AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

[PKeating]

BAFC AIRBORNE QUIZ 3.jpg

Can anyone tell us who these fellows might be and when and where the photo might have been taken?

[stephenfrank]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

Pakistani Airborne, Bradford.

[PKeating]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

LOL!

No!

[Alan869]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

Afro-american Army unit. Helmets suggest late 30s?? Looks to be a sgts course (all seem to have 3 stripes). Wouldn´t mind the fire hydrant in the back garden

[PKeating]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

Yes, indeed. An African-American unit! There was only one: the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion or 'Triple Nickels', as they were nicknamed. Here are some documents, photos and clippings from a veteran's scrapbook.

555#2.jpg

James Meyer seems to have been quite a guy. Not only was he a baseball player but he was also a Golden Gloves boxer. Yet for all that, none of my efforts to find out more about him have yet proven fruitful, which says a lot about how US society values the contribution of countless black citizens in its various wars. African-American militaria is extremely rarely encountered.

The first photo was taken in 1942 at Fort Benning. The baseball helmets were worn as the US Army was still experimenting with how to adapt the standard helmet for parachuting, it being early days for their Airborne branch. The Triple Nickels were not allowed a combat rôle but they nevertheless participated in the war. Can anyone tell me how? Here's a lateral clue: they continued to jump not only in baseball gear but American football kit too.

And they were dealing with things arriving in the States on the wind...

PK

[Pat Harley]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

I can't imagine why the American football kit,unless for protection if they were dropping them in high winds,but I presume the reference to things arriving on the wind is the balloon incendiary devices the Japanese tried sending over.Were the "Triple Nickels" used as fire fighting squads to be dropped in the woods where the few to reach the states landed?Oh,now the footy kit use becomes more apparent,protection from pointy tree bits.

[Alan869]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

-Smoke jumpers-

[Pat Harley]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

That's what I was trying to say in my stumbling way.

[Alan869]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

I cheated (in good para style)

http://www.triplenickle.com/history.htm

[Pat Harley]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

I would cheat,if only I knew how!

[Don the Mod]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

Pat go to www.Google.co.uk

1. Click on the images icon top left.

2. Click on the camera icon in the search bar.

3. Type the URL of, or upload or drag and drop an image from a location in your computer.

4. Hit enter.
Google search.jpg

[PKeating]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

Quite few of those Japanese balloon bombs started forest fires in the NW Pacific region of the US and six people were killed in Oregon in 1945. The 555th jumped into these fires and contained or extinguished them. There was a Hollywood film starring Richard Widmark about smoke jumping but the only black faces in it were the ones smeared with soot by the make-up artists. They used to wear baseball armour to protect themselves from the trees. General James Gavin made a point of having the Triple Nickels march with the 82nd in victory parades all over the USA and subsequently incorporated them into his division, thereby paving the way for desegregation of the US Army. It was appalling that they were not allowed into combat because of racist attitudes that flew in the face of documented evidence that blacks made damn fine soldiers from the American Revolution onwards. In fact, the first American to die in 1776 was a partly black man by the name of Crispus Attucks. Blacks fought on both sides in the Civil War with distinction and quite a few Blacks won Medals of Honor in the Indian Wars. They also showed the Spanish a thing or two in 1898. And then, in WW1, they faced efforts to bar them from combat but volunteer units like the 15th New York (National Guard), one of whose members was the first GI to win the French War Cross with Bronze Palm in one go, proved better in the field than a lot of elite American regiments. Unbelievably, they were barred from receiving the Medal of Honor but won so many of the newly-instituted Distinguished Service Cross that the High Command was reduced to 'losing' recommendations. To thumb their noses at HQ, the regimental band of the 15th, known as the 369th Régiment d'Infanterie US when placed under French command, rewrote a popular jazz song and called it How You Gonna Keep/Sambo Down On The Farm/Now He's Seen Paree?. The Triple Nickels were victims of the same mindset but served to turn the policy on its head, along with the Tuskegee Airmen and other Negro units that did see combat in Europe and the Far East.

PK

[Pat Harley]

Re: AIRBORNE QUIZ 3

Pat go to www.Google.co.uk

1. Click on the images icon top left.

2. Click on the camera icon in the search bar.

3. Type the URL of, or upload or drag and drop an image from a location in your computer.

4. Hit enter.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3164[/ATTACH]

A location in my computer Don?What the ****'s that then?



Your desktop, a partitioned drive, a flash drive, your camera, another folder.

4. Click the upload image.

5. A window will pop up, click Browse.

6. Select a location.
Google search.jpg