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News :: Miscellaneous |
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The Mystery of the 364th |
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by Geoffrey F.X. O'Connell
(No verified email address) |
09 May 2001
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This story seeks to find out what really happened to the 364th (Negro) Infantry Regiment in 1943 in Mississippi, a unit in the still-segregated US Army of that era.The author is writing a book about what is know to have happened, in the wake of a partial investigation by the Army completed in 1999. |
Were a thousand African-American soldiers gunned down by the Army in a racially motivated shootout in 1943?
Were members of the controversial 364th (Negro) Infantry Regiment killed at Mississippi's Camp Van Dorn to silence their relentless -- and sometimes violent -- demands for equality in a segregated Army?
Were the bodies buried in a mass grave somewhere on the sprawling base or "stacked like cordwood" and shipped north on boxcars?
That's a story that's been whispered since World War II. A Pentagon spokesman sums up its 1999 probe of the allegation: "Nothing egregious happened." But that isn't the end of it.
Historians and journalists -- including this writer -- in pursuit of this puzzling piece of American history are uncovering a nationwide trail of racial violence during World War II. There were hundreds of bloody domestic firefights from Camp Benning, Ga., to Beaumont, Texas; from Ft. Dix, N.J., to Camp Shenango, Pa.
Much of what we are learning about this racial violence is coming from recently released documents that were part of a massive, and largely unknown, wartime domestic intelligence operation. And much of what we don't know about the period is the result of government press censorship.
The ongoing controversy will be examined in an upcoming History Channel documentary, "The Mystery of the 364th," scheduled to premiere on May 20. The hour-long program explores allegations that, upon first read, seem ridiculous -- especially the charge that 1,200 soldiers were killed in a single massacre at Camp Van Dorn, and that a subsequent cover-up has gone on for almost 60 years. But even one Army commentator believes aspects of history can be hidden for generations. "Although almost too preposterous to consider at first," he wrote of the Camp Van Dorn massacre, "so too was the government's involvement in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study."
The Army's report is riddled with dozens of factual errors, marred by gaps, and suffers from internal contradictions and conflicts with other Army records that diminish its credibility.
Notably, in the report's appendix -- the document purporting to give a complete account of the enlisted men in the 364th -- Pvt. William Walker is listed as "separated from service" -- off the payroll -- as of May 15, 1943. But Walker, according to the report's own main narrative, was shot and killed in uniform near the Camp Van Dorn gates two weeks later, on May 30.
As part of the upcoming History Channel film, documentarian Greg DeHart questioned Army officials about these discrepancies. The Army penned a memo defending itself, saying that faulty record keeping in the 1940s, miscommunication about transfer orders and poorly copied records can account for the apparent conflicts.
Perhaps further research will show the worst violence at Camp Van Dorn and other bases occurred at the hands of civilians, not Army personnel. Or perhaps "troublemakers" were disappeared into a maze of secret court martials, open-ended "disciplinary" internments and dishonorable discharges.
But even if the Army's records do give a complete accounting of the whereabouts of all but 20 of the men in 364th, the records would not be the men themselves. When the Army sought to interview living members of the 364th, they turned up only 116 by the time the report was issued.
Until more witnesses to the events of 1943 step forward to speak, this dark corner of American history is unlikely to be further illuminated.
Geoffrey F.X. O'Connell's research is supported by a grant from The Fund for Investigative Journalism. He is preparing the book "Losing Private Walker" on the mystery of the 364th Infantry Regiment. You can contact the author at his e-mail address if you have any information that would be pertinent to his investigation.
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See also:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10821
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