès-Vic, often leading the charge. Ironically, their first casualty was not a Black soldier but their leader, Colonel Bates.
Their true test came the following month during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans launched a massive offensive, and the 761st played a critical role in countering it. Intelligence warned that German troops disguised in U.S. uniforms were attempting to infiltrate and disrupt guard posts. Patton resolved this by assigning Black soldiers to man these checkpoints with orders to shoot any suspicious white individuals. The Battle of the Bulge was grueling and bloody: the 761st suffered 156 casualties, including 24 killed, 81 wounded, and 44 incapacitated by illness. They also lost 14 tanks, with another 20 damaged.

After fulfilling their mission, the 761st, a replacement unit sent wherever reinforcements were needed, moved on to Bastogne. There, they aided the beleaguered 101st Airborne Division, which was holding out tenaciously in harsh winter conditions. The German offensive ultimately failed on January 25, 1945, and the Black Panthers pressed on as the spearhead of the U.S. 4th Armored Division, tasked with clearing the way for the Third Army into Germany through the Siegfried Line.
They eventually reached Steyr, a town in Austria where they linked up with the Red Army. The 761st soldiers displayed remarkable bravery during their 183 consecutive days in combat, earning 296 Purple Hearts, 11 Silver Stars, and 69 Bronze Stars, as well as a Medal of Honor awarded to Colonel Bates, who recovered from his injuries (there were also posthumous awards for Sergeant Ruben Rivers and Private Warren G.H. Crecy, the latter sarcastically nicknamed The Baddest Man in the 761st).
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter responded to the demands of several veterans by awarding the battalion the Presidential Unit Citation for “extraordinary heroism in action”. This recognition was long overdue for many veterans who, upon returning home, found themselves treated far less warmly than their white counterparts. Nevertheless, their exemplary performance on the battlefield convinced President Truman to order an end to military segregation. Thus, the 761st Tank Battalion was disbanded, and its members were integrated into other units.
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on September 30, 2019: Black Panthers, los soldados afroamericanos del 761º Batallón de Tanques estadounidense, que combatieron en Las Ardenas
SOURCES
Alexander Bielakowski, Raffaele Ruggeri, African American Troops in World War II
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Anthony Walton, Brothers in arms. The epic story of the 761st Tank Batallion, WWII’s forgotten heroes
Charles W. Sasser, Patton’s Panthers: The African-American 761st Tank Battalion In World War II
Hank Heusinkveld, The 761st Tank Battalion: Fighting the Enemy, Beating Stereotype
Randall Moore, 761st
Wikipedia, 761st Tank Battalion (United States)
Discover more from LBV Magazine English Edition
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.