Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Don Keelan, a certified public accountant who lives in Arlington. This opinion piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
I wonder how many Americans would recognize the significance of Camp Gilbert H. Johnson? And to answer the question I need to take the reader back in time — 213 years back to be exact.
Our country’s second president, John Adams, on July 11, 1798, signed into law a bill that prevented Negroes, Mulattos and Indians from enlisting into the United States Marine Corps. Officially, it was the execution of that law which re-established the Corps (among Marines, the Corps was first established in Philadelphia, on Nov. 10, 1775, at Ton Tavern).
Nevertheless, and for the next 144 years, the Corps was comprised of an all-white force. It wasn’t until the summer of 1942 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the removal of the race barrier, thus allowing the Marine Corps to enlist African-Americans, as well as Native Americans.
FDR’s decision to lift the barrier was in large part due to the unsatisfactory state of affairs that existed within the naval forces during what must have been the most critical period of WWII.
Albeit, in 1942, African-Americans were able to sign up to become Marines, they were years away from being fully integrated into the Corps’ all-white units. According to a recent article in Leatherneck, the magazine of the Marines, the following was noted about African-American Marines, in 1942.
“…because they were assigned to depot and ammo companies, the Montford Point Marine recruits were given manual labor jobs, such as transporters for motor vehicles, ammunition carriers, stewards in dining facilities and supply ship stevedores, loading and unloading ships.”
Not only was the work relegated to those newly minted Marines strictly manual, where they were ordered to do their basic training was also a challenge.
During the war, all African-Americans who had enlisted in the Marine Corps reported to Montford Point, an area alongside the sprawling Marine base, at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
It was at Montford Point where they would receive their basic training from white officers who had been assigned the task by the then-commandant, Gen. Thomas Holcomb. Gen. Holcomb didn’t want non-whites in the Corps. According to Leatherneck magazine, he once said: “There would be a definite loss of efficiency in the Marine Corps if we have to take Negroes.”
History has proven the opinionated general to have been “dead wrong.”
It was Marine Gilbert “Hashmark” Johnson, Montford Point’s first African-American drill instructor who saw to it that the 20,000 African-Americans received the proper training so they could excel on the battlefields of Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and other Pacific Islands.
The likes of Frank E. Petersen, Jr., also proved Holcomb’s remarks to have been unfounded. Petersen became the first African-American Marine aviator. He flew 350 combat missions in Korea and Vietnam and retired in 1988, a three-star general.
According to Coral Anika Theill’s Leatherneck article, “African-American Marines,” PFCs James Anderson Jr., Ralph Henry Johnson, Oscar Palmer Austin, Robert Henry Jenkins and Sgt. Rodney Maxwell Davis, were not only efficient in carrying out their duties — their courage went above and beyond the call of duty — each was awarded the Medal of Honor.
We can also bring the history of Montford Point here to Vermont. Some 50 years after the base was officially closed, in 1949, two former residents of the base would meet in Manchester, Vt.
Col. Mike Scelsi and Nate Boone, Esq., met for the 1st time at Hildene, Robert Todd Lincoln’s historic home, where they served together on the board of trustees. Both men had had illustrious careers after the war. Mike, who had received a battlefield commission on Guadalcanal became an officer at Montford Point, near the end of World War II. It was about that time that Nate, an African-American, reported there for training. Mike had distinguished himself in academic and government affairs in New York State, and Nate had a successful career as an attorney and member of the New Jersey State Bar. In 2002, he was elected board chair at Hildene.
Sgt. Gilbert H. Johnson died in 1972. Two years later, and for the first time in American history, a military installation was named after an African-American. The former segregated training base for African-Americans, at the Montford Point area of Camp LeJeune, is now known as Camp Gilbert H. Johnson.
