Disabled, broken, and continued racism were just a few ways in which Henry Williams describes his journey back from the War. The process on reentering society was a challenge, mentally and physically. These veterans witnessed some of the worst human brutalities, it would be a long way home for many. Specifically notable were the Tuskegee Airmen, the first of their kind in the United States Air force, they had one of the lowest loss records recorded, they persevered through discrimination and brought courage and valor to the war in the sky. The writing below is based on a fictional soldier, but what he felt, and saw are based on personal accounts of real servicemen.
February 10, 2009
Dear son,
You asked about my time in the Air Force, some months ago, and I want to tell you as much as I can remember but my memory is not what it used to be, but I found some journal entries I wrote in 1941, and another after the war. I hope it sheds light on what it is you aim to learn. I am 86 this year and have lived a good life, and fought a good fight. Life is hardly recognizable these days but I am so blessed to have seen the first black president elected. Surely changes are on the horizon.
With love and admiration,
Your father, Frederick.
September 12, 1941
My name is Frederick Smith,
I was named after Frederick Douglass, I was born March 3, 1923. My mama wanted me to have a great name, she believed a name defined your future. Growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana, it always seemed hot and humid, the sweat rests on our skin unable evaporate into the air, leaving a sort of permanent stickiness. I knew I wanted to leave this place one day, and see some of the rest of the world. My family had been in Louisiana for generations, since slave owning times. I always loved working with my hands, mechanically speaking, I was always fixing cars, boat motors, and even helped a man with a prop plane. Then the draft came, I knew I would be chosen, it seemed like all the black boys were. I did not want to fight, I wanted to fly. We had heard about the atrocities happening to those poor souls and a part of me thought if I could fight the Nazis, then maybe that momentum for change would make its way back to the South.
My training began at a segregated air base in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1941. I was relieved to be training with men who looked like me. We were constantly told that we were privileged, and that no African American had ever been permitted to become an United States military pilot, though the term African American was hardly the way they described us. We escorted the bombers that liberated Rome, black air is all we saw even at 25,000 feet. I remembered our training never included how to get out of plane, I guess if your plane gets shot, well make you peace with God and hope you don’t get captured, if you live. I was told after the war, that 1000 men were trained as pilots and that we had one of the lowest loss records of any escort fighter group. This meant something, we meant something, and I was hopeful that when I returned home with my wings, people would respect me.
End.
July 5, 1946
My grease stained nails were the last physical memory I had left of my service, my hands had the slightest tremor but the real damage were in my thoughts, they burned with the images of man’s inhumanity to man. The long bus ride home to New Orleans rattled me with anxiety. Everything looked and felt the same including attitudes. My mama wrote to me before I left the base regarding a young man who had returned home recently, his name was Isaac Woodard Jr. he was a decorated African American World War II veteran. He was attacked by the South Carolina police, still in uniform, just as he was taking a bus home. She warned me to keep my head down, don’t cause any attention, just come straight home. I was black, nothing could change that, and military decoration meant little to nothing in the Jim Crow South.
I was eager to restart my life and with the help of the G.I bill, I was hopeful. I planned to buy my mama a home, get a good job and continue my education. I had thought maybe I could become a pilot instructor, or even fly commercial planes. We were renters my whole life, mama worked two jobs to pay rent. I took my earnings from the Air Force, concealed in a secret pocket mama had sewn into my coat, and went to the bank to apply for a mortgage. I was met with disbelief as the financial officer stamped my paper work, rejected, the officer told me their bank would not issue a loan in my neighborhood. I went to another bank, rejected, I told them I had the down payment, they questioned how my earnings came to be. I shared with them my honorable discharge papers, my pay stubs, they smirked. I left.
I decided it was time to leave, mama and I would always be viewed a certain way. So we left New Orleans, went north and bought a home in a suburban neighborhood outside of Chicago, which at the time was overwhelmingly white. Within a few years, those white faces started to leave. We were relieved to see people like us move to the neighborhood, but knew what that meant. I just smiled and said “welcome to the neighborhood,” a phrase I never got to hear.
End.
Work Cited
Kendi, Ibram X., and Keisha N. Blain. 2021. Four hundred souls: a community history of African America, 1619-2019.
Jefferson, Robert F. “‘Enabled Courage’: Race, Disability, and Black World War II Veterans in Postwar America.” The Historian 65, no. 5 (2003): 1102–24.
White, Deborah Grey, Mia Bay, and Waldo E Martin Jr. Freedom on My Mind. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2021.
Image Source: https://www.artprize.org/andrew-j-woodstock
