“Colored” (the term in use at the time) enlisted men of Unit 5891-E (a detachment of the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment) stop for a cup of hot coffee on Pier 2, Newport News, Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation (POE), Virginia, courtesy of Red Cross Canteen worker Helen Alston, before boarding a ship for Europe in late January 1944. (The soldier second from right has a gas mask bag across his chest and is steadying his M-1 Garand rifle in his left hand.)
The 9th and 10th Calvary Regiments, comprised of only colored troops, were historically known as the Buffalo Soldiers and were segregated throughout World War II, i.e., kept separate from white troops. It wasn’t until July 1948 that segregation of the army was ended by President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 9981. The order prohibited discrimination in the military and ended the long-standing practice of segregating Black soldiers and relegating them to more menial jobs.
The 9th sailed from the Hampton Roads POE on 31 January 1944, arrived in North Africa on 9 February, and was inactivated on 7 March 1944 at Assi-Ben Okba, Algeria, at which time the regiment’s soldiers were transferred to support units, e.g., quartermaster units or port battalions. (The 225th’s equipment, for example, was unloaded from the Queen Mary by a colored port battalion upon arrival in Gourock, Scotland, in December 1943.)
The present, detailed U.S. National Archives description reads as follows: “Six Black soldiers stand to the sides of Helen Alston, a Black Red Cross nurse. Ms. Alston wears a white nurse’s cap and shoes (these are low-heeled boots a little taller than ankle boots, but only laced to the ankle), and a tweed coat over, presumably, a Red Cross uniform. She holds a large tin pitcher and a stack of paper cups. She has a tight smile. The men wear Army uniforms with or without overcoats, and helmets with numbers chalked on the fronts. They carry large bundles of gear, and some hold paper cups. One man is holding Ms. Alston’s upper arm.”
The chalk numbers could refer to some aspect of the transportation arrangements, perhaps determining which train car the men traveled in on their way to the port, as part of a method to direct them to a particular pier once they were in the bustling port itself, or simply a visual way for their platoon leader to execute a head-count before they board their designated ship.
U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph.
Below is digital artist Marina Amaral’s version of how the scene might have actually looked on that chilly January day 78 winters ago.
