An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Home : News : Article View
NEWS | Feb. 1, 2018

New York's black WWI troops fought to get into the fight

By Col. Richard Goldenberg New York National Guard

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When the African American National Guard Soldiers of New York's 15th Infantry Regiment arrived in France in December 1917, they expected to conduct combat training and enter the trenches of the Western Front right away.

They could not have been more wrong.

The black troops were ordered to unload supply ships at the docks for their first months in France, joining the mass of supply troops known as stevedores, working long hours in the port at St. Nazaire. 

More than 380,000 African Americans served in the Army during World War I, according to the National Archives. Approximately 200,000 of these were sent to Europe. 

But more than half of those who deployed were assigned to labor and stevedore battalions, assigned to tasks that many Army leaders saw as most appropriate.

These troops performed essential duties for the American Expeditionary Force, building roads, bridges, and trenches in support of the front-line battles. 

In St. Nazaire, the New York National Guard Soldiers learned they would work to prepare the docks and rail lines to be a major port of entry for the hundreds of thousands of forces yet to arrive in France. 

The African American regiment was a quick and easy source of labor, according to author Stephen Harris in his 2003 book, "Harlem's Hell Fighters."

"First, Pershing would have a source of cheap labor," Harris wrote. "Second, he wouldn't have to worry about what to do with black soldiers, particularly when he might have to mix them in with white troops."

But officers, leaders and the combat Soldiers had not signed up for labor. They were committed to fighting the Germans and winning the war. 

"They had no place to put the regiment," said infantry Capt. Hamilton Fish, according to the Harris book. "They weren't going to put us in a white division, not in 1917, anyway; so our troops were sent in to the supply and services as laborers to lay railroad tracks. This naturally upset our men tremendously."

The regiment's best advocate was their commander, Col. William Hayward.

"It was time for us to try to do something towards extricating ourselves from the dirty mess of pick-swinging and wheel barrel trundling that we were in," Hayward had said to Capt. Arthur Little, commander of the regimental band, according to Jeffrey Sammons in his 2014 book "Harlem's Rattlers and the Great War." 

"We had come to France as combat troops, and, apparently, we were in danger of becoming labor troops," Hayward said.

Hayward argued his case in a letter to General Pershing, outlining the regiments' mobilization and training, and followed up immediately with a personal visit to Pershing's headquarters.

He would bring with him the regiment's most formidable weapon in swaying opinion: the regimental band, lauded as one of the finest in the entire Expeditionary Force.

While the regiment literally laid the tracks for the arrival of the two million troops deploying to France, the regimental band toured the region, performing for French and American audiences at rest centers and hospitals. The 369th Band was unlike any other performance audiences had seen or heard before, noted Harris. The regimental band is credited with introducing jazz music to France during the war.

The military band would frequently perform a French march, followed by traditional band scores such as John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."

"And then came the fireworks," said Sgt. Noble Sissle, band vocalist and organizer, in the Harris account, as the 369th Band would play as if they were in a jazz club back in Harlem. 

After some three months of labor constructing nearby railways to move supplies forward, the Soldiers learned that they had orders to join the French 16th Division for three weeks of combat training.

They also learned they had a new regimental number as the now-renamed 369th Infantry Regiment. Not that it mattered much to the Soldiers; they still carried their nickname from New York, the Black Rattlers, and carried their regimental flag of the 15th New York Infantry everywhere they went in France.

While the 369th Infantry would become part of the U.S. Army's 92nd Infantry Division, it would be assigned to fight with French forces. This solved the dilemma for Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces of what to do with the African-American troops.

The black troops would see combat, but alongside French forces, who were already accustomed to the many races and ethnicities already serving in the ranks of their colonial troops.

"The French army instructors literally welcomed their African American trainees as comrades in arms," Sammons wrote. "To the pragmatic French army instructors, the Soldiers were Americans, black Americans, to be trained for combat within their ranks. The trainees clearly excelled at their tasks."

After learning valuable lessons in trench warfare from their French partners, the Soldiers of the 369th finally had their chance to prove their worth as combat troops when they entered the front lines, holding their line against the last German spring offensive near Chateau-Thierry.

Their value was not lost on the French and the regiment continued to fight alongside French forces, participating in the Aisne-Marne counter offensive in the summer of 1918 alongside the French 162st Infantry Division.

The Hell Fighters from Harlem had come into their own, in spite of their difficult start. 

The regiment would go on to prove itself in combat operations throughout the rest of the war, receiving the French highest honor, the Croix de Guerre, for its unit actions alongside some 171 individual decorations for heroism.

 

 

Related Articles
U.S. Soldiers with the Army National Guard speak with D.C. locals while patrolling Metro Center Aug 26, 2025. About 2,000 National Guard members are supporting the D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission providing critical support to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in ensuring the safety of all who live, work, and visit the District.
Guard Members From Six States, D.C. on Duty in Washington in Support of Local, Fed Authorities
By Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy, | Aug. 29, 2025
WASHINGTON – More than 2,000 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from six states and the District of Columbia are on duty in Washington as part of Joint Task Force – District of Columbia in support of local and federal...

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, Maj. Gen. Russel Honore, Task Force Katrina commander, and Brig. Gen. John Basilica, 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team commander, talk to news media during the aftermath of Hurricane Rita on Sep. 29, 2005. Basilica was appointed commander of Task Force Pelican, responsible for coordinating National Guard hurricane response efforts across the State. The task force included tens of thousands of National Guard Soldiers from Louisiana and other states.
Louisiana Guard’s Tiger Brigade Marks 20th Anniversary of Redeployment and Hurricane Response
By Rhett Breerwood, | Aug. 29, 2025
NEW ORLEANS – This fall, the Louisiana National Guard’s 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, known as the Tiger Brigade, commemorates the 20th anniversary of its redeployment from Iraq in September 2005, coinciding with the...

Alaska Air National Guard HH-60G Pave Hawk aviators and Guardian Angels, assigned to the 210th and 212th Rescue Squadrons, respectively, conduct a hoist rescue demonstration while participating in a multi-agency hoist symposium at Bryant Army Airfield on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, July 22, 2025. The symposium, hosted by Alaska Army National Guard aviators assigned to Golf Company, 2-211th General Support Aviation Battalion, included U.S. Coast Guard crews assigned to Sector Western Alaska and U.S. Arctic out of Air Stations Kodiak and Sitka, Alaska Air National Guardsmen with the 176th Wing rescue squadrons, U.S. Army aviators from Fort Wainwright’s 1-52nd General Support Aviation Battalion, Alaska State Troopers, and civilian search and rescue professional volunteers from the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group. The collaborative training drew on the participants’ varied backgrounds, experiences, and practices, to enhance hoist proficiency and collective readiness when conducting life-saving search and rescue missions in Alaska’s vast and austere terrain. (Alaska Army National Guard photo by Alejandro Peña)
Alaska Air Guard Conducts Multiple Hoist Rescues of Stranded Rafters on Kichatna River
By Staff Sgt. Seth LaCount, | Aug. 29, 2025
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — Alaska Air National Guard members with the 176th Wing rescued three rafters Aug. 28 after their raft flipped over on the Kichatna River.The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center opened...