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00:00The 24th Infantry Regiment, the Deuce Four.
00:07In 1950, they are one of the last segregated units in the United States Army.
00:15Unprepared and untested, they are thrown into a new war in Korea.
00:21All of a sudden, this is the first time that we've ever been that close to another person shooting at you.
00:28The Deuce Four fights for over a year on the front lines, yet they are accused of bugging out in battle.
00:37They said that we was running, we dropped our weapons, we didn't fight.
00:43Fifty years later, the controversy surrounding the Buffalo Soldiers still remains.
00:51My 13 months in Korea, I never ever seen a person run.
00:56Did you find that?
00:59I have to make the universe in the military?
01:01The Metro Soldiers the two?
01:03The Metro Soldiers?
01:05No offense.
01:06Okay.
01:07I'm the Panthers' one.
01:08I really stopped for it.
01:09See you there.
01:10You're a Indian.
01:11I'm the Indian.
01:12I'm the Indian.
01:13I'm...
01:14My dogged and still.
01:15I'm the Indian.
01:16You're a Indian.
01:17I was a Indian.
01:18I'm the Indian.
01:19I'm the Indian.
01:20I'm the Indian.
01:211945 the nation is racially divided for young black men there are few career options
01:39Frank Robinson joins the army one of the reasons why I enlisted was not only for the adventure
01:46but I had gotten a little trouble at school and was a little afraid to go back home as the child of an
01:53interracial couple Frank Robinson is shocked by the segregation of troops at Fort Dix New Jersey
01:58I'm from Staten Island New York okay and Staten Island is totally integrated all right you know
02:06I mean you went to school with white people you went to the community dances with white people
02:12you played football basketball etc etc with white people you came to Fort Dix and everything was
02:19black just just amazed this is not Alabama Mississippi this is in New Jersey he and
02:30fellow recruit Raleigh Evans recall training separately from white soldiers get a little
02:35closer smile now and then when we marched down the road when you got to where that
02:42intersection is down there used to be a sign down there that said no colored troops beyond beyond
02:51this point I remember that president Truman issues an executive order in 1948 to integrate the military
02:59but it is slow to happen meanwhile conflict is brewing in Korea the 38th parallel is becoming a
03:07battleground between the communist North and the democratic South
03:11Richard Sanders enlists in the army right out of high school he serves his first year in Okinawa Japan with the 272nd Amphibious Truck Company
03:26and when I came back from Okinawa I came back to the States and I was going to get out of service and I want to go to college
03:35attention jumping jacks one two three one one but the army has other plans for Sanders he is sent back to Japan to join the 24th Infantry Regiment
03:47I didn't know anything about the infantry other than the fact that I was just finished refresher training
03:55and when I got there they put me in a machine gun platoon and said you're an assistant platoon sergeant and machine gun platoon
04:02Oliver Dillard already in college takes a different route into the military
04:07I was drafted in the Army in 1945 June 1945 out of college Uncle Sam said I want you I said can't you let me finish my senior year and they said no we want you now
04:25he heads from Alabama to Germany as an enlisted man where he impresses his commanding officer
04:32he took a liking to me and promoted me to uh Sergeant first class five striper in about three months
04:40and so I went to him and said sir you've been very kind to me you promoted me quickly uh but now I got
04:48to go back to the States and re-enter Tuskegee he said no you can't leave me here with all these
04:53recruits coming in you can't leave me uh I'll make you a warrant officer the Army denies the promotion
05:02but recommends that he attend officer candidate school at Fort Benning by 1947 Dillard is moving up the
05:11ranks to second lieutenant you have to understand a little background of all of this is that uh there
05:20weren't many black officers in the Army yet with less than a hundred from Fort Benning and other
05:28stateside training grounds many black soldiers and a few white officers are sent to Camp Majestic in Gifu
05:35Japan where they join the 24th Infantry Regiment part of the 25th Infantry Division as occupation troops
05:44first lieutenant John Komp is assigned to D company of the 24th regiment when I was assigned I didn't know that
05:55that the regiment was an all black regiment but uh it didn't make any difference to me the these were
06:01the men that I was going to be in command of so they were my men Comp's opinion of being assigned to
06:09the 24th regiment is not shared by all of his fellow white officers some had mixed emotions I guess some
06:18felt that they were being oh put out to the farm or they weren't going to be in a good career pattern
06:26at the other end of the spectrum the black enlisted men are honored to be part of the 24th Infantry
06:34Regiment because it has a long and celebrated history originally formed in 1866 as an all-black unit and
06:44nicknamed the Buffalo Soldiers the 24th is known for defending the Western Frontier against Native
06:52Americans and capturing the blockhouse on San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War
06:58with a rich history in combat the 24th accepts its assignment as occupation troops in Gifu they described
07:11Camp Majestic as their own little world and paradise and they excel in many areas baseball marching boxing but
07:22just outside the gates racism lingers Jim Thompson a private first class in L company has painful memories of
07:32going on parade in Tokyo we would be on the end and it looked like the tanks and artillery would go by
07:42before we go by when we get the reviewing stands was nobody there MacArthur left care less if you're a
07:50black person in that age in the United States there are a lot of negatives and the army really reflects the
07:56country in many respects there's an expectation that in the army itself that black people will not be good
08:03soldiers they're they're lazy and and so on this is the stereotype that they have unless you were a
08:12chaplain or perhaps a doctor you would never rise beyond the rank of a captain period the difficulties facing the
08:2424th regiment increase as combat in Korea becomes more of a reality like many other units black and white
08:32they are simply not prepared to go to war well after World War two the United States began its classic
08:42retreat from power in the army went from I think it was 8 million men in 1945 to 600,000 in 1950 or so
08:54basically the army was living off of war surplus stuff old used jeeps old used jet radios old used
09:03artillery if you have a howitzer shell that's beyond its peak it may not fire when you need it so going
09:13into Korea this is the kind of a situation that we had the American troops are at a serious disadvantage
09:20and the fighting is about to begin
09:23when on June 25th 1950 the North Korean communists attacked the Republic of Korea without warning or
09:35justification one of history's most important questions faced the world would free nations under
09:42the flag of the United Nations band together to halt that aggression June 27th 1950 President Truman is
09:53authorized by the United Nations to begin a police action with a number of Allied countries against the
10:00North Koreans we heard about the war while we were on the ship going to Japan for normal rotation about
10:09three days out the loudspeaker on the boat came on and said now here there's now here there's now here there's the North Koreans have just invaded South Korea
10:23on July 2nd general MacArthur sends the first US troops to fight alongside the South Koreans within one week more than 4,000 men are wounded or killed
10:37Lyle Rochelle is sent to Korea to join the deuce 4 as a company commander
10:44well at the very beginning I decided to to write the daily events when I had the time and of course initially the first month I didn't have much time but then I started to write
11:01just because I wanted a record of what was taking place
11:05Rochelle's diary which he turned into a book recounts his first memories of Korea
11:11all night long the ship chugged along toward Korea and at dawn as the sun was rising in the east we slowly came into the port of Pusan the ferry boat sputtered and slowed then jockeyed alongside a pier and finally came to a stop
11:28I cannot forget my first impression the overall view from the deck was most displeasing and not very encouraging as far as one could see which was the port area alone
11:40the colors were black and gray and olive drab there was no brightness to light the scene the buildings the people the clutter and the military supplies being offloaded and stacked on the ground were all the same dull shade with few exceptions
11:55we landed
11:58we landed with Pusan and then we moved up by either truck or train
12:02you saw a lot of refugees who were coming on foot or on train riding on the tops of trains chaotic situation to say the least
12:13the train takes the troops towards the front lines to the town of Coomchon where they are well positioned to move north to Hamchon or swing west to Taichon
12:20where they are well positioned to move north to Hamchon or swing west to Taichon
12:25when we arrived there in July it was hot steaming hot
12:31I lived in mountains in Alabama but these were granddaddy mountains
12:38there is simply no way to describe adequately the effect these hills had on the men summer and winter
12:46or how the fighting might have changed if the men didn't have to overcome the topography as well as the enemy before them
12:54the 24th Infantry Regiment is part of the 25th Infantry Division commanded by General William Keane
13:09immediately upon arrival on July 11th the Deuce 4 is ordered into battle
13:15despite having just spent 32 hours on a train 17 hours on a ship and 7 hours on a truck
13:22General Keane and the US command are desperate for a victory
13:29The first night in battle in Korea was tough
13:40We were afraid because this was the very first time that we'd ever been shot at
13:44and we were going to shoot at somebody else
13:47The town of Yecheon is at the intersection of major roads leading east and west.
13:53The 3rd Battalion of the Deuce IV must keep the North Koreans from controlling these vital crossroads.
14:03Yecheon was the first time that the 24th Regiment was thrown into combat.
14:10Our mission was to retake it since the North Koreans had moved into Yecheon after the South Koreans departed to go on another mission.
14:21For most of us, we had never really experienced somebody shooting at you.
14:27And during the night time, every time something moved, we would shoot at.
14:32On the morning of the final day in Yecheon, the 3rd Battalion attacked.
14:40L Company was given the mission of taking Yecheon, and Captain Bigg gave me the mission of leading L Company's attack.
14:52L Company quickly gains the upper hand against a small North Korean force
14:57and makes its way through Yecheon, receiving only minimal sniper and machine gun fire.
15:07There was a little sporadic fire here and there on the side, but I met no major resistance.
15:16It certainly wasn't a major victory, but the 24th Infantry did get a lot of recognition.
15:22There were news stories even in the New York Times.
15:26There were some commendations on the floor of the Congress when this occurred and so on.
15:31It only takes an hour for the 24th Regiment to secure Yecheon.
15:37But back home, the press makes the most of the first American victory in Korea.
15:43And the black community is bolstered by a positive story about some of their own.
15:48Now, of course, the media and people looking for our glory kind of exploded Yecheon into a major battle.
16:01But I was in the lead platoon, and there was not a lot of resistance.
16:06Some enlisted men, like Richard Sanders, are encouraged by their victory at Yecheon.
16:12We thought there would be a possibility that this was the end of the war.
16:19We were really elated because we think, boy, we've taken this land.
16:23The war is going to be over pretty soon.
16:26But we didn't know that that was just the tip of the iceberg at the time.
16:30While the 3rd Battalion is still reveling in its victory at Yecheon,
16:44Rochelle's able company of the 1st Battalion runs into trouble just west of Sangju.
16:50The North Koreans begin pushing the United Nations forces south.
16:55The North Koreans were overwhelming in number.
17:00I would say they probably had unlimited manpower.
17:04But they would operate at night.
17:06They would infiltrate.
17:08They were not fair fighters, if you might say it that way,
17:14because they would infiltrate, disguising themselves as refugees.
17:18We went into a defensive position because the North Korean army was really moving fast
17:25and overrunning all of the positions.
17:29And then we started almost immediately retreating or being forced back.
17:36And the strategy was to move one unit behind, maybe a mile or so,
17:44and allow the unit in front of it to pass through it.
17:49And then that unit would take up a defensive position and allow another unit to pass through it.
17:54And so we hopped backwards, if you will.
17:59It was a general retreat.
18:01All units, both black and white, are ordered to withdraw.
18:07But the 24th Regiment becomes the scapegoat
18:11and gains a reputation for running away from combat.
18:15Being in the News 4, you'd hear all kinds of stories.
18:20Oh, man, I hear you guys ran off the hill and so on and so forth.
18:23Well, in Baker Company, I'd never known of anybody to run.
18:29It wasn't like you didn't want to run, okay?
18:32It was there. You definitely wanted to get out of there.
18:35But for the most part, I don't know of anybody in Baker Company that ever got up and ran.
18:41The irony of it is that all the units in the army fighting in that place at that time
18:48are having a problem with soldiers who desert under fire.
18:54In the case of the 24th Infantry, no officers are removed.
18:58Nobody's disciplined.
19:02On August 1st, the commander of the 8th Army, which includes the 24th Regiment,
19:07orders a massive retreat to the area south of the Nam and Naktung rivers.
19:15He believes their best hope for survival lies in setting up a perimeter
19:20to protect their supply line in the port of Pusan,
19:24until the United Nations and the United States can send more troops.
19:28From the operation west of Sanju, the regiment, in several moves,
19:37staying overnight in a blocking position and moving the next day to another blocking position,
19:43in several moves, went to Haman, the left anchor for the Pusan perimeter.
19:51The mission there was to find the enemy.
19:54We knew the enemy was moving to the south, but we had lost contact with the enemy.
20:00The 3rd Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Pierce,
20:05probes around Sobok San, a large hill five miles south of Haman.
20:11They send patrols out into the countryside and capture a prisoner,
20:16who reveals there are 200 North Korean troops nearby.
20:19The battalion organized a combat patrol of L Company, a company which I was a part,
20:31and elements of M Company and others, a small task force to go to the south to see if we could locate the enemy.
20:40We were supposed to go up on this hill and overlook and try to find out how many enemies are down in this little town.
20:55We didn't see any enemy, didn't hear anything, and a few South Koreans in that area said they hadn't seen any enemy.
21:05The Americans don't see the enemy, but they are there.
21:10While part of the unit is sent out to patrol and to report back on anything they find,
21:16the remainder of the men stop to rest.
21:18No one orders the men to dig in or set up any kind of defense.
21:28A well-trained unit, when it is in any kind of a combat situation,
21:33if they take a rest or anything like that, the men will deploy into mutually supporting positions,
21:38and they will post people to keep watch and to keep guard.
21:43Well, Colonel Pierce's people didn't do anything.
21:47Come again, over.
21:49Colonel Pierce falls asleep.
21:51Yes, sir. Copy that.
21:53Dillard is worried that his commanding officers are not ordering the troops to dig in.
21:57But as a lower-level officer, he cannot override his superior's orders.
22:02But I became concerned that we were sitting there, soldiers as usual, when you tell them to stop, they stop, fall down on that pack and go to sleep.
22:15If you don't tell them to dig in, they won't dig in, because if they're going to move the next minute, why dig a foxhole?
22:21As night falls, the patrol that was sent to scout the area is not answering radio calls.
22:29Dillard worries that something has happened to them.
22:34We had no communication with the patrol.
22:37Air company. Air company.
22:39Didn't you read? Over.
22:41And the patrol didn't call back.
22:44Air company.
22:46We kind of sat in limbo.
22:49Air company. Air company.
22:50Do you read? Over.
22:52I called and called again. We couldn't get communication.
22:56Air company. Air company.
22:58Do you read? Over.
23:00This thing went on hour after hour, and it got dark.
23:07Under cover of darkness, a small group of North Koreans is surrounding Pierce's unit.
23:13By 10 p.m., the patrol returns unannounced.
23:17Their field radio had failed.
23:18But there is no time for rest, as the enemy is right behind them.
23:23It's right behind them.
23:24And I guess maybe by 9.30, 10 o'clock, I'm down in front, stupidly, when all of a sudden behind me and up on the skyline, there started some firing.
23:36As the patrol entered the defensive position, the enemy followed them in.
23:42The Americans are completely unprepared for the attack.
23:46I could see and hear the machine gun firing. I could see and hear the machine gun firing. I could see and hear the bird gun firing, the enemy's weapon.
23:58The North Koreans begin to overtake the hill.
24:02Chaos ensues for the Deuce Four.
24:06It caught the old unit by surprise, sitting there on their pants.
24:13It was a disaster.
24:14L Company is crumbling, but M Company's machine gunner, William Thompson, holds his ground and opens fire.
24:27Richard Sanders tries to convince him to save himself and retreat.
24:30I said, get the machine gun, let's go. He said, no, you go ahead, I'm going to take you.
24:37I said, no, I'm going to stay with you. He said, no, you got to go.
24:42Although wounded, Thompson continues to cover his retreating comrades.
24:48The Deuce Four is losing this battle.
24:52Their commander, Colonel Pierce, is hit.
24:56Colonel Pierce, the commander of the whole thing, has wounded in both legs.
25:00His men carry him off the battlefield, and for all practical purposes, the people are not well led, and they run.
25:10There was panic.
25:17L Company retreats, while the lone machine gunner is pinned down and finally killed by the North Koreans.
25:24There were some very courageous people that put up a good fight there, Thompson's been won.
25:34Private First Class William Thompson would be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his valor that night on Soboksan.
25:42He saved a lot of lives, and he was the first Medal of Honor winner in Korea. The first.
25:52The second.
25:53The second.
25:54The second.
25:55The second.
25:57Although the 24th Regiment gains one Medal of Honor recipient from the Battle of Soboksan, their reputation for running is cemented.
26:06Well, Company I of the 77th Engineers went out there to police up the battlefield to pick up the weapons that were left, bring back the bodies.
26:16They found a lot of stuff.
26:18And it was amazing to them, what was left behind and what shouldn't have been left.
26:23And there was no reason for this to have happened if people had done the right thing.
26:28And they hadn't.
26:30Many of the white officers involved blame the black soldiers for running off the hill and abandoning their equipment.
26:38But Oliver Dillard, a black officer who was there, sees it differently.
26:42The soldiers didn't do anything wrong. We just didn't make the right decision and get things in order.
26:51It was a fault of the officers.
26:55We didn't make a decision as to what we were going to do.
27:00And we did not have the soldiers dig in.
27:04The same day as the Soboksan incident, General Keene appoints a new commander to lead the regiment.
27:14Colonel Arthur S. Champany.
27:17He is a decorated veteran of both world wars.
27:21However he tried to inspire the men, he didn't make great gains personally because his opening comments were very demeaning.
27:28You were no good in World War I, no good in World War II and you're not doing much better now.
27:34It is believed Champany will crack the whip on the Deuce Four.
27:40He instructs his company commanders to prosecute any soldier who leaves his post without permission.
27:46From August 15th to September 15th, 1950, the United Nations forces struggled to hold the Pusan perimeter.
27:59They cannot afford to lose any more ground.
28:02The Pusan perimeter was the last before going into the Pacific Ocean.
28:08That was it. If they didn't survive there, that was it.
28:11We were defending the major city of Pusan.
28:18We had formed a perimeter to withhold any further advances from the North Korean divisions who were trying to sneak around our left flank to get into Maasan and ultimately into Pusan.
28:32We were hanging on and hanging on with a prayer.
28:42The Deuce Four is positioned around Hill 665, better known to the troops as Battle Mountain or Old Baldy.
28:49Here, Medic Frank Robinson joins the already Battle-Weary Regiment.
28:55I joined the regiment sometime in August.
29:00My first taste of combat was they were taking a hill called Old Baldy.
29:07Being in the Pusan perimeter, you were almost under constant water fire and small arms fire.
29:16I certainly didn't sleep that first night, okay?
29:20And every once in a while, the water would go off in your vicinity.
29:24And man, it just shook you.
29:29You had heard down the line, one guy got shot in the head and, you know, this particular kind of thing.
29:35So you try to stay as low as you could to the ground.
29:38You prayed that nobody got hit.
29:41I remember a day that I didn't encounter some type of enemy fire.
29:48The fog of war hits the commanders just as hard.
29:54Being on the front line for a month is debilitating.
29:58Leadership has its disasters.
30:02First of all, when you're in combat and you are leading people and you lose your own soldiers.
30:10There was chaos because the regimental command post was under fire.
30:13We had lost contact with some of the units.
30:15We weren't sure exactly where our front lines were.
30:19There was so much space between units.
30:22And so there just weren't enough men to cover every square yard.
30:26So basically we were isolated in the sense that we didn't have any reserves.
30:34We were all online for all practical purposes.
30:39And we had to stay online there for at least a month.
30:42They pull us down, we take it.
30:46They'll run us off one night, we'll go back the next day.
30:50We took that hill 19 times in 30 days.
30:53We had some problems in the beginning where they were forced off their positions.
31:03But then we were able to restore them again.
31:06We had some problems with stragglers.
31:09I think that's a historical fact that we can't dispute.
31:12But those who stayed, stayed and fought.
31:13In his battlefield diary, Lyle Rochelle writes about the greatest obstacle that every soldier must face.
31:23His own fear.
31:24Fear was palpable.
31:29It registered on the senses.
31:32It changed in degree but was ever present.
31:35Personal fear is something that most men face in combat.
31:39It is the fear of being wounded or killed or lost from one's unit.
31:42There is no shame in being afraid.
31:45And while men rarely will admit to it, it lurks in the recesses of the mind until a dangerous situation occurs.
31:54And then it surfaces to taunt the person.
31:57Being a medic is a very, very difficult job.
32:03Number one, you have to defend yourself at the same time.
32:06You have to try to defend other people and you have to try to take care of other people.
32:11When a person got wounded, okay, you are expected to get that person to safety as best you can.
32:18Save his life in whatever manner you have available.
32:23And at the same time, you have to protect him.
32:25You have to protect yourself.
32:27And that's kind of very difficult to do because you don't carry a heavy weapon of any type.
32:33And we went forward and tried to assist this individual who was wounded in the stomach.
32:41Not really critically at that time, but it was obvious that he was bleeding slowly internally.
32:49We carried him on our backs and on stretchers for five hours and he died in our arms.
32:55And you just, you just, it's tough.
32:58And you, you don't recover from those things easily.
33:03The biggest challenge, it was getting used to the carnage.
33:07Seeing people blown, arms, legs, stomach hanging out.
33:17I remember one individual had half his face shot away, okay, and he was trying to ask me to help him.
33:24Okay, but naturally half his face was gone, so all you would get was grunts and groans.
33:31And I felt very, very traumatic about that because there was nothing really, really that I could do.
33:37You couldn't put a pressure bandage on his face, okay, and not having all the facilities to clamp off arteries or anything similar to that.
33:48So you had to try to do the very, very best you can.
33:51And I don't think anybody trained you for that.
33:55When I was wounded in Pootsdam, the skin was blown off my face, off both arms.
34:01And I was in the middle of the road, and the smallest man in my platoon came out and dragged me out the road.
34:07Despite heavy losses, the 24th Regiment ultimately prevails on Battle Mountain.
34:15But the outcome is hardly seen as a victory for the Buffalo Soldiers.
34:20They held Battle Mountain.
34:22They would take it and then lose it and take it and lose it and take it and lose it.
34:26So somebody was doing something.
34:28And it becomes a case of, is the glass half empty or is the glass half full?
34:33And if you concentrate on all the times they lost it, then it's half empty.
34:38If you concentrate on the fact that at the end of the month they still held it, then it's half full.
34:46For General Keene, the commander of the 25th Division, the glass is half empty.
34:51It is my opinion that the 24th Infantry has demonstrated in combat that it is untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions expected of an infantry regiment.
35:06Keene requests that the 24th be deactivated.
35:10At the time, the soldiers are unaware of this request, and questions still linger.
35:15Reasons why we don't know, and we still don't know until this day.
35:22But if he wanted to do anything for us, he could have took us off out of spearheading the division
35:28and put one of the other regiments up front and let them lose lives.
35:32But they kept us up front.
35:34I don't know.
35:35Like they say, maybe they're trying to get rid of us.
35:38I don't know, but we fooled them anyway.
35:40We're still here.
35:41I thought the individual who stayed and fought was great.
35:44I know I have experience from World War II that I had people in my platoon who were malingerers, shirked their duties.
35:53You couldn't find them when you needed them.
35:55Same thing was true with the 24th Infantry, but a hell of a lot of people stayed.
36:00Why am I here in the 24th Infantry?
36:03A lot of guys stayed.
36:04In spite of General Keene's distaste for the Deuce Four, they do play a significant part in holding Battle Mountain,
36:14despite uneven leadership and constant combat.
36:18Most importantly, holding the Pusan perimeter distracts the North Koreans long enough for MacArthur and his troops to come around the northwestern edge of the peninsula
36:32and capture Incheon on September 15th, 1950, changing the course of the war.
36:40We knew that there had been a successful landing.
36:43The Marines were fighting out on the Seoul Peninsula, going out towards the west.
36:52MacArthur had proven himself as a great strategist when he came into Incheon.
36:57They really relieved the pressure on the Pusan perimeter, and that was the reason why we were able to jump off at that time.
37:06Just before the Deuce Four breaks out from the Pusan perimeter, Colonel Champany is wounded, and he is replaced by Colonel John Corley.
37:16Although it may be too late, the Deuce Four finally has a regimental commander who believes that praise, not punishment, will win over his men.
37:26After the Pusan break out, as the 24th Infantry moves North, it does a lot better.
37:34And under Corley, I think it matures.
37:38I cannot say that it's the greatest unit in the world, but it does reasonably well under the circumstances and given the situation.
37:51And the push north was relatively easy in the very beginning.
37:55You got sniper fire.
37:57You had small pockets of people that you would run into.
38:00But for the most part, it was pretty, pretty easy.
38:03There was a rumor around that you would be home by Christmas.
38:08The Deuce Four is finally gaining ground again.
38:21Thanksgiving, 1950.
38:24The United Nations forces are boldly advancing and crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea.
38:31Some believe that the war will be over soon.
38:34However, they are about to be hit by a powerful new enemy.
38:40Things were going very well until we tried to go too close to the Chinese border, and of course the Chinese came in.
38:49With better weapons and a huge number of troops, the Chinese army is a formidable new addition to the fighting.
38:56The first thing we heard were these people with these drums and little bugles and all kinds of noise.
39:02It sounded like New Year's Eve in Times Square.
39:05Okay, and then we found out that we were surrounded, and we started to fight our way out from that point on.
39:15And we were ill-prepared for the Chinese involvement in the war.
39:23And not only did the 24th suffer, but all the U.S. units suffered.
39:29To make matters worse, the brutal Korean winter comes on strong.
39:35That was the most horrible thing of my being in Korea, the cold.
39:42You cannot describe what it was like to live in the cold.
39:49I had never seen 38 below zero.
39:55We did not have no winter gear.
40:01And when we did get it, I think the first thing we got was a pile cap, and it had earmuffs on it.
40:10And we did not have many gloves.
40:15Most of my unit, these guys today still suffer from frostbite.
40:20Through the spring of 1951, the 24th Regiment has its ups and downs.
40:32They fight well at the Battle of the Han River in March, but their past reputation for running is just too strong to overcome.
40:40As soon as the Far East Command can replace them, they do.
40:45General Keen's request to deactivate the 24th Regiment is granted on October 1st, 1951.
40:53And its members are either sent back to the States or integrated into other units.
40:59That morning, a guy came up the hill and said,
41:04medic, you're moving back to the rear.
41:06Okay, so I went back to Regiment.
41:08And it was all of us there.
41:10Okay, the whole deuce four, I think, was in that one area.
41:14They just told us we were being deactivated, and they put us on trucks, sent us down to Pusan.
41:21From Pusan, we went to Japan.
41:24From Japan, we were processed further and put on ships back to the United States.
41:29Okay, there was no fanfare, no lowering of colors, no marching band.
41:38You're going home.
41:42The deuce four, the last of the Buffalo Soldiers, ceases to exist.
41:47And their successes and failures at Yechon, Pusan, and elsewhere are just short chapters in military history.
41:58The situation in our nation caused fault lines to be formed in the 24th Regiment.
42:08The unit was put to the test as ultimately in military operation was going to happen.
42:15The fault lines started moving back and forth, causing friction, and disaster occurred.
42:22Lyle Rochelle and John Komp blamed some of their fellow white officers for contributing to the difficulties of the 24th Regiment.
42:32I think it was the turnover of the leadership.
42:34We didn't have battalion or regimental commanders who stayed long enough, and some of them probably did not want to stay any longer.
42:44But I think that both commands, regiment and battalion, were really injured gravely by this turnover.
43:00I was sure we had officers who were racists, people who said they didn't want to serve the troops.
43:08But they were there.
43:10As I said earlier, probably some of them looked at this at the end of their career because they're with black troops.
43:16But it hurt people.
43:22The military claims that the 24th Regiment is deactivated to comply with Truman's order to integrate the armed forces.
43:31But the U.S. Army official history of the Korean War insinuates that the Deuce Four was just a bad unit.
43:39You were treated differently, okay?
43:42And you began to resent it.
43:45You're saying, hey, man, I'm carrying a weapon just like you are, okay?
43:49And I'm fighting just as hard as you are, okay?
43:51And the Chinese or the Koreans are not saying, well, you know, we're not going to attack the black troops today or anything of that nature.
44:00Okay?
44:01They're attacking us just as much as they're attacking you.
44:03And by the same token, we're holding up your flank, okay?
44:07And for want of something better to say, okay, you're saying that we're running, okay?
44:13And yet we're protecting your flanks, okay?
44:16We're fighting.
44:17We're going every day.
44:19We're doing what is ever asked of us.
44:21And still you are saying that we're cowards.
44:24And that really, really hurt you.
44:26They said that we was running.
44:29We dropped our weapons.
44:31We didn't fight.
44:32Now, you know, you take, you get the first victory.
44:36You have two Medal of Honor winners.
44:39You have 15 DSCs, Distinguished Service Crosses.
44:43You have 185 Silver Stars.
44:46You have numerous Brown Stars, over 2,000.
44:50Purple Hards is over 2,000.
44:53Now, do you a coward?
44:54How are you going to be a coward?
44:57Their struggles in Korea are over.
45:00But their fight for equality is just beginning.
45:05After fighting in Korea, coming back to the United States and being treated as a second-class citizen was traumatic in itself.
45:14Because after doing all that in defense of your country, okay, and because your country asked you to do it, and to have some fool back here say, hey, you have to ride the back of the bus, you can't sit at my lunch counter, you can't vote in some places.
45:31There's so many things that affected you that it becomes really, really traumatic to you.
45:41The veterans of the Deuce Four fight back.
45:44In the 1970s, they organize a campaign to get the unit reactivated.
45:51Their efforts lead the Army to appoint a committee, including Bill Hammond, to chronicle the real story of the regiment.
46:01The veterans of the 24th Infantry were very unhappy with how the original history of the fighting on the Busan Herimeter had dealt with their experience.
46:12They felt that they had performed a lot more heroically, and they felt that their experience had not been recognized.
46:20And they mounted a campaign over many years, actually, to get the Army to pay more attention to their experience.
46:30The resulting study, Black Soldier, White Army, is still critical of the 24th Regiment.
46:37But its revisions do convince the Army to reactivate the regiment.
46:44On August 24th, 1995, the blue and gold colors are unfurled.
46:51The veterans win their most meaningful battle.
46:58The new 24th now trains at Fort Lewis in Washington State, and is a battle-ready, integrated unit.
47:06The celebrated history of the Buffalo Soldiers lives on.
47:133,157 soldiers began the war in Korea as part of the 24th Infantry Regiment.
47:23975 never made it home.
47:29Like everything else, you know, you don't realize that these guys are going to lose their life out there.
47:36All we were trying to do is defend that little spot of land that we were on.
47:47We just wanted to make sure that that perimeter was protected.
47:53You have the highs, that exhilarating, and the top of the world.
48:03There's nothing greater than that.
48:08It was just one of the finest regiments you could ever be part of.
48:13The friendship was just immeasurable.
48:17Really, really can't describe it.
48:22For the 13 and a half months of combat, the 24th Infantry Regiment, we were the highest decorated regiment in Korea.
48:34But no one knows that.
48:43Because they didn't want to put it in the books.
48:47It's not in the papers.
48:53We have it.
48:54We know it.
48:55We have it.
48:56We know it.
49:00Transcription by CastingWords
49:30Transcription by CastingWords
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