| Original caption: “Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Junior, Commanding General of the Fifth Army in Italy, talks to African American troops of the Ninety-Second Infantry Division after they threw back a German attack in the hills north of Viareggio, Italy.” While the Ardennes Offensive raged in Belgium in mid-December 1944, the Italian Social Republic in Salo Prime Minister and Dictator Il Duce Benito Mussolini (July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) wanted an offensive in Italy to complement the Nazi German action. They wanted to hold down Allied units who might be switched to central Italy. Truscott relieved General Mark W. Clark (May 1, 1896 – April 17, 1984) as 5th Army Commander. Clark became the theatre commander of 15th Army Group, but warned Truscott that the Axis forces were building forces for an offensive. 2 brigades from the 8th Indian Infantry Division were transferred to the 92nd Infantry Division, but they arrived after the Axis offensive began. The Wehrmacht 14.Armee planned for 9,100 men to push the Allies back 16 miles (25 kilometers). Elements of 2 infantry battalions and 2 platoons from the 92nd Infantry Division’s Reconnaissance Troop were all that remained across 9 miles (15 kilometers) of rugged terrain. On December 26, 1944, Case Wintergewitter (“Operation Winter Storm”), consisting of 4 battalions from the Monterosa Division and the 3rd Italian San Marco Marine Division and 3 battalions of Nazi German soldiers, with a 100 artillery guns, struck in 3 columns. 200 men of the Austrian Mittenwald battalion seized the 92nd Infantry Division’s Reconnaissance Troop positions south of Sommocolonia at Bebbio and Scarpello, which withdrew to Coreglia. The elements of the San Marco division easily seized the village of Molazzano and pushed the defenders back, but the Regimental Headquarters Company suffered losses and could not take the village of Brucciano. The 370th Infantry Regiment and some partisan groups could not be dislodged from Vergemoli. Under threat of encirclement and being cut off it eventually withdrew. By December 27, the limited offensive was over. In the morning, the German assault troops entered Pian di Coreglia, their final objective, and Italian patrols went forward as far as the village of Calavorno, reporting that the enemy still was in full retreat. The other columns had also reached their objective points, and an entire Allied division had been routed. The Italian Social Republic forces’ morale was boosted by this success. The lines remained mostly static until April 1945. Truscott had inspected the 92nd Infantry Division and awarded nearly 40 Bronze Stars and Combat Infantry Badges. He recalled a remark by General Jacob L. Devers (September 8, 1887 – October 15, 1979), who “was convinced colored troops had not yet had a fair chance.” Truscott was in a quandary. He held many positive memories of working with the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments over the years, but he knew the coming spring offensive had to succeed. He later wrote, “Our colored soldiers were the product of heredity, environment, education, economic and social ills beyond their control—and beyond the sphere of military leaders.” The general also knew of the significant contribution performed by many African American general service troops who had unloaded cargo at Anzio while under continual German artillery and air bombardments. What he may not have known was that some of the United States Army Air Forces fighter pilots flying missions over Anzio were African Americans who later gained fame as the Tuskegee Airmen. Truscott ordered a comprehensive investigation into the conduct of African American soldiers in 92nd Infantry Division non-infantry units. He reported to General Clark his conclusion: “The Division had been satisfactory in every respect except the one element which justified its existence — the combat infantry.” Truscott was a man of his times, and in his era, racism tended to be blatant and pervasive. The most obvious difference between the 92nd and his other divisions, he surmised, was the race of its soldiers. At the same time, while the general had had no difficulty holding the senior officers of the 34th Infantry Division responsible for the recent poor conduct of its soldiers, he seemed less inclined to do so when it came to the 92nd Division. Additionally, having come very close to relieving Major General John E. Dahlquist (March 12, 1896 – June 30, 1975) for perceived command failure in southern France when his “Lost Battalion” – 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, 36 Infantry Division, was surrounded and had to be relieved by the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Truscott seemed reluctant to consider relieving Major General Edward M. Almond (December 12, 1892 – June 11, 1979) Commanding Officer of the 92nd Infantry Division, though 1 factor may have been Almond’s close relationship with General George C. Marshall (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959), Chief of Army Staff, whom Truscott admired and respected. Both Almond and Marshall were graduates of the Virginia Military Institute and had served together for a long time in the United States Army. The responsibility for the conduct of these soldiers did not end with Almond and Truscott, however. Clark, General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), and Marshall were complicit as well. As a group, these 5 generals held low expectations for the 92nd Infantry Division. Many of its soldiers, distrustful of their White commanders, delivered what the generals expected. He may have concluded that it would be highly improbable for the soldiers then assigned to the 92nd Division to overcome a history of slavery, vivid memories of lynchings, denial of education, limitations on employment, distrust of White officers, and very low expectations from army leadership. Even considering all this, it is still fair to consider how the division might have performed had its commander been the caliber of Lieutenant General George Price Hays (September 27, 1892 – August 7, 1978), Commanding Officer of the 10th Mountain division; Colonel William O. Darby (February 8, 1911 – April 30, 1945) Commander of the 6615th Ranger Force; Lieutenant General James M. Gavin (March 22, 1907 – February 23, 1990), Commanding Officer of the 82nd Airborne Division; Major General Robert T. Frederick (March 14, 1907 – November 29, 1970) Commanding Officer 1st Special Service Force; Major General Ernest N. Harmon (February 26, 1894 – November 13, 1979), Commanding Officer, 1st Armored Division, or Lieutenant General John W. “Iron Mike” O’Daniel (February 15, 1894 – March 27, 1975), Commanding Officer, 3rd Infantry Division. More to the point, when Truscott was in command, he had elevated a standard infantry division close to commando and ranger quality. Now, as a field army’s commanding general, however, he had 8 to 10 divisions under him and only a limited time to devote to each. Still, had he been the commanding general of the 92nd Infantry Division at some point, there is little doubt that the performance of its infantry would have been heads and shoulders above what it was under Almond. While in Europe to meet with Eisenhower, General Marshall took the opportunity to personally investigate the situation of the 92nd Infantry Division in Italy. There was little doubt that the unit had not performed well, but Marshall wanted to know why. In the meantime, he ordered the Division reorganized. The army once again consolidated the best troops from the 3 regiments into a single regiment, the 370th; the other 2 regiments then assumed general-service engineering duties. The 92nd Infantry Division would now consist of the mostly African American 370th Infantry Regiment, the White 473rd Infantry Regiment (retrained as infantry from now-unneeded antiaircraft duties), and the highly praised Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, brought back from France by Marshall for this purpose. Additionally, within the division, African Americans served in 2 of the 4 tank battalions and various artillery units. In later combat, the division as a whole did well, but the 370th Regiment’s performance was, in Truscott’s opinion, “disappointing.” Truman K. Gibson, Junior (January 22, 1912 – December 23, 2005), civilian aide to the Secretary of War, arrived in Italy at Marshall’s request to look once again into the conduct of the 92nd Infantry Division. He had previously assisted Brigadier General Benjamin Oliver Davis Senior (July 1, 1877 – November 26, 1970) with the 1943 review of the unit, then at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Gibson found that not much had changed since that 1st review. His 2nd confidential report on the Division, declassified in 1978, revealed several areas of concern. For instance, both White and Black officers of the 92nd Infantry Division interviewed expressed concerns about the 2,600 replacements who had recently arrived in the command. These African American soldiers had previously served in general-service units, doing duties such as ship unloading, and had subsequently volunteered for duty with the 92nd Infantry Division. Somehow, it seems, they had received little if any infantry training. Their officers were stunned when 1st told that many of the soldiers did not know how to load or fire their M1 30 caliber (7.62 millimeter) battle rifles. General Almond “denied emphatically” that such was the case, but Gibson’s investigation noted, “The fact remains that no other single observation was repeated in more instances than this one.” The army’s General Comprehensive Test, he further noted, had relegated over 90 percent of these replacements to Classes 9, the 2 lowest levels. There was little doubt that their country had denied most of these soldiers even a basic education. Gibson’s conclusion was that “for the most part, they were sent directly into combat teams for training. Very few had the benefit of the Infantry Basic Training Courses. No similar situation has ever existed in any White units.” His other findings were that both White and Black officers complained about the promotion system within the division; that White officers reported that “any type of close association with Negro officers is discouraged in the division;” that 2 Black officers escorted to an officer’s club by a White officer were asked to leave, the White officer being officially reprimanded for having “an improper social attitude;” and that Black officers complained that the reconstituted 370th Regiment now had no African American company commanders. Gibson, when interviewed 50 years later by historian Daniel Gibran (born November 21, 1945), concluded that the division had been designed to fail. Until his death in 1979, Almond opposed integration in the armed services and never repudiated his earlier statements. He might have been surprised to hear of the World War II experience of the 78th Infantry “Lightning” Division in northwestern Europe. There, following the Battle of the Bulge, a call for replacements led many African American soldiers to volunteer. Within the semi-integrated 78th Infantry Division, these soldiers served in segregated platoons within companies of White soldiers. Major General Edwin P. Parker Junior (July 27, 1891 – June 7, 1983), Commanding Officer of the 78th Infantry Division, said of his African American platoons: “Morale: Excellent. Manner of performance: Superior. Men are very eager to close with the enemy and to destroy him…When given a mission, they accept it with enthusiasm, and even when losses to their platoon were inflicted, the colored boys pressed on.” 1 of Parker’s battalion commanders added, “White men and colored men are welded together with a deep friendship born of combat and matured by a realization that such an association is not the impossibility that many of us have been led to believe.” After the war, the opposing German commander, Brigadier General Otto Fretter-Pico (February 2, 1893 – Jzuly 30, 1966), issued an indirect critique of Almond’s battle tactics. In speaking of the Allied defenses in Almond’s area, he asserted that “the weaknesses of your deployment in the Serchio Valley in December 1944 [were] that your troops were deployed on a front which was too long for the number of troops available, and your reserves were too far in the rear areas, which prevented their being deployed immediately.” Military service integration, ordered by United States President Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) in 1946, did not take effect throughout the army until 1954. Since that time, African American service members have fought in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They now constitute more than 22 percent of the United States Army. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0674.jpg |
| Image Size | 291.67 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1493 x 1679 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Viareggio |
| State or Province | Tuscany |
| Country | Italy |
| Archive | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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