The American soldiers hemmed in on the east bank of the Rhine River were desperately protecting their tenuous Remagen bridgehead, resisting repeated German attempts to infiltrate their perimeter. Fighting throughout the night, sometimes hand to hand, the men doggedly held their position, firing flares, hurling grenades and shooting wildly at shadowy figures as the enemy counterattacked repeatedly up the deep-cut draws and forested ridges above the town of Erpel, directly across the Rhine from Remagen.

For the men of K Company, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division, the situation was dire enough on the night of March 13, 1945, for them to call in friendly artillery on their positions in an effort to shake off their tormentors. Almost immediately, fire from American 155mm and 105mm batteries on the west bank of the river lit the blackened sky like distant lightning, the shells’ thunderous concussions reverberating up the steep ravines to the ridgeline where K Company was dug in.

The frantic barrage succeeded in driving the Germans back into the dark woods, their dead and wounded comrades left behind. For the weary Americans, though, the respite proved to be only temporary, as daylight soon brought renewed enemy artillery and sniper fire. The GIs knew that when the sun went down again they would face another terrifying night on the line.

In the late afternoon, however, the men heard a roar of gunfire, indicating that a sharp engagement was being fought on the wooded hillside below their position. When the firing finally died down, the Americans feared the worst, and the sound of men approaching only increased their apprehension. As a ragged line of soldiers began emerging from the woods, ducking under the low branches of the firs and hardwoods, the men of K Company hunkered down in their foxholes, gripping their weapons and straining to get a good look. To their relief, they could soon see that the advancing men were clad in olive drab and wore American potlike helmets. However, as the approaching troops came closer, the GIs in K Company saw that their faces were brown and seemed to merge with the mud color of their helmets. Their relief was quickly displaced by shock.

What had sent such angst through the combat-weary men was something no American soldier had seen for more than 150 years. Coming to their aid were black Americans, and — even more startling — these black soldiers were there not simply to relieve them but to join them in battle.

The last time blacks officially served shoulder to shoulder with whites in an American infantry unit, George Washington was in command of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

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Now, in 1945, on a ridge next to the Rhine, a line had been crossed that would have far-reaching implications in America’s long struggle with the pernicious racism that permeated its society.

The white GIs of Company K, most hailing from the Jim Crow South, experienced a transformation that day. No longer were these black men to be objects of racial derision; rather, they were comrades putting their lives on the line just like any white soldier. With the arrival that month of platoons of black GIs to all-white infantry and armored divisions all along the Western Front, thousands of white soldiers would similarly have their long-held racial prejudices challenged.

In World War II, the United States opposed governments that embraced fascism and all its deluded racial theories, yet when the conflict started the Army resisted the rising chorus of black — and some white — citizens who were demanding that the military be integrated. Unfortunately for those advocates, many generals shared the bias of the majority of Americans and were adamant that it was not the Army’s duty to engage in a social experiment such as integration. Not only were they concerned about whether blacks would make capable soldiers, but they also believed that forcing such a controversial policy down the throats of white recruits might severely cripple the effectiveness of the Army they were frantically trying to build.

As far as the average American was concerned, World War II was a white man’s war. In the hundreds of photographs, films and histories that have documented the conflict, blacks are seldom depicted in heroic roles. Even the comics of the era leave out blacks. Bill Mauldin’s famed cartoon characters Willie and Joe were white. Blacks, it seemed, were merely adjuncts to victory, primarily occupying the unglamorous jobs of truck driver and stevedore.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, militias in the colonies frequently included black men in the ranks. During the French and Indian War, men of all ages and races banded together to protect their towns and villages against marauding Indians. As soon as the War for Independence began, blacks rushed to the colors with as much devotion to the cause as their white brethren. As many as 5,000 blacks fleshed out the ranks of the Continental Army. Black militiamen fought at Lexington and Concord. Blacks also served with Ethan Allen’s troops in capturing Fort Ticonderoga, and they served in Colonel John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment, which rescued Washington’s defeated army from Long Island in 1776 by ferrying the defeated Continentals across the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

The presence of armed blacks in the Continental Army, however, was troublesome for many in a new nation that still supported slavery. Even during the war, Washington passed orders that forced blacks from the ranks. With independence won, their role in the Revolution was quickly forgotten.

During the Civil War, blacks again flocked to recruiting stations to join Union regiments but were turned away. It wasn’t until 1863, as casualties were becoming increasingly difficult to replace, that they were permitted to serve in one of the 163 black regiments raised. Some 178,985 African Americans donned Union blue during the war.

With the Union reunited in 1865, Congress authorized the creation of six black regiments. Made up largely of Civil War veterans, the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st (later consolidated into the 24th and 25th Infantry regiments) were sent to the frontier, where they performed well. The men of these regiments were dubbed ‘buffalo soldiers. The black units would also serve in the Spanish-American War.

Despite this impressive service record, the Army continued to enforce its strict segregationist policies. During World War I, the vast majority of the 367,410 blacks drafted were assigned to service units or used as laborers. The few who saw action were in the all-black 92nd and 93rd divisions. The 92nd served under American command and was reported to have performed poorly. Meanwhile the 93rd’s four regiments served separately under French commanders, who offered high praise for their contributions.

When the United States entered World War II, most Americans expected blacks to perform the same auxiliary roles. Of an estimated 922,965 blacks who donned olive drab, the majority toiled away in segregated service units where their work went largely unrecognized. These forgotten men built airfields, cleared mines, unloaded ships, maintained roads and rail lines, served as medics and drove the trucks that supplied the armies.

One of few accolades they received was for their work in providing the bulk of the drivers for the Red Ball Express, the famed military trucking line that was established in late August 1944 to rush critical materiel from supply bases in Normandy to the front. The only blacks in the Army Air Forces, serving in the 332nd Fighter Group, were escorting bombers of the Fifteenth Air Force on missions over southern and eastern Europe.

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