#redballexpress

Red Ball Express soldiers (L-R) Sherman Hughes, Hudson Murphy, Zacariah Gibbs, Office of War Information, NARA ID 535533.

Gangway image, Am. Legion Magazine, Army Transp. Museum, online here.

From Army “Teamwork” film, Red Ball Express soldier bravely drives through treacherous terrain. NARA ID 36078.

Hollywood’s 1952 film “whitewashed” this story. More info below.

USPS first-day cover (issued 6/6/1994), from the "1944: Road to Victory" series.

By Miriam Kleiman, Program Director for Public Affairs

“KEEP ‘EM ROLLING!“ – THE RED BALL EXPRESS

"Red Ball trucks broke, but didn’t brake."

The legendary Red Ball Express – a truck convoy of drivers, 75% Black – played a major role in the Nazis' defeat, providing supplies for Patton’s Third Army after D-Day as Allies chased Nazis through and from France. This Black History Month, we remember and honor those soldiers:

“We often refuel and rearm even while fighting. That takes guts. Our Negro outfits delivered gas under constant fire. Damned if I’d want their job. They have what it takes.“ – Stars and Stripes, 8/31/1944

"The spectacular nature of the advance [through France] was due in as great a measure to the men who drove the Red Ball trucks as to those who drove the tanks. Without it the advance across France could not have been made." –Colonel John S.D. Eisenhower.

The Allied victory at Normandy produced a logistical nightmare described by war correspondent Ernie Pyle as “a tactician’s hell and a quartermaster’s purgatory.” Huge amounts of fuel and supplies had been sent to Normandy but remained there while the American units pursued the German Army. Just weeks after D-Day, they were critically short on ammo, food and fuel. 

The Army hastily set up a convoy, mobilizing 23,000 drivers and mechanics –75% of them Black soldiers–to assembled thousands of  trucks, tankers, and escort jeeps and drive the supplies from Normandy inland to Allied units that were pushing the Nazis back to Germany. 

With few exceptions, the Army was segregated during WWII and Black soldiers were barred from combat duty, instead assigned to service/transport units and often given menial tasks. Thousands of Black soldiers volunteered to serve with Red Ball Express, risking their lives by jumping into the midst of warfare. Many learned to drive for the first time!

The Red Ball Express ran 24/7 for nearly 90 days, delivering nearly half  a million TONS of vitally needed supplies. To expedite the convoy, trucks emblazoned with red balls followed a similarly marked treacherous 700 mile route with hidden mines, constant flat tires from shell fragments and barbed wire, wandering livestock, and starving civilians standing in the roads begging for food. Top-heavy trucks loaded with supplies often tipped, flipped, and even sank into the muck of country roads. 

Another challenge? Pervasive racism that continued long after the military was officially integrated in 1948. Hollywood’s Universal Studios “whitewashed” the story in the 1952 action-packed film The Red Ball Express. With the exception of a young Sidney Poitier in a minor role, the leads are white. 

The New York Times noted this dichotomy, trashing it as a “completely stereotyped and shoddy war picture” (emphasis added):

[S]ince most of the soldiers in the real Red Ball Express were Negro Quartermaster troops led by white officers, the authors had to pay lip service to better race relations and did it in a patronizing and superficial fashion. There is nothing in this film to recommend, with the possible exception of Sidney Poitier...

Getty image online here. 

MORE (non-Hollywood) IMAGES OF THE RED BALL EXPRESS:

Red Ball Express soldiers repair a truck while a crewman at a machine gun keeps watch for the enemy. Army Transportation Museum, online here. 

M.P. Waves Red Ball Convoy headed to the Front, NARA ID 169139288.

Soldiers load ammo onto Red Ball Express trucks, 1st Div. Museum online here. 

Charles H. Johnson, 783rd Military Police, cheers the Red Ball Express rushing priority supplies to the front, NARA ID 531220.

Stuck Red Ball Express truck, US Army Transportation Museum, online here. 

See also:

82 Days on the Red Ball Express, Tyler Bamford, Natl. WWII Museum. 

Logistics History: The Red Ball Express, Logistics Officer Association.

On the Road to Victory: The Red Ball Express, David Colley, HistoryNet.

Remembering the Red Ball Express, M. Todd Hunter, Disabled American Veterans. Red Ball Express: The Legendary Lifeline, Warfare History.

Riding Along the Red Ball Express, National History Day lesson plan. 

Have you ever met someone who lived in Europe during 1940 to 1945? Or did one of your family members serve during WWII? Have you ever been to Paris, Nantes and talked to people who are over eighty? Have you ever met someone who was in Auschwitz?

To these three questions, I would answer yes.

My grandfather Robert Lee Lawrence served in the army of WWII and participated in the Red Ball Express during this war.

When I was in high school at Junipero Serra (San Diego California), I met an elderly lady who was in Auschwitz and survived the war. I will never forget when she showed me the tattoo number on her arm.

I remember when I was a little girl my grandfather would talk all the time about his time in the war, but I was too young to really grasp and understand what he was trying to communicate to me.

Years later, I never would have  thought that I would be living in a country that was occupied by the Nazis:

A city like Nantes that was destroyed by the war. Paris, where people had to put antisemitism signs in their windows and wear stars on their clothing.

I met and talked to my friend’s family members who lived during this time. Some lost family members and others escaped right before their building blew-up. It was such a long time ago, but you can still see the pain in their eyes.

All these memories quickly came back to me on one Friday morning. I told HB, “let’s go to the movies tonight”. I had no idea what was playing at the local theatres in Metz. I found par hasard (by chance) a film called Un sac de billes (A Bag of Marbles).

From the poster, I thought it sounded like a Goonies adventure but à la française. H.B quickly corrected me, “Non, j’ai déjà lu ce livre. c’est pendant la guerre”.

We watched the trailer together and I was gung-ho on seeing this movie. H.B was reluctant because he had already read the book, but I was able to persuade him..

This movie is one of the millions of untold stories in France. Joseph Joffo tells his story of life as a young Jewish boy during WWII in Paris (18th arrondissement). I used to live in the 18th arrondissement in Paris when you walk down its street you feel the history.

The movie shows the journey of two brothers fleeing a Nazi-occupied Paris, their father forcing them to grow up very fast and confront the reality of life during that time. Joseph was ten and his brother Maurice was twelve years old, taught from a very early age to be proud of their family and also Jewish, but faced with the fact that they had to hide their true identity to save their lives.

Quite confusing for a child…

Their father knew that they all would have a greater chance of survival if the family separated. He gave them twenty thousand francs with instructions to flee Paris by foot, train, and bus, and join their brothers Henri and Albert in Menton (in the south of France on the Mediterranean coast, border to Italy), a free zone. They had to cross the demarcation line at Hagetmau (Landes) without being caught by the Nazis. That’s 963 km by car, can you imagine being a kid and doing some of that journey by foot?  In the movie, you see historical places like d'Aix-Les-Bains and Rumily.

You think 1940 to 1945 was a very very very long time ago but it’s not.

My Grandfather was born in 1922 and was one of the soldiers who helped liberate France. He died February 20, 2015, at the age of 93.

After the troops broke-out from the D-Day beaches in Normandy (in 1944),  I would have loved to hear what he had to say about the Red Ball Express. The Red Ball Express was the codename for one of World War II's most massive logistics operations: trucks marked with a red ball, a fleet of over 6,000 trucks that supplied over 412,000 tons of ammunition, food, and fuel to the Allied armies moving quickly through Europe. Seventy-five percent of the drivers of Red Ball Express were Black American; thus my grandfather being one of them.

All his stories that I didn’t get a chance to document are gone.

The elderly lady who survived Auschwitz that I met back in high school is probably gone too. And what about her stories?

I feel it’s important to remember the past and appreciate how its effects can be felt today.

It’s still current in today’s life.

Is there anyone in your family that lived during that time?

What untold stories do they have to tell?

Un sac de billes is a great true story and a must see movie, not only to improve on your French but to learn more about France and the people who have lived here.

So the next time you meet someone who lived in Europe during 1940 to 1945, ask them to tell you a story, a story about their lives during that time. What did they see? How did they live? Who did they lose?

If you like to hear about true life stories in France and beyond, then you should sign up to my letters (newsletters). I write two lettres (letters) per month. Yes, the old fashion way and send them directly to your email box. In these letters I share MORE personal stories, MORE intimate details, to my no-bull-shit perspective on surviving in France (life, work, relationships and more).

Sound cool?

Then sign-up here to: une lettre de Rachael.

In the comments below, I’d love to hear from you.

So, please share:

Have you ever met someone who lived in Europe during 1940 to 1945? Or did one of your family members serve during WWII? Have you ever been to Paris, Nantes and talked to people who are over eighty? Have you ever met someone who was in Auschwitz?

I love learning about other people's stories during this time. 

So, please share yours!

See ya when I see ya,