James Lightfoot of the 761st Tank Battalion. Robinson was later acquitted, but too late to rejoin the Black Panthers.Ĭapt.
Bates, refused to prosecute Robinson, but his superiors got around that by transferring the lieutenant to another unit, where he was court-martialed. First Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson of the 761st, an athlete who would become one of the greatest baseball players of all time, lost his chance to see combat when he refused to move to the back of a segregated military bus during an incident at Fort Hood, Texas in July 1944. As a segregated African American unit, it took part in the struggle for racial equality-a struggle in which the men of the 761st-the so-called “Black Panthers,”-would engage for the rest of their lives.īrought into existence on April 1, 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, the 761st Tank Battalion trained amid the restrictions and racism of the Jim Crow South.
But the 761st’s fight was not just against the Germans. The 761st Tank Battalion’s motto was “Come Out Fighting.” And that it did, from its first engagement at the little Belgian town of Morville-les-Vic in November 1944, and through heavy combat right through to the end of the war.
Top Image: Shoulder sleeve patch of the United States 761st Tank Battalion.
