Header block
Blogging, Pacific Film Foundation Blog
update
add Row
add block
Block 3
Row 1
2 Minutes Read

My Mother Dropped Me Off at Fort MacArthur

June 14, 1943, I received my army serial number - 19203794 - at that time, before returning to complete another semester at Berkeley. The university went on a war schedule in the summer of '43, scheduling three semesters a year. I began my third semester in July 1943 and left the campus after that term.

January 3, 1944, Having been called to duty, my mother drove me the twenty-five miles down to San Pedro and dropped me off near Fort MacArthur, which had been an army training center since World War I.  We were told to bring little more than our toothbrush.

As I walked down the path leading to the front gate of the induction center, I heard someone from a far-off barrack yell, "Hey Jody, they got your ass now!" I was to learn later that every civilian coming into the military was called Jody. It was the name frequently used during the calls-and-responses of marching drills.

It was at Fort MacArthur that I experienced the first segregation of my life. All the Negroes went into one company; everyone else into another.  I was not really surprised because I had heard of the situation from my brother and others. We knew that the U.S. Army was segregated everywhere around the world. Men who had not yet received one were given their serial numbers.  

We were given uniforms, and the Negro soldiers were assigned to segregated barracks of about one hundred men, almost all from Southern California. I was in Company B. There was no interaction with the other barracks; we remained strictly segregated and ate with other Negro recruits. Some of the men were as young as I, but others seemed to have been in the army for a while and were in their mid-thirties. Some were being treated for syphilis or other venereal diseases, and they warned us about the shots we were about to be given. 

I was told that one of the shots for syphilis was administered with a very long needle. We did receive shots soon afterward, but they were for typhoid and tetanus, administered with ordinary needles. Nevertheless, our arms were sore for days afterward.

Dear Readers:  This a journal entry written by World War II Buffalo Soldier, Ivan J. Houston (1925-2020). The words and recollections of Mr. Houston were transcribed, re-written, and edited by Gordon Cohn into their book, BLACK WARRIORS, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II.  

A documentary film, WITH ONE TIED HAND, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II was produced by Pacific Film Foundation and released by SHOUT! Factory on December 6, 2022. Our first entry was posted on December 7, 2022 - 81 years after the fact...

NEXT POST:  The terms "N-word" and "Motherf----r" were quite common in our barracks.



226 Views

0 Comments

Write A Comment

*
*
Related Posts All Posts
02.22.2023

Venereal Disease and Short Arm Inspections

During our stay at Fort MacArthur, we see a number of army training films. It seems that every other film is on venereal disease. A soldier can get court-martialed if he contracts VD, and these films are meant to scare the hell out of you. The content includes endless pictures of men with the pox, with syphilis and gonorrhea. We learn what happens to the body during each stage of these diseases. The men are also introduced to our first “short-arm” examination at Fort MacArthur. The sergeant and an officer will awake you in the middle of the night. Each soldier’s private parts are examined by a flashlight, and he is told to “milk down” his member. Notes are made of the findings on each soldier, and those caught with suspected sores or drippings are called out of line.  An awful lot of kidding goes on during those examinations.Dear Readers:  This a journal entry written by World War II Buffalo Soldier, Ivan J. Houston (1925-2020). The words and recollections of Mr. Houston were transcribed, re-written, and edited by Gordon Cohn into their book, "BLACK WARRIORS, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II."  A documentary film, WITH ONE TIED HAND, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II was produced by Pacific Film Foundation and released by SHOUT! Factory on December 6, 2022. Our first entry was posted on December 7, 2022 - 81 years after the fact... NEXT POST:  Basic Training suddenly ends after just eight weeks. We are needed in Europe as soon as possible!
02.09.2023

The Terms "Ni---r" and "Motherf----r" Were Quite Common in our Barracks 

Some of my friends in the neighborhood used those terms, but they were never spoken anywhere near our home. In my family we never even used the word "damn."  My friends in the neighborhood did, however, play a vicious word game called "The Dozens," which centered on each other's mothers. For example, one guy might say, "Your mother is so bowlegged she doesn't have to spread her legs to get on a horse." The other fellow might respond, "Your mother is the horse." Most of us would stand around and laugh, and nobody got into a fight over the game. Talk in the barracks was much like that. There was a lot of horseplay, and many of the words that were used were coded so that "Mr. Charlie," the White man and the real boss in the army, would not understand.I was the only college student in the Negro barracks. They began to pick on me.  One guy challenges me to a fight only two or three days after our arrival at Fort MacArthur. I was a college boy, and he was a street kid.  I was six feet one inch tall, 185 pounds, and had always been a good athlete. Joe Louis, the "Brown Bomber" and heavyweight champion of the world (above, right), was one of my idols. I used the boxing experience I had gained at Cal and beat the stew out of my opponent until he quit. Afterward, we became friends. The others let me alone after that. Dear Readers:  This a journal entry written by World War II Buffalo Soldier, Ivan J. Houston (1925-2020). The words and recollections of Mr. Houston were transcribed, re-written, and edited by Gordon Cohn into their book, BLACK WARRIORS, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II.  A documentary film, WITH ONE TIED HAND, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II was produced by Pacific Film Foundation and released by SHOUT! Factory on December 6, 2022. Our first entry was posted on December 7, 2022 - 81 years after the fact... NEXT POST:  We saw many Army Training Films, every other one about venereal disease.
02.03.2023

Encountering the "Zoot Suit Riots"

June 3, 1943, the semester at Cal having ended in late May, I return home to Los Angeles to stay with my family for the summer. My mother and father having divorced in 1936, I returned to 950 E. 42nd Place, the home I had shared with my mother, grandmother, and brother, Norman. The house was about two long blocks east of Wrigley Field, home of the Los Angeles Angels, then a Chicago Cubs-owned minor league baseball team, and one short block from Central Avenue, the heart of the Negro community in Los Angeles, where famous Black entertainers like Cab Calloway performed in large, ornate hotel ballrooms owned by African American hoteliers (Photo below of Calloway wearing a "Zoot Suit.") My father's office at the headquarters of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company was just one block away.  While downtown late one night my friends and I are confronted by a group of White sailors looking for trouble. We happened to arrive during what will become known as the “Zoot Suit Riots,” where young Mexican Americans and White sailors confront and assault each other. The sailors’ attentions also turn to Negro Americans because we, too, wear zoot suits. We are convenient targets. Their threat is sufficient for me to jump onto the first available streetcar, not one I would usually have taken, in order to get out of there and home in one piece.[From Wikipedia] The Zoot Suit Riots took place from June 3–8, 1943 in Los Angeles, which was one of a dozen wartime industrial cities that suffered race-related riots in the summer of 1943, along with Mobile, Alabama; Beaumont, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and New York City. American servicemen and white Angelenos attacked and stripped children, teenagers, and youths who wore zoot suits, ostensibly because they considered the outfits, which were made from large amounts of fabric, to be unpatriotic during World War II. Rationing of fabrics and certain foods was required at the time for the war effort. While most of the violence was directed toward Mexican American youth, African American and Filipino American youths who were wearing zoot suits were also attacked.The Zoot Suit Riots were related to fears and hostilities aroused by the coverage of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, following the killing of a young Latino man in what was then an unincorporated commercial area near Los Angeles. The riot appeared to trigger similar attacks that year against Latinos in Chicago, San Diego, Oakland, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York City. The defiance of zoot suiters became inspirational during the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, led by Cesar Chavez, who merged his cause with the Black Power Movement of that time.Dear Readers:  This a journal entry written by World War II Buffalo Soldier, Ivan J. Houston (1925-2020). The words and  recollections of Mr. Houston were transcribed, re-written, and edited by Gordon Cohn into their book, BLACK WARRIORS, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II.  A documentary film, WITH ONE TIED HAND, The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II was produced by Pacific Film Foundation and released by SHOUT! Factory on December 6, 2022. Our first entry was posted on December 7, 2022 - 81 years after the fact... NEXT POST:  I become a member of the Enlisted Reserve Corps and receive my army serial number.
add Row
add block