19. The 320th Battalion’s Road to Normandy Went Through Jim Crow Dixie
In September, 1942, private Wilson Caldwell Monk of Atlantic City, New Jersey, stepped off a train in Paris, Tennessee, en route to nearby Camp Tyson. It was the furthest south he had ever been, and he and his fellow black northerners were jittery and fearful about the treatment to expect in the land of Jim Crow. They discovered it was just as bad as they had imagined, and often worse. The premonitions began when their locomotive crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, and all black soldiers were ordered to the “Negro car” – the filthiest and most decrepit one at the end of the train. Upon arrival, their orientation included helpful tips to get along with the locals – or at least avoid infuriating them into a potentially homicidal rage – such as never looking a white person in the eye, and stepping off the sidewalk if one was coming towards you.
The black soldiers were taught how to make flammable hydrogen gas, gauge wind speed, predict weather patterns, and the other skills necessary to keep their balloons in the air. They lived in segregated barracks and ate in segregated mess halls. Off base, things were often hazardous: they were routinely harassed by white civilian police, white MPs, and white soldiers – including one who shot a 320th trainee in the back, killed him, and escaped punishment. One black soldier recalled years later that he stopped going off base because “every time you go to town, somebody gets beat up“. On one of the few times he headed into nearby Paris, he was viciously beaten up by two white civilian cops and a pair of MPs. What galled the men of the 320th the most, however, was seeing German and Italian POWs filing into restaurants where black American soldiers were not welcome.