May 17–24, 2001

cover story

The Mysterious 364th, part 2

Were members of a Mississippi-based black regiment, including soldiers from Philadelphia, gunned down in 1943 to silence their demands for equality? And were their killers fellow soldiers?

by Geoffrey F.X. O’Connell

Looking for answers: Mississippi Congressman Bernie Thompson pressured the Army to investigate charges that a massacre occurred.

part 1 | part 2

According to Army intelligence reports from Phoenix, the 364th regiment included a number of "troublemakers." They were classified as such, it seems, because they were adherents of a grassroots civil rights movement known as the "Double V" campaign — "Victory at Home, Victory Abroad" ̵ initiated in 1942 by the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s most influential black newspapers of the time. These soldiers came to Centreville announcing they were going to "clean up" the base and surrounding towns, and challenged Jim Crow laws at every turn. The intelligence reports named 26 soldiers as "members" of the Double V movement and claimed some had carved or burned the insignia into their chests.

Many white civilians in nearby towns, who were heavily armed, braced for a violent clash. The Army high command in Washington warned base and regimental commanders that they were to end racial violence or lose their jobs.

Native Philadelphian Cpl. Anthony J. Snively, stationed with the 364th in Phoenix and in Mississippi, wrote home within days of his arrival in Centreville to E. Washington Rhodes, then editor of the Philadelphia Tribune.

"Hardly had this Regiment been here 47 hours before the ‘White Supremacy’ took its first toe-hold," he wrote, in a letter discovered in military intelligence files in the National Archives. He described the unit’s new home as "the place where the colored man, soldier or civilian, hasn’t the slightest chance for an even break."

The very next day, Snively had more dramatic news to send to the Tribune.

"Yesterday, Sunday, a day of holiness and good wishes, a soldier of this regiment was shot and killed…."

Snively saw this as just the beginning of a threat to the unit’s safety.

"We aren’t even safe in the Post Area. From the white section of the camp, came four (4) armored scout cars, each with about ten MPs armed to the teeth. We were absolutely defenseless against these men. All rifles and ammunition had previously been taken up."

He went on to describe the beating of one of his regimental buddies off base that day on a pass and concluded: "If we dare venture off the Post, we are subject to come back on a stretcher."

Snively echoed the sentiments of the 1942 letter to Sen. Guffey: "Mr. Rhodes, I beg you to please, from my heart, please do something for the fellows and myself who are among the unfortunate to be in the State of blood — Negro blood — that is constantly flowing in the streets."

Many of the letters complaining of brutally racist conditions at bases nationwide and sent to black newspapers and organizations like the NAACP were written anonymously, like the one to Sen. Guffey. Fear of reprisal ran high. It was wartime, and the soldiers knew their letters would be scrutinized by operatives of the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps for unpatriotic sentiments. But in his May 30 letter to the Philadelphia Tribune, Snively wrote, "I have heard what may happen if I write, but I am not afraid of the consequences if my story can bring to life the truth of the matter." And over a bold signature, he closed, "Therefore I sign this."

Within weeks, Snively was transferred out of the regiment to the southern Arizona desert outpost Ft. Huachuca, Army records indicate. Sometime after that he reportedly was shipped into combat in Europe. Some investigators believe he returned safely and is still alive, though not in the Philadelphia area.

Snively’s letter about the soldier who was shot on a Sunday is generally thought to be a description of the murder of Pvt. William Walker. On May 30, within days of the 364th’s arrival, Walker, who had been scuffling with white MPs near the entrance to the base, was killed by the local sheriff. In reaction, members of Walker’s company broke into base storerooms, stole rifles and headed for Centreville, swearing revenge.

What followed the 364th’s rally and cry is subject to conflicting reports. Allegations range from minor skirmishes and disciplinary action to wholesale slaughter. The largest newspaper in the region, The McComb Daily Enterprise, reported at the time: "Many wild rumors floated about… rumors of men being killed by the scores and of women being molested. All efforts to run these rumors down did nothing more than emphasize the chaotic way the public has of reacting to emotional disturbances."

Letters in the National Archive and in NAACP files describe the events that ensued. "We are catching hell here," a member of the 364th wrote. "Two of our men have been kill [sic] and we have only been in this camp for six days. Something worse is going to happen soon." "There have been about 20 or 25 Negros [sic] hurt and kild [sic]," another white soldier wrote. "They [sic] have been 5 or ten shot right through the head … and we are going to give them hell when they come around us."

The 364th’s Morning Reports, a kind of company-by-company daily attendance sheet, note dozens of soldiers as AWOL following the Walker shooting and its aftermath. Files in the National Archives trace some who made their way north, seeking from their local induction boards asylum from what they called a life-threatening situation.

Following reports of the Walker killing and subsequent riots, black leaders sought to find out what happened. In a June 17, 1943, memo President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the Secretary of War Henry Stimson to prepare a response to a telegram from Edgar J. Brown, director of the National Negro Council. Brown asked that Bishop David Henry Sims, leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, be authorized to investigate conditions of black soldiers at southern military bases, "especially Camp Van Dorn."

Brown’s request was politely declined. A letter prepared by Stimson for the president’s signature concluded: "You may be assured that every effort is being made to safeguard interests of Negroes in the Army."

Whatever happened to the 364th in the summer of ’43, in December the regiment’s remaining men were relocated to a far-off camp in the Aleutian Islands. It was then that their personnel roster began to show signs of hemorrhage. Records show that between 800 and 1,000 of the 3,000 men left the 364th before the war’s end. In other words, from June 1943 until Japan’s surrender, about one soldier’s name per day disappeared from the 364th’s roster.

Pressured by Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson and the NAACP, which issued its own draft report on the subject in June 1999, the Army committed thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to answer the allegations in Carroll Case’s book that these apparent massive losses were the result of a massacre. A report was finally issued on Dec. 23, 1999. "There is no documentary evidence whatsoever that any unusual or inexplicable loss of personnel occurred," the report contends.

But inconsistencies in the Army’s report have diminished its credibility, leaving unanswered the same haunting questions that journalists have been investigating for years.

The 1999 Army report acknowledges a state of strained race relations as the 364th arrived in the Deep South, coming by train to the isolated town of Centreville. "To a majority it was a trip into a virtually unknown and foreign land where a man of color often had to fear for his life," the report states.

These fears, according to late journalist Ron Ridenhour, were not unfounded. Ridenhour — perhaps best known as the soldier whose letters to Congress prompted investigation into the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War — spent nine years investigating the 364th’s fate. During his investigation, he uncovered declassified documents that confirmed a pattern of racial violence.

"Before the 364th came in, there were several unsolved murders of Negro soldiers. Their bodies were found in the field," according to Cpl. Wilbur T. Jackson of the 512th Quartermaster Regiment, another segregated black unit. "All the white farmers and civilians are armed at all times and seem to want a pitched battle with Negro soldiers."

After the riots occurred, the Army responded harshly. An Army Inspector General report prepared after Private Walker’s shooting describes the Army’s reaction: "[Gen. McNair] is of the opinion that the best solution is to confine the organization to the limits of its regimental area and deprive it of all privileges until such time as it will disclose its real troublemakers."

Another Army Inspector General report concludes: "In light of the recent riotous conduct of the 364th Infantry, vigorous and prompt corrective action was necessary in order to place this regiment in such a disciplinary state that it would not again resort to mutinous conduct and to protect the lives of the citizens of Centreville and other innocent persons." Ridenhour interviewed black vets who remember that punishment. In effect, they were subject to house arrest in a cordoned-off area within the base. White vets interviewed by Ridenhour patrolled the perimeter in jeeps and half-tracks mounted with.50-caliber machine guns. More letters intercepted by military intelligence and other Ridenhour interviews make reference to sporadic gunfire exchanges across the cordon line.

In September 1943, Col. Lathe Row of the Army Inspector General’s Office studied the situation and concluded, "The presence of the 364th Infantry constitutes a threat to the normal peaceful conditions at Camp Van Dorn… [and] should be transferred at an early date… for overseas duty."

According to most 364th regimental documents, those troops not transferred to other units left Camp Van Dorn by train Dec. 26, 1943. After waiting a month or so at Ft. Lawton, near Seattle, Wash., they embarked on three ships for the Aleutian Islands — 1,500 miles off the coast of Alaska.

After investigating Army payroll records and hand-written notations in the Regimental Journal, Ridenhour estimated that nearly 1,000 enlisted men — a third of the regiment — disappeared from the Aleutians with no explanation. In fact, official records from the period raise more questions than they answer. Among the suspicious factors:

• Military personnel records crucial to the incident, along with millions of others, were destroyed in a fire in 1973.

• National Archives intelligence files released to Ridenhour were incomplete and heavily edited.

• The Army based some of the conclusions in its 1999 report on confidential medical records held by the Surgeon General that are unavailable to researchers.

• The 364th’s Regimental Journal shows no entries from the day the 364th arrives in Mississippi until Nov. 4, 1943 — almost the entire period in question.

• The Regimental Journal’s pages, starting in 1942, are signed by a Sgt. Malcolm LaPlace, whose service record proves he was not even in the service in 1942.

The 1999 Army report Executive Summary says, "There is no documentary evidence whatsoever that any unusual or inexplicable loss of personnel occurred." Attached to the report is an appendix that indicates hundreds of soldiers (almost one-fourth, it appears, of the regiment’s authorized strength in the period) were transferred out of the troubled 364th to other segregated units prior to shipping out to the Aleutians. Further, the Army said it has accounted for all but 20 of the nearly 4,000 black enlisted men who served in the 364th during some period of time from April through December 1943.

But 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.

For instance, in the narrative section of the report, the Army says the Phoenix riot was the result of the regiment’s commander, Col. Wickham, serving too much beer to the black soldiers. Other declassified Army records indicate that Wickham had been relieved of his command at the time of the incident and was under medical observation in California on the day in question.

And in the report’s appendix, which is said to be a complete accounting of the enlisted men in the 364th, Pvt. William Walker is listed as "separated from service" — off the payroll — May 15, 1943. But that’s the same Walker who, according to the report’s main narrative, was shot and killed in uniform near the Camp Van Dorn gates two weeks later, on May 30.

When this writer created a database from the Army "roster," dozens of these kinds of discrepancies emerged. Still, the report’s failure to end the debate should not be taken as an indication that the allegations are true, only that the controversy continues.

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. E-mail O’Connell at gfoconnell@aol.com.

The Mystery of the 364th premieres on The History Channel Sun. May 20.

part 1 | part 2