555th Parachute Infantry Battalion: Jumping into history

  • Published
  • By Ann Lukens
  • 23rd Force Support Squadron
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  Black troops during the 1940s were relegated to jobs such as cooks or stewards because it was believed they couldn't handle the training required to be part of the elite airborne divisions.

In early 1943, 2nd Lt. Walter Morris was the first sergeant of a small services unit assigned to support the Service Company of Parachute School at Fort Benning, Ga. He encouraged his troops to perform the same fitness regimen as the white troops attending the school to build their morale.

His men's demonstration of physical strength and determination impressed Lt. Gen. Ridgely Gaither, SCPS commandant. Shortly after, Lieutenant Morris was summoned by General Gaither, who informed him President Theodore Roosevelt had ordered an all-black paratrooper unit to be formed.

Lieutenant Morris was selected to be the first sergeant and first black paratrooper for the all-black unit. Volunteers were recruited from the 92nd Infantry Division at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., home of the historic Buffalo Soldiers.

Sixteen individuals, including Lieutenant Morris, graduated from the four-week course. Those graduates became the instructors for the new unit. The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was activated on Nov. 25, 1944 at Camp Mackall, N.C.

Men continued to train as riggers, jumpmasters, pathfinders and as demolition and communication experts, thinking they might leave for Europe any day.

Instead, on May 5, 1945, the unit received new orders to travel to Pendleton Air Base, Calif., on a "highly classified" mission known as Operation Firefly.

The Japanese launched a secret weapon in November 1944 using the jet stream that flowed high above the western coast of the United States. These "balloon bombs" were composed of silk paper filled with hydrogen and small bags of incendiary materials.

There was a concern that the enemy might equip these bombs with chemical and biological agents.

The War Department knew as early at 1937 about the existence of a secret Japanese Army unit.

On May 6, 1945, a woman and five children were fishing on the coast of Oregon. One of the children found a strange object and the others went to see it. The object exploded, killing all six and the incident was reported as a "blast of unannounced cause."

The 555th PIB's "highly classified" mission was to respond to these reports of suspicious fires and to be prepared to move into any area where there were suspected Japanese bombs, cordon off the area, locate and dispose of the bomb.

To do this, the unit would have to learn how to jump into heavily wooded areas and to use a parachute designed for the terrain. Another challenge they faced was Pendleton AB, which was in Umatilla County, a region heavily influenced by the Ku Klux Klan and its commander, a segregationist Army officer.

Despite these obstacles, the entire battalion became qualified as "smoke jumpers" or airborne firefighters by mid-July 1945. By October 1945, the mission was over and the unit was reassigned to Fort Bragg, N.C. By February 1946, the unit was absorbed as the 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment into the 82nd Airborne Division.

The men of the 555th PIB were pioneers not only in desegregating the Army, but in establishing techniques and perfecting equipment still in use by the U.S. Forest Service.