80 years ago today.
4 April 1944. Official caption, “Sgt. John C. Clark…and S/Sgt. Ford M. Shaw…(left to right) clean their rifles in the Bivouac area alongside the East-West Trail, Bougainville. They are members of Co. E, 25th Combat Team, 93rd Division.”
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-364565, National Archives Identifier: 530707
The two NCOs in the above image are members of the famed 25th Infantry Regiment.
One of the four “Buffalo Soldier” units formed in 1866– immediately after the end of the Civil War– they were the legacy of the proven service of the USCT during that conflict. In fact, the units initially were staffed almost exclusively with veterans of those 175 assorted wartime segregated regiments.
The 25th had sweltered in decades of service along the southern border, spearheaded Shafter’s V Corps during the march on Santiago in 1898 (and getting closer to the city than any U.S. unit in the process), fought in the Philippines in the 1900s, and garrisoned Hawaii during the Great War.
When WWII came, the 25th was folded into the reformed 93rd Infantry Division, which had earned the nickname “The Blue Helmets” during the First World War because they wore horizon blue-colored Adrian helmets while in detached service with the French. As such, the 25th joined the reactivated 368th and 369th (“The Harlem Hellfighters”) Infantry Rgts, which had both seen service on the Western Front.
After training at Camps Coxcomb and Clipper in California, they shipped out for the Pacific and arrived at Guadalcanal in January 1944. Originally relegated to service (labor) and security tasks, the 25th entered combat on 28 March assisting in attacks on the enemy perimeter at Bougainville then reconnoitered across the Laruma River on 2 April, the slandered fight for Hill 250 and in the Torokina River Valley from 7–12 April 1944. The 25th RCT operated against the Japanese along the Kuma and East-West Trails during May 1944.
Official caption 1 May 1944. “Cautiously advancing through the jungle, while on patrol in Japanese territory off the Numa-Numa Trail, this member of the 93rd Infantry Division is among the first Negro foot soldiers to go into action in the South Pacific theater.” 111-SC-189381-S
The 93rd would receive campaign credits for the Northern Solomons, Bismarck Archipelago, and New Guinea, ending the war fighting on Morotai, and had the honor of capturing Col. Kisou Ouichi, the highest-ranking Japanese prisoner of war in the Pacific prior to the Empire’s surrender– bagged by a patrol from the 25th Infantry Regiment on 2 August 1945.
The Blue Helmets chalked up 175 days in combat in WWII and, after occupation duty in the Philippines, left for home on 17 January 1946.