By EDITOR on January 27, 2012 at 12:32 pm
“Willing Patriots”
Men of Color in the First World War
Black Americans have a long history of taking up arms in defense of freedom and democracy in America. This is the most comprehensive book ever published on such a topic. With over 270, very rare and previously unpublished World War I color and black and white photos, take a look into the faces of young men, remember them as social pioneers and the great Americans that they were.
“Willing Patriots” tells the story of Black Americans who served in the U.S. Army in the First World War. The book provides the reader deeply researched treatment of the organization, combat history/battle participation of all black troops including the two infantry divisions, supporting organizations of the Services Of Supply, and the special troops. Additionally, the work contains an exhaustive bibliography of primary and secondary references for each unit informing the reader of sources for further study; lavishly illustrated with nearly 300 detailed color and war-era photographs of these valorous men. These rare and previously unpublished photographs are drawn from public and private collections nationwide providing a lens into this long forgotten aspect of World War I.
Robert J. Dalessandro is a Colonel in the Army and the current Director of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a degree in History in 1980. He has had a wide variety of Army leadership and staff assignments including time as a platoon leader, command at company, depot and battalion level and staff assignment at echelons of command ranging from battalion through Department of the Army level. Rob is widely published on the lifeways of material culture of the American Soldier in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; he is co-author of The Organization and Insignia of the American Expeditionary Force, 1971-1923 and serves as editor of the Army Officer’s Guide.
Gerald Torrence is a military historian and Army Lieutenant Colonel who is currently deployed to operations in Iraq. Colonel Torrence has a lifelong interest in military history with a particular emphasis on World War I. He has researched, delivered talks and published many articles on the U.S. Army in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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