The Harlem Hellfighters of WW1 fame were deployed as the 369th Coast Artillery Regiment (15th New York) in WW2.
Their service in WW2 was not only heroic, it was strategically vital...and their treatment that time was the forgetting of both.
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In 1943 the Harlem Hellfighters 369th regiment was broken up and organized into the 369th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion and the 870th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion.
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museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/c…
The African American 870th AAA AW Btn was shipped to Okinawa, Lt. Col. W. F. Lucas commanding.
The 870th was to guard one of the airfields to be built in Southern Okinawa after the island was over run at the end of Apr 1945.
The IJA & May rains put an end to that plan.
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870th AAA AW Btn was armed with 16 each 40m autocannons and M-51 quad-Maxon mount .50 caliber machine guns in four batteries with four of each weapons.
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niehorster.org/013_usa/44_org…
When the 870th Harlem Hellfighters arrived at Okinawa. Their 40mm and .50 caliber weapons were taken away from them. They were issued rifles, carbines, machine guns, bazookas and mortars and sent to Kerama Retto.
The group of islands was a major Naval base with a problem.
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The problem was that the islands in the group had not been properly cleared of Japanese resistance by the assault troops.
While more than 350 IJA suicide boats were captured or destroyed at Kerama Retto. When the 77th Division infantry battalion was withdrawn. The garrison
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...crewing them came out to contest American control of Kerama Retto.
On 11 May a landing party lead by USN Cmdr Drexler, the C.O. of LST Flotilla 47 went to Aka Shima and was ambushed by hold out Japanese soldiers.
Drexler's bayonetted body was recovered the next day.
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Midnight 11/12 May a Japanese infantry force assaulted Tokashiki town with rifles, Bangalore torpedo's and satchel charges
On the 16 May 1945 at Zamami Shima a USMC SCR-270 radar fuel was set on fire by infiltrators.
The ensuing fire badly burned 3 officers and 31 enlisted.
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With all of this going on, the 870th was converted to infantry to mop up the Japanese the 77th Infantry Division left behind.
This is a short description of their work from the late 1945 report Antiaircraft Activities of the Pacific War.
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This is the Tenth Army After Action report Anti-aircraft Staff Section describing the 870th's infantry work in Kerama Retto.
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And this is the description of the 870th's infantry work in the article "Activities of the Tenth Army AAA," Anti-Aircraft Journal July-Aug 1949. See the passage from Pages 9 - 10 below.
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This map of the US Navy seaplane sectors searched from Kerama Retto gives you an idea of how vital the work of "Harlem's Hellfighters" was in securing the island group was in WW2...and how little recognized.
/End
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