Black History Month (The Redball Express)

A while back, I heard criticism of a couple different World War Two film projects, both about 10-20 years old now: “The Pacific” and “Saving Private Ryan”.  The criticism was biased and wrong–the complaint was that neither had central roles for black actors.  “How come there are no black actors there along with Tom Hanks during the epic D-Day battle?”

It’s an easy answer:  BECAUSE THERE WERE NO BLACK COMBAT TROOPS THERE.  If we are going to aim for historical accuracy in projects, we must accept that accuracy for what it was.  Now, does this mean black soldiers were irrelevant to the fighting effort?  Absa-frickin-lutely not.

The most well-known of these is ‘the Tuskegee Airmen’, the pilots who eventually formed the 99th Pursuit Squadron and 332nd Fighter Group.  These pilots flew in Europe from 1943 to 1945.  To distinguish one another quickly during air-to-air combat, the pilots painted the back of their tails red.  Here’s one in action:

The Germans despised flying against the 332nd, referring to them as die Rotschanzteufel–the Red Tailed Devils.  How good were the Red Tailed Devils of Tuskegee?  As a unit, its pilots earned nearly 100 Distinguished Flying Crosses and are known to have shot down multiple German Wunderwaffen–jet and rocket planes.

NOTE: The story of these men is incredible because the original commanders were outright racists and bigots who did crap like draw lines down the middle of base facilities, arresting blacks who had the ‘audacity’ to cross over the line (to be fair, they also censured whites who tried to remedy the situation, too).  But these guys are all known.  The Red Tail Devils are famous.

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But unless you are a ‘war buff’ or military historian, it’s unlikely you’ve heard of a different, more important, group of black soldiers.  They didn’t have a glamorous role.  These were the men of the ‘Red Ball Express.’  The Express was the term used for the trucks which carried fuel and supplies forward from Normandy to fighting forces on the front line as the Germans retreated to the Rhein.

The Red Ball Express ran from August through October, 1944–only about three months, but during that time, the 6,000 trucks in the operation carried 12,000 tons of supplies forward daily.  This was critical because there were roughly 30 (28 actually) Allied divisions involved in the breakout.  In most cases, frontline units were burning 700 tons of supplies on a daily basis.  Do the math: 700×28=19,600 tons.   Since other supply routes couldn’t provide more than 8,000 tons/day, the Red Ball Express was critical for driving the Nazis back.

It was a cool setup–two highways were commandeered.  One for trucks heading to the front, the other for empty returners.

Here’s the thing–more than 75% of the personnel assigned to the Red Ball Express were black.  No Express, no victory over the Nazis in Western Europe.

Just as important, the army’s orders against segregated facilities (desegregation was just really making headway against the wishes of many officer from the South) hconvinced a lot of white soldiers that black soldiers were competent–and human, that the only difference was skin color.  The success of the Red Ball Express confirmed this for many of the individuals who saw the efforts of the men of the Red Ball Express.  They knew who was bringing the supplies, letting them take it to the Nazis.

Success in moving things isn’t always glorious and it is rarely gained in big chunks.  Most of the time, society gets better in small increments and a lot of the time, we suffer steps backwards, too.  The privates and corporals who drove these trucks are generally forgotten now.  It’s a pity.  I think they deserve better.