Army Revises Account of Black Regiment’s Poor Record

Capping a 17-year campaign by African American veterans, the Army said Sunday it has revised its official history of the all-black U.S. 24th Infantry Regiment, which had been accused of cowardice before the enemy in the Korean War.

In an advance manuscript circulated to “interested professionals,” the Army’s Center for Military History in effect repudiates the original account as one-sided and racially biased and offers a new version that it says is both more accurate and balanced.

Before the latest review, the 24th Infantry had been one of the most maligned fighting units in U.S. history, its 4,000 soldiers accused of a “mass hysteria” that sent them fleeing the battlefield before any shots were fired.

The earlier history of the unit had charged that the black soldiers repeatedly defied the orders of their white officers to stand and fight. Straggling and desertion were rampant, according to this version, and many soldiers wounded themselves to escape the fighting and later abandoned rifles and equipment to speed their retreat.

Military writer Clay Blair described the original account, which was written by an Army historian on the basis of records and interviews at the time, as “the most scathing indictment of an Army regiment ever published.”

The 276-page revision, entitled “Black Soldier, White Army,” does not gloss over the shortcomings of the 24th. But it also describes acts of heroism and successes by the unit, and it assigns much of the blame for the regiment’s failures to its white leaders, to poor training and equipment, and to the effect of racial prejudice.

“Although the 24th Infantry clearly faltered in Korea, the race of its people was not the reason,” the document says. “The regiment’s experiences were similar . . . to those of all-white units. Yet, it was stigmatized for its deficiencies while its accomplishments passed largely into oblivion.”

The 24th, then based in Japan, was abruptly deployed to Korea in 1950 to help protect a section of the so-called Pusan Perimeter from North Korea’s surprise invasion of the South. While the regiment often had to be backstopped by troops diverted from other units, according to the new history, its soldiers often performed skillfully and sometimes heroically.

“When the 24th pulled into the Pusan Perimeter,” the new study says, “it managed to hold the line” against a disciplined North Korean force and in the face of heavy casualties.

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Only two months into the war, Maj. Gen. William B. Kean, commander of the division that included the 24th, requested that the regiment be disbanded on grounds that it was “untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions expected of an infantry regiment.”

Black veterans have contended that the 24th performed no worse than many other units sent to Korea then. They blamed other factors--from poor training and equipment to racism of white commanders--for its failures. The new study largely agrees.

“The regiment labored under a special burden, unique to itself, that seemed to doom it to misfortune,” the study says. “Whites [then] expected blacks to fail,” and “when they did, few looked beyond race to find a cause.”

David K. Carlisle of Los Angeles, a black West Point graduate and amateur historian who fought alongside the 24th and has been a major force in pushing for the revision, called the new study “a long-overdue correction and an important addition” to the record.

But Carlisle charged that the Army had not gone far enough. “Even in 1996, Army historians continue misleadingly and insultingly to characterize the regiment’s combat performance as [filled with] ‘an undue number of military failures’ when, in fact, the 24th Infantry performed as well . . . as other U.S. regiments.”

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Brig. Gen. John W. Mountcastle, the Army’s chief of military history, called the revelations about the 24th Infantry “disturbing and sometimes embarrassing.” He said they offer important lessons for today’s desegregated Army about the effect of past policies.