thedrifter
12-13-05, 12:58 PM
December 19, 2005
The Lore of the Corps
Montford Pointers paved way for blacks
By Neil Graves
Special to the Times
From 1942 to 1949, 20,000 black troops poured through the isolated Montford Point corner of the otherwise all-white Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Although the other services had begun to integrate cautiously after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Marine Corps was the last to fall in, making the Montford Point Marines the first black leathernecks to join fighting units.
Black recruits didn’t train at Marine Corps Recruit Depots Parris Island or San Diego. They went through Lejeune’s Montford Point, and they barracked in thick, corrugated cardboard huts. They ate chow in all-black mess halls. In order to socialize, they traveled on military buses to Wilmington, N.C., an hour away, to visit an informal United Services Organization run by a married couple.
For Albert Jackson, who grew up in Harlem, N.Y., taking the train to Lejeune was an experience in itself.
“Virginia was the first time I saw ‘white’ and ‘colored’ signs,” said Jackson, 81, a retired bank executive. “Washington was supposed to be free of segregation, but that was not true. But it wasn’t blatant like in Roanoke or into the Carolinas.”
Once at Montford Point, an area newly carved from the woods, things changed. Jackson said he muttered curses at the unmerciful drilling, but later he realized that “I admired the DIs for their tenacity. They treated you in such a way it brought out the best in you.”
Two years after the first black Marines trained in North Carolina, Montford Pointers finally saw combat during the June 15, 1944, invasion of Saipan.
The Japanese strategy was to overload the beaches with Americans so they’d create a better killing field. They allowed the first two waves to land virtually unmolested, said Kenneth Rollock of Englewood, N.J. He was in the fateful third.
“When the third wave came in, they opened up [on] us,” said Rollock, 80, a retired fireman. “We were shelled all night long that first night. Thank God none of them hit my [fox]hole.”
Some vets found no racism in foxholes.
“At a time like that, they’re not concerned about what color you are,” said Ernest Richardson, 80, of Queens, N.Y., who landed on Guam the next month. “All the Marine Corps cared about was the American flag going up. They didn’t care if 250 or 250,000 were killed so long as you got that flag up.”
Some of the racial interplay seemed to transfer to the enemy. Japanese snipers would fire at white troops in an unloading area, but when a black serviceman was exposed to fire, they often didn’t shoot, Rollock said.
“I think the Japanese weren’t trying to do us,” Rollock said. “Maybe they figured, ‘These guys don’t deserve it; they’re not the ones who started this.’”
Another Montford Pointer recalled a white junior officer who realized the situation and smeared his face with mud, crying out: “I’m black, too!”
Some former Marines said the Corps might not be where it is today had the Montford Point pioneers failed and segregation prevailed for a longer period.
“If we were not successful, they would have used that as an excuse not to have black Marines,” Richardson said.
Neil Graves is a reporter with the New York Post. He can be reached at ngpostman@aol.com.
Ellie
The Lore of the Corps
Montford Pointers paved way for blacks
By Neil Graves
Special to the Times
From 1942 to 1949, 20,000 black troops poured through the isolated Montford Point corner of the otherwise all-white Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Although the other services had begun to integrate cautiously after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Marine Corps was the last to fall in, making the Montford Point Marines the first black leathernecks to join fighting units.
Black recruits didn’t train at Marine Corps Recruit Depots Parris Island or San Diego. They went through Lejeune’s Montford Point, and they barracked in thick, corrugated cardboard huts. They ate chow in all-black mess halls. In order to socialize, they traveled on military buses to Wilmington, N.C., an hour away, to visit an informal United Services Organization run by a married couple.
For Albert Jackson, who grew up in Harlem, N.Y., taking the train to Lejeune was an experience in itself.
“Virginia was the first time I saw ‘white’ and ‘colored’ signs,” said Jackson, 81, a retired bank executive. “Washington was supposed to be free of segregation, but that was not true. But it wasn’t blatant like in Roanoke or into the Carolinas.”
Once at Montford Point, an area newly carved from the woods, things changed. Jackson said he muttered curses at the unmerciful drilling, but later he realized that “I admired the DIs for their tenacity. They treated you in such a way it brought out the best in you.”
Two years after the first black Marines trained in North Carolina, Montford Pointers finally saw combat during the June 15, 1944, invasion of Saipan.
The Japanese strategy was to overload the beaches with Americans so they’d create a better killing field. They allowed the first two waves to land virtually unmolested, said Kenneth Rollock of Englewood, N.J. He was in the fateful third.
“When the third wave came in, they opened up [on] us,” said Rollock, 80, a retired fireman. “We were shelled all night long that first night. Thank God none of them hit my [fox]hole.”
Some vets found no racism in foxholes.
“At a time like that, they’re not concerned about what color you are,” said Ernest Richardson, 80, of Queens, N.Y., who landed on Guam the next month. “All the Marine Corps cared about was the American flag going up. They didn’t care if 250 or 250,000 were killed so long as you got that flag up.”
Some of the racial interplay seemed to transfer to the enemy. Japanese snipers would fire at white troops in an unloading area, but when a black serviceman was exposed to fire, they often didn’t shoot, Rollock said.
“I think the Japanese weren’t trying to do us,” Rollock said. “Maybe they figured, ‘These guys don’t deserve it; they’re not the ones who started this.’”
Another Montford Pointer recalled a white junior officer who realized the situation and smeared his face with mud, crying out: “I’m black, too!”
Some former Marines said the Corps might not be where it is today had the Montford Point pioneers failed and segregation prevailed for a longer period.
“If we were not successful, they would have used that as an excuse not to have black Marines,” Richardson said.
Neil Graves is a reporter with the New York Post. He can be reached at ngpostman@aol.com.
Ellie