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2006-07 Broadcast Season
Broadcast Program Transcripts
Episode # 2225
North Carolina’s Black WWII Experience
Lewis: Mitchell Lewis, host
Holt: Deborah Holt; producer
Vajda: Eszter Vajda; reporter
Miller: Allison Miller; reporter
Jones:Richard Jones; WWII Veteran
Misch: Peggy Misch; Community Church of Chapel Hill
Holloway: Simeone Holloway; WWII Veteran
Herring: Wray Herring; WWII Veteran
Thurman: Abe Thurman; WWII Veteran
Albright: Alex Albright; East Carolina University
Neecey: Talmadge Neecey; WWII Veteran
Sharpe: Robert Edward Sharpee; WWII and Korean War Veteran
Poole: Francis Poole; WWII Veteran
W. Poole: Wanda Perry Poole; Wife of Francis Poole
H. Poole: Hubert Poole; WWII Veteran
Veasey: Mille Dunn Veasey; WWII WAC
M: Unidentified male speaker
F: Unidentified Female speaker
Lewis: In his most profound PBS documentary effort ever Ken Burns captures the gripping realities of World War II through the lives of everyday heroes from hometown America. Tonight we bring you the war’s African American experience through little known but deeply significant and moving stories of North Carolina veterans. That’s next on Black Issues Forum.
Voiceover: Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting UNC-TV.
Lewis: Hello, everyone and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I am Mitchell Lewis. The battle for world freedom that took place between 1939 and 1945 has been called America’s War. But while American troops fought the horrors of World War II African American soldiers, sailors and marines fought a second battle—one for equal treatment. Until 1948 all branches of the US Armed Services were racially segregated. Tonight we bring you a unique look at World War II through the personal stories of African American World War II veterans from North Carolina. The first is about the first blacks to serve in the navy during World War II in anything other than galley positions. Initially African American sailors were relegated to serving as kitchen help and servants to white sailors. According to the book, American Patriots by Gail Buckley, in 1942 President Roosevelt offered to establish an all black marching band partly in response to demands by national African American leaders. All of the sailors came from North Carolina. Esther Vajda has the story.
Vajda: The year was 1942, the war was underway. Men from around the country were called to duty but America’s united military front was divided by the color line. In all branches of service black servants segregated units. And in the navy only white men were allowed to wear a uniform—that is until the B1 Band came marching in.
Herring: Music was our life everyday. Music was our life everyday.
Vajda: Wray Herring was one of 44 men recruited to form the B1 Marching Band. Their task was to play for the students at the UNC Navy Pre-flight School at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. At the band’s 65th reunion Herring reminisced at their original headquarters.
Herring: We line up here and then we would march, march from here over to the campus coming out here and going down this way to Franklin.
Vajda: The men were specifically picked for this task from a large pool of talented musicians from across the state.
Thurman: I played piccolo flute and trumpet.
Holloway: I was a member of the school in Durham, NCC, and I heard about this all black band being recruited. I played the clarinet so I tried out. I never had seen black musicians, anybody with the navy.
Vajda: The men lived in this building in the outskirts of campus. It’s now called the Hargraves Recreation Center.
Jones: Well, it was just like one big happy family. And we slept down in the bottom of that building there and we just got along greatly, all of us.
Thurman: And when we go on a ___ we believed we could __ anybody. And so that was our motto. Always work the hardest. Maybe even get along with somebody else but when you played, you played.
Vajda: They worked hard to keep the beat for the navy students all day long.
Holloway: I think ____ colors, as a person, and then we start ___ got together, and we played during drills ___.
Vajda: But they did much more than that. Some volunteered at local schools that played at other events around the state. This reunion family, friends and former neighbors remembered the good—and the bad. The band’s first march in Chapel Hill was here on Franklin Street. It was a way to introduce members to the community but the reception was far from friendly. Some threw mud, others racial slurs. But by all accounts band members held their head up high.
Albright: They got through that __ white crowd on Franklin Street at that time and got to their barracks here at Hargraves to a different welcome __ community beautiful and it was just night and day really.
Vajda: Besides their daily marches band members often didn’t leave the barracks. Most areas of the South were deeply segregated at the time and blacks were not allowed to mingle or eat in most restaurants. But many say they found comfort in some corners thanks to community members.
Misch: Sunday nights all the restaurants were closed, the cafeteria at UNC was closed. There was no place for the band members to eat. So Charles Jones, a minister at the University Presbyterian Church, served suppers with President Frank Porter Graham.
Vajda: Then UNC President Frank Porter Graham along with navy officials, then first lady Eleanor Roosevelt collaborated on this pilot program aimed at elevating the ranks of black navy members. Previously they were only allowed to be cooks or cleaners.
Albright: It was a huge step to see those dress whites, these very, very smart men, highly intelligent, the best musicians, the best black musicians in the state of North Carolina, you might argue that they were maybe the best musicians in the state of North Carolina. They were incredible and just really, really exceptional people.
Vajda: Following their tour of duty in Chapel Hill the men were reassigned to Hawaii where they continued to keep servicemen tapping toes.
Neecey: I am not a musician. But I love music.
Vajda:This Chapel Hill resident was stationed in Hawaii at the same time the B1 Band took center stage. They didn’t know the men were from his home state. That is, until a week before the reunion. But he clearly remembers the first time he heard them play.
Neecey: I hear this great marching music and I get up to see where it’s coming from and here comes the band spit and polish right down the main street of the base there. And it was great. They really knew how to play the music and they could march. They had something in their step just made you feel excited about it.
Vajda: After being discharged these men scattered around the country but they continued to strike a chord with others.
M: I want people to know that he not only was an outstanding serviceman while he was here in Chapel Hill but after leaving here he went to Beaufort, North Carolina and became a teacher and was a mentor, a teacher, a friend and many other things to a lot of young folks and served as a role model that allowed them to be successful in a lot of different ways.
M: [SINGING] Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart. And you’ll never walk alone. You’ll never—
Vajda: As Wray Herring walked down the path he did so many times in the past he says he can’t deny the hard parts of being a B1 Band member in Chapel Hill. But he knows he helped pave the road for others.
Herring: Because I was young and I was ___. It was an experience, a learning experience for me.
Lewis: Our next story is about an African American veteran who defied the status quo in the US Navy during World War II. Robert Edward Sharpe served from 1943 to 1955. And was not only among the first African American hospital corpsman to be trained in the US Navy, he graduated at the top of his class. Robert Sharpe served in the Pacific and is one of the few black veterans who witnessed combat. His experience is one of a kind and producer Deborah Holt visited him in his North Carolina home to bring us his story.
Holt: You could say that World War II brought Robert and Jessie Sharpe together. Jessie’s aunt was the director of a military hospitality facility called the Hostess House located on the black marine training camp, Montford Point in North Carolina. And she let Jessie work there during the summer of 1944. A year earlier Robert had moved from his home in Jamaica to Tarboro, North Carolina to live with his father and finish high school. He graduated in 1943 and was drafted into the United States Navy. Robert and Jessie met in high school and their paths crossed again at the Hostess House. Robert says over the years he never forgot her face and today the two are practically newlyweds. With the same clarity that he remembered the face of his beloved, Robert recalls his dark and glorious days of service in the Navy.
Sharpe: At that particular time every black person that went into the US Navy went into what they referred to as the Stewards [ph] Branch. And the Steward’s Branch was a branch of the service that served officers in the officer’s dining room. And this was all blacks could do. That’s all you were allowed to do. And I refused to serve once I was assigned my ship. I refused to serve officers. And immediately I was court martialed. I was put on bread and water for 30 days. Of course this was something that was reserved for the officers of the Navy. But the enlisted personnel regardless of their race took advantage of that opportunity to take advantage of blacks and order them around with some of the most ridiculous things. And it didn’t matter. Some ridiculous things that they asked you to do to shine their shoes, wash their skivvies, as they say.
Holt: Now the first time they asked you to do something that you felt was demeaning, what did you do?
Sharpe: I told them to go to hell. I am not shining your shoes. And I will not wash your skivvies. You do it yourself.
Holt: Over the course of the next two years Robert was disciplined for resisting treatment as a second class sailor. He was on punishment when this photo was taken. Now this is you painting, there is actually a smile on your face.
Sharpe: Yes, I am over the water here. I am over the water. This is all water behind me here. So I am suspended on the side of the ship painting a boom.
Holt: But you were being punished.
Sharpe: They can’t break me. They can’t break me. I keep smiling.
Holt: Even in the midst of all these trials, Robert found time to excel as a boxer.
Sharpe: I would __ in the back, in the ship’s __. I did everything. I played in the band, never played an instrument in my life but these two fellows were professional musicians.
Holt: He also served in combat.
Sharpe: We found pockets of Japanese in the Pacific. Our ship in the destroyer fleet was sent in to wipe out the Japanese group and that’s what we are doing. Here I am here with a Thompson submachine gun and these are all—we have gone on a raid on the island here.
Holt: From the folds or a scrapbook a drawing sparks his memory of a fascinating story.
Sharpe: Our ship found an uncharted island in the Pacific. And they sent a crew to the island. And they killed all but one of the crew. The ones that came back told the commanding officer, “The people on this island are black.” So he then sent me with a box of jewelry that shiny ___. Never did anything like this before in my life. The ship’s cook did this sketch. One of the things we did, we went in after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We went in to bury the dead. And we dug huge graves and just dumped everybody in it.
Holt: When you think about your entire overall experience in the military, what was the particular hell that you went through?
Sharpe: It was a heart-wrenching scene to see children, women, men, animals completely burned to a crisp. And we were sent there to give aid and comfort to the survivors. And I don’t know if it’s still there today but we set up the International Cemetery at which we buried an awful lot of people. And I said at that time, I hope to God never, ever see this—[BREAKS DOWN]
Holt: What is your feeling about the military and about serving American in general today?
Sharpe:That’s a good question. My loyalty to American can never be challenged. This is my country. I would defend it with my life. But at the same time I am not the president or part of his cabinet. But I think it is foolish to try to preserve somewhere else what is not evident at home.
Lewis: The first African Americans to serve in the US Marines since the American Revolution trained at the swampy Camp Montford Point in North Carolina until the enlistment of these marines the US Marines had remained the only branch of the American military that excluded blacks all together. On June 25th, 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 which allowed for the enlistment of blacks in the US Marine Corps. In August of 1942 a segregated training facility opened on an area of Camp Lejeune called Montford Point. The story of the first black marines is captured in a documentary called the Marines of Montford Point, Fighting for Freedom. Right now we will meet one Montford Pointer and his brother, both who fought in World War II along with four of their other brothers. Deborah Holt sat down with them to bring us this story.
Holt: To help America’s war effort during World War II Haywood and Gertrude Poole of the Oberlin Community in West Raleigh, North Carolina sent six of their seven boys to fight overseas. All six sons returned safely but today only the two youngest live to tell of their experiences. Older brother Francis served in the US Army’s 184th Infantry Engineers.
Poole: I was 18 years old at the time. And they drafted me out of Virginia. I was on a ship 14 days. I stayed sick 14 days, seasickness. We were in a convoy. And when you get seasick that is the worst thing in the world. Ain’t no medicine, no drugs to help you. We went to France and went over to Germany, Luxembourg, maybe five, four or five more countries. I got in the medics. I was in the medics. They put me in the medics in Texas. I helped get the soldiers off the battlefield, you know, when they get killed. And I hauled some of them. Some got killed in the foxholes and I was all over Germany and places like that.
W. Poole: If a soldier had been hurt he would go with the physicians and if the soldier was dead the medics had to pick the body up, put it in a bag and tag them. So they had to dig holes just like those men who were fighting dug holes. Because if they heard something say, boom, they had to jump in the hole too just like the soldiers would. So they actually ended up on the front lines while the action was taking place. They were trying to save lives and they were trying to pick up the deceased so they could bring their bodies back. He seemed to have enjoyed his work although somebody had to die almost for them to, you know, pick them up. They didn’t put any live people in a bag. But if they were deceased the doctor moved on. And they had to pick up the bodies. They brought their trucks to the front lines and they turning and twisting. Sometimes one truck would get in the way of another. And that’s how he said he got hurt, was between two trucks, that they had just picked up some bodies and they were trying to recede, go back where they came from and one truck came a little bit too close to the other truck. So therefore his back was hurt.
Holt: While Francis and his brothers, Heywood Jr., Joseph, William and Jonathan served as soldiers in the US Army his younger brother, Hubert, was the only one to enlist in the marines. He has been the co-captain of his football team in high school and felt fit for this branch of service that had only recently begun to accept black volunteers and recruits. He still has the journal he wrote in during his mission in the southwest Pacific: “Thanksgiving daily routine, another LST met us going toward Guam. Number 999. Everything as usual. Shower.”
He keeps just a few other items of remembrance and reads the notes he wrote when he was just a teenager, called to manhood in service to his country as a US Marine during World War II.
H. Poole: We were at Guam on D-Day, the day they go in, that’s when the killing started. We were what we called a marine ammunition company. We handled the ammunition. When ammunition came in from the United States we took it off the boats, put it in our ammunition camp and then when a group was getting ready to go on an invasion we would take that same ammunition and put it on another ship so they could have ammunition. So we were ammunition, __ marine ammunition company.
Holt: Francis Poole was discharged from the army in the summer of 1945. And on Christmas day Hubert Poole received his discharge.
Lewis: In addition to the many young men who served our country during World War II young women served as well. One of those young women is a life-long resident of Raleigh. Millie Dunn Veasey volunteered for the Women’s Army Corps and was one of the first African American women to serve overseas. Reporter Allison Miller has her story.
Miller:At 89 years old Millie Dunn Veasey has collected an impressive number of commendations.
Veasey:One has to do is share, all of us.
Miller: Her living room walls proudly host old army photos and newspaper clippings but like many of her male counterparts Veasey wasn’t always so open about her time in the service.
Veasey:They never—nobody would know. You know, I never talked about it.
Miller: One of six children of a widowed mother, Veasey joined the army in 1943 in part because she couldn’t pay to go to college and also because she says it was the right thing to do.
Veasey:If white women are going in, you know, to help, you know, then black women ought to also go to be a part to help. As a part of this—we all in this thing together.
Miller: While many women served as nurses during the war Dunn-Veasey worked as a clerk.
Veasey: You had their records and everything, you had to keep the records and send them off.
Miller: And was one of more than 600 selected as the first afro American women’s unit to go overseas. She says while the military was still segregated she never personally experienced any hostilities.
Veasey: Black men had some very horrible stories to say. Some of the women who were on the campuses of black women, where they had black and white women on the campus, they have some maybe horrible stories. I don’t have—I haven’t had that experience.
Miller: Instead what Dunn-Veasey remembers is the awe of rural Europeans seeing black people for the first time.
Veasey: They thought we were women in Technicolor. [LAUGHS]
Miller: Arriving first by boat to Scotland Dunn-Veasey eventually was sent to Birmingham, England where she worked sorting mail. The job itself wasn’t particularly dangerous but she could hear German buzz bombing almost everyday in the distance.
Veasey:You were often frightened, awfully frightened.
Miller: However, not all of Dunn-Veasey’s overseas experience was so tense. This picture for instance was taken by the daughter of a British family whom she became close with while living in Birmingham.
Veasey: I would go on Sunday afternoon, but they would have tea. I don’t know—I never had a meal with them but they would have tea at 4:00 in England and have tea at 4:00. But that would—and that girl, there was a mother and the father and the daughter. And after I came back to the states for years I wrote to them.
Miller: England was also the place Dunn-Veasey learned of the allied victory in Europe.
Veasey: It was marvelous. I was on leave V-Day in London and we went, we were able to go down to the—when the changing of the guard, the people came out, they came out and down at the palace that you would come down. It was just a celebration.
Miller: Three days later Dunn-Veasey headed to France where she spent another nine months as a supply staff sergeant before returning home. She says what she remembers most from her service was both the bonds she developed with fellow soldiers—
Veasey: The friendship, the camaraderie that one has lasts you forever.
Miller: And the sense of accomplishment in serving one’s country.
Veasey:It gives one a sense of, of I guess helping mankind. Not all for self really.
Lewis: We are honored to have had the privilege to bring you these stories about North Carolina’s African American World War II experience. On behalf of the Black Issues Forum production team we say thank you to all those American veterans who have served to protect our country and secure freedom throughout the world.
For more information about tonight’s program visit us online at unctv.org/bif. You can also call us on the BIFline at 919-549-7167. For Black Issues Forum, I am Mitchell Lewis. Thanks for watching.
[END OF RECORDING]
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