Linda Hervieux

Linda Hervieux's book, "Forgotten" tells the story of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, a unit of African-American soldiers during World War II. But their experiences during the War, including their landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day, appear not to be the worst experiences most of the men experienced during their lives. The injustices they endured under the Jim Crow laws in place during the first half of the 20th Century in the U.S., was an equally harrowing part of the story.

Hervieux points out how widespread racial prejudice was in the United States at the time, and details the terrible treatment many of the men suffered during their service, both in the segregated military as well as at home. Anyone who lived during that time, or even into the 50’s or 60’s, probably remembers stories of widespread discrimination. Our Country accepted Jim Crow laws, to a greater or lesser extent, especially in the Deep South. Even if lynchings weren't common in the North, hatred and violent discrimination was evident.

As “Forgotten” points out, Black soldiers in WWII couldn't go into restaurants in the South, couldn't attend USO shows, yet German POW's could. Soldiers in the South were arrested, assaulted, sometimes murdered for being "uppity", simply because they were wearing their military uniform, making them appear equal to white soldiers. On the other hand, black soldiers deployed to Great Britain in the war were pleasantly shocked to find white people treating them kindly and accepting them. And white soldiers deployed to GB were equally shocked to find there were white, English speaking people who actually accepted blacks and didn't look at them as totally inferior.

Change was a long time coming. While Elenor Roosevelt, the President's wife, was influential in getting some improvements pushed through for blacks in the 1940's, it wasn’t until the '60's when LBJ pushed through Civil Rights legislation, and that was a struggle. As he correctly predicted, his pushing for Civil Rights legislation would cost the Democratic Party support in the South for generations.

Currently, some 70 years later, the over Jim Crow ways may be a thing of the past, but as the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina showed, racial hatred has hardly been eliminated. And even recently, during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Primary elections, the Donald Trump campaign somehow mistakenly named a self-described white separatist, who has written a book calling for blacks to lose their citizenship and be deported, to be one of his delegates at the Republican National Convention. While that mistake was later corrected, the fact that we still have such individuals involved in mainstream presidential politics, is telling.

Numerous other books touch on the same social injustices, including some of my favorites such as "The Port Chicago 50", by Steve Sheinkin; Gilbert King's "The Devil in the Grove"; Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow"; and Doug McAdam's "Freedom Summer"; but "Forgotten really drives the message home. The number and types of discrimination, and the widespread hatred, both in the South as well as in the North, was overwhelming. Even if half of the stories were exaggerations and could be removed from the book, the number and type of incidents remaining would still be overwhelming.
… (más)

Fairly interesting book about an American battalion of black soldiers who handled the barrage balloons used during the invasion of Normandy. These brave men went in to protect the beaches from German aircraft who could get caught in the cables of these balloons floating over the beach, and if the cable smashes the balloon into the airplane, explosives in the balloon would destroy the attacker. Almost every photo of the beaches of Normandy show these barrage balloons, but the fact they were operated by black soldiers is not noted.

Several of the men in the battalion are discussed, but like many black units from before the Korean War, their contributions have been forgotten as the book's title shows.

However, at the 65th anniversary of the invasion of the Normandy beaches, William G. Dabney, the last known survivor of the battalion, was awarded the French Legion of Honor for their contributions. A good book to add to World War II collections, black history libraries, and the history of aircraft development.… (más)

Hervieux brings the story of African Americans in American war to the front with this book. That is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. It is good because she gives a good overview of the service that African Americans have done for America. But it is bad because it over shadows the story of these soldiers in WW2. When Haerieux is giving the story of the men that she interviews I really enjoyed this book but she including a thirty-five page account about the history of ballooning I did not. When she talked about what Monk and Parham and Mattison and the other soldiers had to deal with during their daily lives and during the war itself, it was moving and made me angry. But Herieux has too many tangents. She goes too many places. I wanted more from the interviews she had with the men but we only really get one. That said when she is on target, this is a very moving and interesting book. I want Herieux to write more but I want her to be concise.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars.… (más)