Hello everyone,
when it comes to popular Hollywood movies (I am not referring to Fury now, but there are many others), it’s a trend of source to depict the war from our current point of view. This often involves unhistorical elements, such as the common display of mixed (black and white) troops fighting together. Let’s have a look at what the position of black men in US Army really was.
During WW2, the US Army was racially segregated. Black men were called “negroes” and the word was not used as a racial slur, it was simply a term for blacks and they were formed into troops separated from the white majority of soldiers. They were led by black officers as well, although some command positions were occupied by white men due to the lack of properly trained black officers. The most notable examples were the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Division and 2nd Cavalry Division, but there were also independent black infantry regiments and tank batallions (such as the 761st Tank Batallion). There was even one black parachute infantry company (555th Parachute Infantry Company), but that unit was never deployed in combat and was used to fight forest fires in the north-western region of the USA. Practically the only black unit, involved in larger combat operations was the 92nd Infantry Division (Italian theater), although some smaller independent units were involved in fighting as well. A part of the 93rd Infantry Division was fighting small-scale battles in the Pacific. 2nd Cavalry Division on the other hand never had a contact with the enemy.
