thedrifter
09-05-07, 09:12 AM
Gray drafted early
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
By MIKE BRANTLEY
TV & Media Editor
John Gray, who during World War II was among the first black members of the U.S. Marine Corps, might have missed the conflict altogether had he not fibbed about his birthday in 1941 so he could get a job in Mobile building housing.
After boosting his age by two years, "I was drafted earlier than I would have been," said Gray, who is among the Mobilians featured in the new Ken Burns PBS documentary series "The War."
Giving a false birth date wasn't an uncommon occurrence in those days, when birth records were sketchy for much of the population and when the war effort meant new opportunities for a citizenry coming out of the Great Depression.
By 1943 when he went into the Marines, Gray was stuck with his new birth date of Nov. 27, 1922, he said. In fact, Gray had been born in Chickasaw on Thanksgiving Day in 1924.
As a Marine, Gray was one of the members of the corps' 51st Defense Battalion.
One of only two black Marine units trained for combat, members of the battalion became skilled as gunners on 90- and 150-millimeter guns, Gray said. But once they reached the South Pacific, their white commanders never saw fit to send them into battle.
"We helped to carry ammunition and that kind of stuff," Gray said. "We would load and unload ships."
Eventually, the men of the 51st called themselves "The Lost Battalion."
Burns' 14-hour documentary examines how World War II changed America by telling the wartime stories of Americans from four cities: Mobile; Waterbury, Conn.; Luverne, Minn.; and Sacramento, Calif.
A free screening of selected highlights of "The War," emphasizing its Mobile segments, is set for 8 p.m. Saturday at the University of South Alabama's Mitchell Center. "The War" series begins Sept. 23 on PBS and plays out over two weeks.
Having suffered the injustices of a rigidly segregated Alabama, Gray might have considered that the war was not his fight. But, he said, "I knew it was my country, too."
And so Gray and the other members of the 51st would laugh whenever Japanese propaganda broadcasts encouraged America's black Marines to defect, he said.
He recalled difficult boot camp days at mosquito-infested Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
"We drilled, and I mean it was tough," Gray said. "Of course the Marine life was tough anyway, but it seemed as though somebody wanted us to quit. We just wouldn't quit. We hung in there. I never was a quitter."
Whatever the Marine Corps asked of him, Gray gave. The war took him to such over-the-horizon places as the Marshall and Ellice island groups.
"I didn't even know those islands existed," he said. "They are so small that even now you can hardly find them on the map."
Upon his honorable discharge Feb. 6, 1946, Gray was disappointed to find his horizons in some ways had been narrowed and not expanded by his service to his country.
"We thought things would be a little better," he said. "They got to be worse. A lot of the people here in Mobile were under the impression that the war would make us difficult to deal with. Everybody wasn't like that, but you had people who had that kind of animosity."
Amid those challenges, Gray immediately resumed his education and sought opportunities.
In 1998, he retired after 50 years of working in the Mobile public schools. He taught science and social studies at Dunbar Junior High School from 1948 to 1970, and he was assistant principal at Shaw High School from 1971 to 1998.
Ellie
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
By MIKE BRANTLEY
TV & Media Editor
John Gray, who during World War II was among the first black members of the U.S. Marine Corps, might have missed the conflict altogether had he not fibbed about his birthday in 1941 so he could get a job in Mobile building housing.
After boosting his age by two years, "I was drafted earlier than I would have been," said Gray, who is among the Mobilians featured in the new Ken Burns PBS documentary series "The War."
Giving a false birth date wasn't an uncommon occurrence in those days, when birth records were sketchy for much of the population and when the war effort meant new opportunities for a citizenry coming out of the Great Depression.
By 1943 when he went into the Marines, Gray was stuck with his new birth date of Nov. 27, 1922, he said. In fact, Gray had been born in Chickasaw on Thanksgiving Day in 1924.
As a Marine, Gray was one of the members of the corps' 51st Defense Battalion.
One of only two black Marine units trained for combat, members of the battalion became skilled as gunners on 90- and 150-millimeter guns, Gray said. But once they reached the South Pacific, their white commanders never saw fit to send them into battle.
"We helped to carry ammunition and that kind of stuff," Gray said. "We would load and unload ships."
Eventually, the men of the 51st called themselves "The Lost Battalion."
Burns' 14-hour documentary examines how World War II changed America by telling the wartime stories of Americans from four cities: Mobile; Waterbury, Conn.; Luverne, Minn.; and Sacramento, Calif.
A free screening of selected highlights of "The War," emphasizing its Mobile segments, is set for 8 p.m. Saturday at the University of South Alabama's Mitchell Center. "The War" series begins Sept. 23 on PBS and plays out over two weeks.
Having suffered the injustices of a rigidly segregated Alabama, Gray might have considered that the war was not his fight. But, he said, "I knew it was my country, too."
And so Gray and the other members of the 51st would laugh whenever Japanese propaganda broadcasts encouraged America's black Marines to defect, he said.
He recalled difficult boot camp days at mosquito-infested Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
"We drilled, and I mean it was tough," Gray said. "Of course the Marine life was tough anyway, but it seemed as though somebody wanted us to quit. We just wouldn't quit. We hung in there. I never was a quitter."
Whatever the Marine Corps asked of him, Gray gave. The war took him to such over-the-horizon places as the Marshall and Ellice island groups.
"I didn't even know those islands existed," he said. "They are so small that even now you can hardly find them on the map."
Upon his honorable discharge Feb. 6, 1946, Gray was disappointed to find his horizons in some ways had been narrowed and not expanded by his service to his country.
"We thought things would be a little better," he said. "They got to be worse. A lot of the people here in Mobile were under the impression that the war would make us difficult to deal with. Everybody wasn't like that, but you had people who had that kind of animosity."
Amid those challenges, Gray immediately resumed his education and sought opportunities.
In 1998, he retired after 50 years of working in the Mobile public schools. He taught science and social studies at Dunbar Junior High School from 1948 to 1970, and he was assistant principal at Shaw High School from 1971 to 1998.
Ellie