Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers

Stone, Tanya Lee. Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers. 2013. 146p. ISBN 0-7636-5117-6. Available at 940.54 STO on the library shelves.

In the First World War, African-American troops fought in Europe and discovered that the segregation they experienced at home was not universal. Soldiers returning to the United States proudly wearing the uniform were immediately shunned and made to remove it. Now with the Second World War in full swing, African-Americans are once again called to enlist and fight for the United States. But discrimination and segregation are huge stumbling blocks. Why would they want to fight for a country that does not recognize them as full citizens? Some refuse to participate, on the theory that their country did not like them. Others, however, volunteered and eagerly awaited the opportunity to take the fight to Hitler.

But this opportunity did not come. Black troops were assigned menial or behinds the line duties stateside, and could not fight alongside White troops. Enlisted troops were not as thoroughly trained, nor as well equipped. But one man decided to change all of that. First Sergeant Walter Morris, who led a detachment of guards protecting the Parachute School at Fort Benning, in Georgia, decided to have his troops follow the same training regimen as the parachutists, minus the actual jumps from an airplane. Soon unit morale improved, and higher ups noticed. A decision was made to create the first unit of Black Paratroopers, the 555th, also known as the Triple Nickels.

Though these troops trained for two years, they never participated in any war action on the front. However, their contribution to fighting forest fires ignited in the American west by Japanese incendiary balloons, helped people realize their value as specialized troops, which paved the way for the desegregation of all armed forces in 1948 and the advances that were secured during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Fans of military history and of the Second World War will appreciate the dedication that these troops showed in the face of overwhelming efforts to keep them “in their place.”