5. The U.S Army was Desegregated for the First Time
Due to the desperate need of soldiers during the battle, U.S General Dwight Eisenhower decided to desegregate the U.S. military. Prior to this battle the African Americans who joined the war effort, approximately 1 million of them, were typically kept in their own noncombatant divisions. These divisions were white-led and kept from fighting alongside their white comrades. Despite the fact that African American men had fought alongside white soldiers during the Civil War. When Allied American troops were caught by surprise by a German force that doubled their own, the need for reinforcements were desperate. So Eisenhower decided it was time to experiment with using African American divisions in combat and alongside their white comrades.
More than 2000 African Americans were involved in the conflict, fighting alongside the white divisions, with only a few hundred dying. Black battalions such as the 578th Field Artillery, and 969th and 333rd Field Artillery Battalions sustained heavy damage by assisting the 106th Golden Lions Division and helping mount a defense in Bastogne, respectively. The so-called 761st “Black Panthers” were the first black tank unit to participate in the war with General Patton in command. Many of them received awards and distinctions.
It was after this battle that Generals spoke that the African American men performed very well and that there was no reason why they would not perform as well as white infantrymen if they were given the same training. This battle combined with the performance of the Tuskeegee Airmen during the war and the hard work of the truck drivers and mechanics of the black divisions led to a new respect for African Americans in the military. After the war when President Truman saw that returning African American men were being attacked in South Carolina and Georgia, he passed sweeping Civil Rights reforms that included desegregation of the armed forces.