Patton's Panthers: The African-American 761st Tank Battalion in World War II

I am a 1978-82 era tanker....these guys deserve their day in the Sun....flyboys get all the glory! *wink* Someone needs make a movie about them.

I've been reading a lot of books about WWII lately, by Stephen Ambrose (Citizen Soldiers), James Bradley (Flags of our Fathers), etc. Patton's Panthers by Charles Sasser fits well in this genre of writting. Sasser has done an excellent job making a book that's very interesting to read. He has done extensive research and then taken that research and compiled it into a narrative well worth reading. I highly recommend it.

Armed service of African-Americans is one of the least covered topics in the greater realm of WWII historiography. This is quite unfortunate as the number of African-Americans to proudly and honorably serve the US armed forces in the Second World War was not trivial. Nor was their contribution to the Allied war effort trivial. While most African-Americans served in service and support units in the segregated US services of the 1930-40's, there were a small number of all African-American combat units, and by the end of the war a few integrated units (although integration occurred on a platoon rather than individual basis as occurred with white soldiers), that served with equal, if not greater, distinction to all white units. Fortunately for all Americans the past few years have brought a number of historiographies of the contributions of African-American soldiers to the Allied victory in WWII, both in Europe and Asia. `Patton's Panthers: The African-American 761st Tank Battalion in World War II' by Charles W. Sasser is a solid contribution to this growing literature that anyone interested in WWII and/or issues of segregation/race relations in the middle of the 20th Century should pick up. Not only does `Patton's Panthers' deal with a historical issue worthy of coverage but it does so with flair. Sasser's writing style is quite easy to follow and he presents material with literary flavor. While this makes the reading fun and informative at the same time, much in the same way Stephen Ambrose, John Keeghan, Cornelius Ryan, and John Toland's works function, Sasser's style goes a bit beyond that of the aforementioned authors. Two aspects of Sasser's approach to `Patton's Panthers' are particularly noteworthy in this context: First, it may take authors a while to get used to the `frank' language Sasser uses to present the stories. Not only are curse words frequent, but also political correctness is often left in the editing room. Sasser rarely refers to the soldiers at the center of the story as African-Americans but rather Negroes. It is not entirely clear that Sasser did not do this in fact for visceral impact - most culturally-enlightened individuals prefer to use African-American as a term to denote people of color - since the first half of the book is peppered with Negro and Negroes, while in the latter half use of this more derogatory term becomes much less frequent. This reviewer certainly recoiled at the free use of the term Negro(es), but right or wrong this approach did help to highlight emotionally the more important issues of bigotry and discrimination that these warriors experienced. Somehow by being more `politically incorrect' Sasser may have actually been able to drive home more clearly the morally correct issue of race tolerance and brotherhood that we should all strive for. The second aspect of Sasser's writing approach that stood out to this reviewer was the way in which nearly all the `recollections' of the African-

"Patton's Panthers" caught me by surprise. The wisdom in the off-hand in combat comments of the "common" citizen soldier far exceeds the hash cranked out by most scholars of war. Anyone who has ever worn the uniform will recognize the attitudes and scenes, time and place altered. This is a WWII oral history which does not romanticize war or minimize the faults of our own nation. The heroism of these men was extraordinary. The feats of courage described so frankly and brutally were those of realistic men not motivated by propaganda or careerism. One can only wonder how much those racial attitudes persist today, though there is no doubt that what does remain inside our forces has been pushed deeper below the surface. On the other hand, substitute "haji" for "negra" and follow today's soldiers [of any race] around for a few moments to discover that our latent racial bias always finds some way to push back to the surface. Some would no doubt argue that this is part of a necessary process of dehumanizing the enemy to enable our young soldiers to kill. Only 60 years have passed; one wonders if we have really changed our nature so much that we are qualified to "train" the Iraqis and Afghans how to bridge their own ethnic and tribal divides. Go to our Southwest Asian bases today, and watch the long lines of "host country" nationals filing past us every morning and afternoon, not a glance or a word exchanged between us. One of the men in "Patton's Panthers" noted that the only time the black man was sent to the front of anything, bus, train, or battle, was when the white man did not want to be there. Our allies of today cannot help but feel the same way, I suppose. Plenty of bias, both racial and religious, on both sides of today's war, perhaps more than usual.