Not entirely sure how I got here — possibly something to do with my current book-reading, Richard Powers’ The Time of Our Singing, about which I will report when I finish it — but I’ve just been reading about the indisputably bad-ass 369th Infantry Regiment, known as (amongst other, unspecified things) the Harlem Hellfighters, or the Black Rattlers; the first black regiment (with black officers as well as enlisted men) deployed in WWI. Here is a historical sketch from the New York State Military Museum site, which shies away from explaining why it was that the 369th was seconded to the French army, where they distinguished themselves mightily. The following is the commendation of Sgt. Henry Johnson, who was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

ARGONNE-VIENNE-LA-VILLE
16 Division
May 16, 1918
Order No. 697

General Gallais Cdt of the 16:DI cites to the order of the Division the soldiers of the 369th R.I.U.S.

1st: Johnson, Henry, No. 103348, soldier in the said command: doing double night sentry duty, was attacked by a group of a dozen Germans and put out of the fight by gunshot and seriously wounded two [sic] with a knife. In spite of having received three wounds by revolver shots and grenades at the start of the action, went to the help of his wounded comrade who was being carried away by the enemy and continued the strife until the round of the Germans. Gave a magnificent example of courage and energy.

They were the first Allied regiment to reach the Rhine, six days after the armistice. The 369th suffered 1,500 casualties during 191 days under fire, but never lost a foot of ground nor had a man taken prisoner, though on two occasions men were captured but they were recovered.

Oh yes, and they had a regimental band, under James Reese Europe, who was a recording artist of some reknown even before the war.

At 22, Europe moved to New York and began playing piano in a cabaret. He also continued his musical studies, and in 1905, he joined Joe Jordan to write for The Memphis Students. That was the year he unknowingly influenced a future songwriting great: George Gershwin remembered sitting on the curb outside Baron Wilkin’s nightclub in Harlem for hours when he was seven years old, listening to Europe play.

Europe founded the Clef Club in 1910, a kind of arts association for African-American musicians. He took the Club band to Carnegie Hall on three occasions.

The Clef Club was unique in that it was part fraternal organization and part union. The building it purchased on West 53rd Street served both as a club and as an office for bookings (…)

The Clef Club Orchestra appeared at Carnegie Hall for the first time on May 2, 1912. They were so well received that they returned in 1913 and 1914. One American writer said that popular music first invaded the concert auditorium when Europe played Carnegie Hall.

Have a listen to Castle House Rag, a pre-jazz ragtime outing, recorded by Europe in 1914. There’s a pretty decent account of the Hellfighters Band on this page at redhotjazz.com, with audio (unfortunately it’s RealAudio, and we don’t like to encourage that sort of thing, but it’s incomparably better than nothing). A 200-odd page memoir of Jim Europe, by Noble Lee Sissle, who had been a member of Europe’s band in the army and out, is a better source of information on the man, even though it’s a sequence of page images, so all the words are stuck together.

Europe and his band returned triumphantly to New York on February 12, 1919, and soon began a tour of American cities. The final concert on the tour was at Mechanic’s Hall in Boston on May 9, 1919. That evening, when one of the “Percussion Twins,” Herbert Wright, became angered by Europe’s strict direction, he attacked the band leader with a knife during intermission. Noble Sissle recalled:
“Jim wrestled Herbert to the ground, I shook Herbert and he seemed like a crazed child, trembling with excitement. Although Jim’s wound seemed superficial, they couldn’t stop the bleeding, and as he was being rushed to the hospital he said to me: “Sissle, don’t forget to have the band down at the State House at nine in the morning. I am going to the hospital and I will have my wound dressed….I leave everything for you to carry on.”
Europe’s jugular vein had been severed. The next day the papers carried the headlines: “The Jazz King Is Dead.”

Why has no-one ever made a movie of this story?
Here’s a picture of another African-American regimental band, the 803rd Pioneer Infantry to Battalion on the U.S.S. Philippines (troop ship) from Brest, France, July 18, 1919 — included here because it is a picture I could lose an hour just looking into its depths.

The 369th also had a war artist, Cpl. Horace Pippen (1888-1946)

Pippen served with the 369th, and was badly wounded in September 1918. He kept a visual journal during his time in France, and frequently returned to the war for material throughout his life.

There’s a slideshow of some of his work here – but it’s not pretty, and also on this site, I’ve just gaped in astonishment at the PowerPointy nightmare that is The Grim Side of the Great War which is just nasty, and not necessarily in the way you think…