Word: 41st
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...wooded, gullied fields around Polly Ray Mountain at Fort Bragg, N.C., 18,000 troops of the Ninth Division moved for maneuvers. Everything was set for a nice little black & white wargame. Infantrymen and artillerymen were to attack the hill. The defenders were Lieut. Colonel John Elliott Wood's 41st Engineers, the first regiment of Negro engineers in the new Army...
...41st decided to make an offensive defense. Hell and "Smoky Joe" Wood's black, grinning engineers broke loose at the same time. Out of the scrub, up from concealing gullies roared an avalanche of darky-driven trucks. Because the 41st still lacked combat equipment, like most of the Army, the trucks represented a battalion of tanks. After the make-believe tanks came more trucks, acting as troop carriers...
...astounded 39th (white) Infantry on the Ninth's southern flank. Again the engineers wove through and around the enemy lines, ran some of their truck-tanks clear to the division command post (but caught no generals; they had fled). Before the games ended, in horrid confusion, the 41st was credited with halting the Ninth Division's planned attack for at least a day, perhaps disrupting it completely...
Black Watch. To civilians who think of Army engineers as pick-&-shovel soldiers, the performance of the 41st might have seemed surprisingly belligerent. But not to soldiers: combat engineers fight with guns as well as shovels, often lead attacking troops into battle when enemy fortifications, tank-traps, etc. have to be demolished. Lieut. Colonel Wood's use of simulated tanks was something extra, just to show what Negro engineers could do in a pinch...
...last summer. All of his officers are white; all of them are 30 or younger. (In the U.S. Army, Negro regiments get picked officers, and officers generally vie for assignment to them.) His 1,250 privates and noncoms are Negroes, mostly from the South. Together they have made the 41st a slambang outfit which has supplied the training cadres for 14 other engineer regiments. In all, some 3,300 Negro recruits have gone through Joe Wood's mill...