18. The Black Barrage Balloon Operators Overseas
Despite the daily indignities, the racist pejoratives routinely hurled their way, and the general mistreatment meted out to them on a regular basis, the black soldiers of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion were still ready to die for their country, and so that others, thousands of miles away, could live free. As one of the unit’s members, private Wilson Monk put it decades later: “There was never any doubt about the loyalty of black soldiers … Even considering the fact that we weren’t treated equally“. The 320th was shipped to Britain, where it underwent further training in amphibious operations, in preparation for D-Day.
In the days leading up to the invasion of France, hydrogen was pumped into thousands of big balloons, that were then tethered to ships for the journey to Normandy. On the morning of June 6th, 1944, the 691-man 320th battalion had its baptism of fire when it landed on Utah and Omaha beaches, its members plunging off of landing craft into waist-deep water and wading ashore, with bullets whizzing about them. Attached to the belts of many of them were car-sized or larger balloons, filled with highly flammable hydrogen.