A More Unbending Battle
The Harlem Hellfighter's Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home
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- $26.99
Publisher Description
The night broke open in a storm of explosions and fire. The sound of shells whizzing overhead, screeching through the night like wounded pheasants, was terrifying. When the shells exploded prematurely overhead, a rain of shrapnel fell on the men below -- better than when the shells exploded in the trenches . . .
In A More Unbending Battle, journalist and author Pete Nelson chronicles the little-known story of the 369th Infantry Regiment -- the first African-American regiment mustered to fight in WWI. Recruited from all walks of Harlem life, the regiment had to fight alongside the French because America's segregation policy prohibited them from fighting with white U.S. soldiers.
Despite extraordinary odds and racism, the 369th became one of the most successful -- and infamous -- regiments of the war. The Harlem Hellfighters, as their enemies named them, spent longer than any other American unit in combat, were the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine, and showed extraordinary valor on the battlefield, with many soldiers winning the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor. Replete with vivid accounts of battlefield heroics, A More Unbending Battle is the thrilling story of the dauntless Harlem Hellfighters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nelson (Left for Dead) tells the story of the 369th Infantry, a segregated regiment that overcame discrimination to make an enviable combat record in the trenches of WWI. Nelson describes the regiment's organization in 1916 and its success in attracting volunteers despite a racist environment. American Expeditionary Force commander John J. Pershing considered blacks suitable only as labor troops. But the French forces, decimated by war, welcomed the 369th, which earned respect the hard way: the nickname "Harlem Hellfighters" came from the Germans, who faced them. The 369th stood in the front lines alongside France's best chasseurs alpins and Moroccans. Pershing responded by replacing all the regiment's black officers with whites. That would have broken morale in many units, but the 369th continued to distinguish itself until the armistice. Almost 200 were awarded the French Croix de Guerre, and the regiment, which never lost a foot of ground nor a prisoner, received a unit citation. The blacks' war at home endured, but the Hellfighters' legacy helped win that one as well, and Nelson's tribute is informative and long overdue.
