Hellfighters - The Legend of the Harlem Hellfighters - Sabaton History 123 [Official]

in the Great War they were deployed for over six straight months in the field this week Osama history the Harlem Hellfighters is Satan going to be involved in this episode Satan is always involved yeah [Music] Hellfighters that is what the Germans called them the men of the U.S 369th Infantry Regiment based in Harlem so Harlem Hellfighters is how they are remembered today and you know what they served for 191 days Under Fire six straight months which was the longest deployment of any American unit during the Great War but they never lost a foot of ground nor ever had a man taken prisoner now the unit was originally the 15th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard this was created already before that war and it was after pressure from people in Black communities who wanted to serve in the U.S national guard when the U.S joined the war and began sending troops to Europe in 1917 the 369th was shipped out December 27th they arrived in France on New Year's Day 1918 and joined the 185th infantry Brigade their unit was not given combat training though but they were instead assigned manual labor duties like like digging latrines and they experienced a great deal of racial harassment from army officials American Commander John Pershing sort of loaned the 369th to the French 161st division in April and it was only after that that they would begin to earn their combat honors The Unofficial reason for this loan really was that some white soldiers refused to serve alongside African Americans in fact the American expeditionary Force even released a pamphlet which I guess I can best describe as incredibly racist to the whole French army a pamphlet called secret information concerning black American troops or sick bat sickbat requested that the French troops most of whom did not share the prevalent racist views of their American counterparts or at least not to the point of segregation it requested that they stop treating African Americans as equals it warned of their tendency towards rape claiming quote the Black American troops in France have by themselves given rise to as many complaints for attempted rape as the rest of the army this was not true it also requested that the French troops not eat meals with them or even shake hands with them nor commend them too highly as this would lead to them thinking themselves more important than they were and that you know could be harmful to American society after the war the French army for its part basically just welcomed the reinforcements they'd been fighting and dying on their own land for three years by then new soldiers were a godsend in mid-april the 369th was assigned to a four and a half kilometer stretch of the front in the Argonne under the command of French General Henry Road and they were issued French rifles and helmets and things like that their motto was God damn let's go they still did not receive combat training though well as I said at the beginning they served for over six straight months and they suffered 1 300 casualties during that time which was the most of any U.S Army regiment yet despite their obvious bravery they were not well treated combat troops were sometimes taken out of the line to serve as orderlies payu was stopped to nearly the entire regiment one point they had to go through things like that and it wasn't just during the war either when they left France to go home in early 1919 their regimental band wasn't even allowed to play as they marched to the transport ship it was February when the by then Harlem Hellfighters returned to New York and they had a Victory Parade along Fifth Avenue led by Sergeant Henry Johnson the parade really showcased that whatever had happened overseas it was not reflected back home since the parade was all black the hell Fighters and the other African-American regiments were not allowed to participate in the main Victory Parade that was strictly segregated having said that they were the first New York unit to return home and they were placed on the permanent list like other veteran units [Music] the French government by the way awarded the quad daguerre the highest military honor to 170 soldiers of the 369th including Henry Johnson the parade leader who was the first American to receive that award for their efforts and their achievements during the war Johnson performed some of the most remarkable Feats of this or any other war in May 1918 he was a private at the time okay the night of the 14th he and another private Needham Roberts were on Sentry Duty now Johnson would later say that he thought it was crazy to send out untrained men as centuries but a job is a job and an order is an order well the two came under Fire from German snipers they're pinned down in their Dugout so they lined up a box of grenades to be ready just in case the Germans raided them just after 2 A.M Johnson heard wire cutters at the perimeter fence and he told Roberts to hightail it back and alert the French then Johnson threw a grenade which the Germans answered With Grenades and gunfire Roberts turned back to help Johnson but was hit by grenade shrapnel and was badly injured Johnson managed to get him back to the Dugout but now they were outnumbered by 20 or 30 Germans coming from multiple directions Johnson ran out of grenades and he even took a few bullets but he kept on firing his rifle into the darkness until it jammed he had accidentally put in French ammunition in the American Rifle well the Germans were right on top of him after that so he used his rifle as a club until the stock splintered Johnson took a Blow To The Head and he went down but when the Germans tried to grab Roberts Johnson got up again and attacked them with his bolo knife the only weapon he had left he wounded one German killed another took a pistol shot to the arm and stabbed yet another German who'd climbed on his back suddenly the Germans ran away since they heard the French and Americans arriving on the scene Johnson had reportedly killed four Germans and wounded over two dozen and he himself sustained 21 wounds you can imagine the praise he received for this but he said later there wasn't anything so fine about it just fought for my life a rabbit would have done that he was given the nickname Black Death after this and post-war he would do lecture tours on these tours he was supposed to talk about racial Harmony in the trenches which was a big fat lie and in some places he definitely did not do this talking instead about the abuse and the harassment he and his comrades had to endure now contrary to what multiple sources claimed he did receive disability pay from the U.S government but also contrary to multiple sources when he died in 1929 it was from myocarditis and not alcoholism but you know what Henry Johnson was not awarded any medals by the U.S army or the U.S government until posthumously long after his death but hey back to that regimental ban maybe you think it's not too big a deal that they weren't allowed to play on the march to the ship just a little snub but their band was a big deal like other regimental bands they played to boost morale but unlike other regimental bands by the end of the war they were one of the most famous bands in all of Europe in early 1918 they traveled thousands of kilometers playing for British French and American Military and French civilian audiences and introduced early jazz music to Europe which was a very big deal James Reese Europe the leading figure of New York's African-American music scene during the teens was their band leader his story has a tragic end though he was stabbed by one of his musicians May 9 1919 during an argument in a Show's intermission but since it was only with a little pen knife he and his bandmates thought the wound even though it was in the neck was superficial he told the band to finish the show after the intermission but the hospital was unable to stop the bleeding and he died a few hours later then he was the first African-American ever to have a public funeral in New York City there are a bunch of notable soldiers of the 369. you can look them up yourself and there are loads of books about the Harlem Hellfighters out there too which will give you a better idea of the unit the men their service and of course the trials they face because of their skin color as well as details about the Frontline combat the Harlem Hellfighters bravely fought the war to end all wars [Music] [Music] okay you okay what is this interview about Harlem Hill Fighters yeah that makes sense okay um well go thank you well actually this is one of the stories that already when we did the Great War album was one of the first that came to our mind however it didn't make it on the album which was one of the topics people were asking about so how did you miss that but just we didn't have the music you know aha okay so that was like like like Christmas Truce exactly came out one of the top stories that we you know straight uh came straight to us directly when talking about making an album about the Great War yeah that was one of the first topics uh but yeah we didn't have the right music it's uh it's a weird thing that it's kind of important that the music and the story speak the same emotional language and yeah we tried to squeeze it in onto other songs you know but no it didn't work out but I'm I'm really happy that we did because it has a bit more of a punishing vibe to it the music as well and it was sort of when me and Chris wrote the music we sort of I mean when we started we didn't know what we were writing but it was actually wasn't long until I would say you know maybe once we had the idea of a verse or a chorus we already felt like this is the one this is interesting you said you started writing the music because obviously if you had the idea for this one might think that you would already maybe written lyrics but I hadn't figured music what was it all written at the same time the music and the lyrics together no the we uh in this case we sort of figured out what it was as we were writing the music okay in most cases when writing music it's you have an idea of around what it possibly could be or sometimes I'm sorry to say sorry to burst any bubbles here sometimes you're just playing around trying to come up with a cool ass riff you know or something like that or you're writing in a toilet visit on toilet paper that has happened too that has happened check that episode out well what was the actual first song you wrote for the Great War then the very first one music and lyrics well the Great War I don't remember but for the war to end world wars it was Christmas Truce it was Christmas it was Christmas Truce because I I promised myself once we realized we're gonna go back into that you know World War One era again that I'm gonna make that first so we don't miss it okay what was the last one oh good question you shouldn't ask me things I don't remember you know you can tell we really prepare for these interviews exactly you know a list of questions yeah uh I don't really remember oh yeah I do Stormtroopers was the final one to get finished yeah what was it about hell Fighters other than the fact that you know people had you know written and asking for it and things like that what was it that grabs you so much about them that you really wanted it as one of the very first topics whether or not you could make a song about it I think the story obviously but also it has the coolest metal name isn't it first heavy metal song hell Fighters that's one of your most metal names yeah it is metalizer is pretty well that's not really history nah it's a pretty serious song as well sorry but hey they're your thoughts I'm going to start saving about some other songs somebody else who really likes that song now one of these days we should be talking about one of your songs it could be I don't know pick anyone and you'll say and um I'm not going to ask you how you wrote this song because it's kind of a shitty one yeah now when you were when you were writing the song You obviously were doing research about the health Fighters were you researching about the individuals like like Henry Johnson who I just talked about yeah because obviously we back in back in the day I think in 2010 we had a song about a guy called the white death see my house oh yeah of course and then we read about there was somebody called the Black Death yeah and then sort of that picked the interest and made it even more interesting in a way there's got to be some more colored depths out there that you could do songs about pink death yeah it's got to be red there's gonna be a red death somewhere yeah blood and stuff like that um oh I was thinking about the color I used usually in a certain kind of politics you guys we might have a whole Sabaton album theme coming it could be called the colors of death and you could do another song about Simo hey hey and another song you can do the whole song about Henry Johnson I mean absolutely I mean you heard the story I just told I mean that's that's brilliant and I love he actually um there was more colorful language than I I just used when he said that sending untrained soldiers out on Century Duty was crazy it was a little more emphatic than that that was what he actually said but it is crazy I mean can you imagine that imagine these guys did not have combat training right they and they were first just you know digging toilets and things like terrible menial jobs but somebody has to do it in Wartime but you know being being African-American soldiers they got stuck with it with the American Army at the time but they still didn't get combat training when they were with the French when they were loaned to the French but they were in combat I mean they got combat training on the job but you would you would usually prefer that beforehand you know yeah that's something you really want some training on before doing it yeah I I can't imagine I mean think whatever think what it must have been like to be not just fighting in the war but to be one of the Harlem Hell Fighters fighting in the war to not be trained to be doing Sentry duty to still manage to kill four Germans and wound like 20 more imagine how exhausted you are after that time long of a deployment yeah yeah what did I say 192 193 days you just heard it 10 minutes ago I forget exactly how many it was that's over six straight months and something I did not mention in the episode they made up in terms of amount of people the Harlem Hell Fighters were like one percent of the American armed forces there but they were deployed it's over 30 percent of the uh yeah no of the territory that they were that they oh they had a large amount of territory to cover and stuff I mean it wasn't particularly with the French or yeah when they were alone with the I mean no their their territory where they were assigned to okay their their assignment and stuff um somebody would have to look up the exact numbers uh which you can do that and then you can write it in the comments so you know it's nice giving people homework you know maybe no maybe let's see who's first on the comments with that one wait here's a good homework for somebody who really really wants the gold star somebody who really wants a special little present from me and Yoki and we'll decide what it is later write a song about Henry Johnson yeah write a song about Henry Johnson I said send it in we might not play it to anyone I bet if it's really good you know we can give him a present of something right yes yeah okay that's pretty good you know we all jokes aside I mean what they had to endure and what they achieved is I mean you could say that about many units during the war because it was such a war of privations and and and and and problems and issues and the desperation and the trenches and stuff and The Bravery that kept people going but still this is a this is this should be a a tribute so we'll end it as a tribute uh ladies and gentlemen the Harlem Hell Fighters endured a great deal without combat training and yet emerged as one of the most legendary units of not just the Great War but the 20th century right indeed all right well that is it for today all for example of History hope to see you again very soon very soon [Music] alright everyone that's it for this week so remember to click that Bell it's really important click it now and then hope to see you again in the near future bye-bye foreign [Music]

Channel: Sabaton History

Views: 47,647

Keywords: Sabaton, Sabaton History, TimeGhost, Indy Neidell, World War Two, Documentary, Historian, History, War, Band, Pär Sundstrom, Joakim Broden, Power Metal, Heavy Metal, Music, Metal Band

Id: q-A2U7Bv_cg

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2023