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[[top left]] [[preprinted]]Print the complete address in plain block letters in the panel below, and your return address in the space provided. Use typewriter, dark ink, or pencil. Write plainly. Very small writing is not suitable. No._________[[/preprinted]] MAY 11 44 [[preprinted]]CENSOR'S STAMP[[/preprinted]] [[preprinted]]To[[/preprinted]] LT. Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. HQ. 332 Fighter Group A.P.O. 650 90PM N.Y., N.Y. [[preprinted]]From[[/preprinted]] A.Davis [[preprinted]](Sender's name)[[/preprinted]] 527 W157 [[preprinted]](Sender's address)[[/preprinted]] N.Y.C.32 MAY 11 1944 THURS. [[preprinted]](Date)[[/preprinted]] Page 5 through the heroism of its leading character. It is a drama young America should know. Its influence on our nation may be greater than is generally realized. Ben Ben started life at West Point in the easy [[strikethrough]]way[[/strikethrough]], relaxed mood of a boy who has grown up in the cosmopolitan schools of great northern cities like Cleveland and Chicago. Many of the boys of his class were from the same general background. They were like the fellows at the University [[strikethrough]]of Chicago[[/strikethrough]] and at Central High. Among them Ben made acquaintances swiftly and seemed on the way to a normal school year. Then something happened. There had been whispers in locker rooms and in hallways. Somebody was passing a word around. Ben could feel rather than hear what they were saying. He was sure the "word" concerned him. Within a day or two he knew it. All the boys stopped speaking to him. Somebody has, of course, organized the demonstration. The others, boy-like and easily le[[strikethrough]]a[[/strikethrough]]d, took it up and fell in line. Few could have realized the unfairness, the unworthiless of this behavior, but once it got underway, all fell in line. Perhaps some of the boys resisted those who took the lead in this organized snub but feared to stand out against what they believed to be the majority. In any case, it continued, and it became more marked as time passed. [[underlined]]Nobody did[[/underlined]] anything which could be described as hostile of itself,but on the other hand nobody cooperated with Ben. No one greeted him. If he asked a simple question, he was not answered. If he approached a group in which a conversation was in progress, all talking suddenly ceased. He was left alone - completely alone. His classmates were giving him the "Silent treatment". One would have to experience such an ordeal to realize how it feels. At West Point it was more crushing than it would have been in a city school or college, for at West Point the cadets have no life outside their own halls and grounds. In a public school a fellow could have wandered out of bounds and found found other associations, other friends with whom he might share experiences. At West Point Ben was alone with his situation. It is hard to believe that any group of boys could continue a demonstration of this kind for a whole year. It is also hard to believe that a solitary colored boy could last it out- especially when one remembers how easy it is to wash out when one is under a strain. Yet both are true. The silence, with slight interruptions, lasted throughout Ben's plebe year, and Ben stood up to it till the end. Taller than most of his fellows, as handsome as anybody who wore the uniform, as fond of pleasant associations and good fun as any body, Ben took [[strikethrough]]on[[/strikethrough]] what was dished out to him without a whimper or a complaint. Never once did he let anyone think that he depended on others for his happiness. He simply took the medicine. [[preprinted]]V-MAIL POST OFFICE DEPT. PERMIT NO. 38[[/preprinted]] [[/top left]] [[top right]] [[preprinted]]Print the complete address in plain block letters in the panel below, and your return address in the space provided. Use typewriter, dark ink, or pencil. Write plainly. Very small writing is not suitable. No._________[[/preprinted]] MAY 11 44 [[preprinted]]CENSOR'S STAMP[[/preprinted]] [[preprinted]]To[[/preprinted]] LT. Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. HQ. 332 Fighter Group A.P.O. 650 90PM N.Y., N.Y. [[preprinted]]From[[/preprinted]] A.Davis [[preprinted]](Sender's name)[[/preprinted]] 527 W157 [[preprinted]](Sender's address)[[/preprinted]] N.Y.C.32 MAY 11 1944 THURS. [[preprinted]](Date)[[/preprinted]] Page 6 The great demonstration ened even more dramatically than it had begun. At the end of the first year at the Military Academy there is always an important gatheringat which those plebes who have stood up under the hard conditioning of the testing year are congratulated by thrie superiors and in turn congratulate each other. Ben Davis came to this annual ceremony congratulating himself silentlyand thinking that at least he had accomplished something for all those colored people who had kept their fingers crossed as they waited to see what would happen to this second colored boy to face the grim music of West Point in recent years. Somebody had to endure it for the first time. The maybe the edge of resentment would be dulled. Ben had made up his mind that the job was his, and he was glad that he had come through the first and most severe year to the satisfaction of the auto rities, at least. He had managed all his studies without great difficulty, and his own spirit had remained unbroken. That will od silence- well, if he could stand it for one year, he could stand it for four. Whoever and whatever was behind it he did not know. Now he cared less than in the past. Let them do their worst!-In this mood he wantto the exercises with the others to see what would happen. Of course, he was not excited, as the others were, for he expected nothing different from what he had experienced during the past months. To his complete surprise, however he saw a miracle happen. And he was a part of it. When the preliminaries were over and the boys were free to congratulate each other and to receive the congratulation of upperclassmen, Ben suddenly discovered that he was surrounded. Everybody seemed to be looking at him and coming toward him. Everybody in the great hall seemed to be holding something back which he wanted to express. A moment later Ben knew what it was. The boys of his class fell on him like long-lost brothers. They poured congratulations on him as if he had been the hero of a real military action. They swarmed around him. They cheered him nosily and they shook his hand till his arm was weak. Ben Davis, Jr., had stood the most severe test any boy had stood at West Point in at least fifty years, perhaps longer, and he had passed it to the satisfaction of the whole class of his fellows. The wall of silence fell down like the wall of Jerico. It was never raised again. Indeed, the days of the great snub seemed far away and a trifle unreal to Ben when, three years later, he was handed his diploma by General John J. Pershing at a typical West Point commencement. When he married pretty Agatha Scott of Connecticut, that wretched year seemed out of sight and out of mind. For many of the boys who participated in the campaign of silence spent the next three years trying to live it down. If anybody anywhere ever doubted the metal of young Ben Davis, they doubted no longer. [[preprinted]]V-MAIL POST OFFICE DEPT. PERMIT NO. 38[[/preprinted]] [[/top right]] [[bottom left]] [[preprinted]]provided. Use typewriter, dark ink, or pencil. Write plainly. Very small writing is not suitable. No._________[[/preprinted]] MAY 11 44 [[preprinted]]CENSOR'S STAMP[[/preprinted]] [[preprinted]]To[[/preprinted]] LT. Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. HQ. 332 Fighter Group A.P.O. 650 90PM N.Y., N.Y. [[preprinted]]From[[/preprinted]] A.DAVIS [[preprinted]](Sender's name)[[/preprinted]] 527 W157 [[preprinted]](Sender's address)[[/preprinted]] N.Y.C.32 MAY 11 1944 THURS. [[preprinted]](Date)[[/preprinted]] Page 7 Just before leaving West Point the boys of Ben's class were given an opportunity to register for special training in the Army Air Corps. A board was provided, and those interested were asked to write their manes. Ben liked the idea. He wrote his beside the others. Later those who has signed up were examined to determine their special aptitude for flying. When the returns from these examinations were in, Ben was number-two man in the whole class It was a far cry from the spring day, five years earlier, when he had flunked the first entrance examination to the Military Academy. Young Ben did not immediately get into the flying service for which he had qualified, however. There was more struggle ahead. Many people were not yet ready to see Negro Americans take an active part in the defense of their country. Those fifty years and more during which West Point had graduated no colored cadets had done something to the minds of people. A generation of Americans, in and out of the army, had never had a chance to see what dignity and honor and assurance and success a fellow like Ben can wear the uniform of his country's officer corps. In 1936 the air corps had not yet opened its doors to colored flying officers. Instead Ben was sent to Fort Benning. For one year he served as company officer of the 24th Infantry stationed at Benning. For another he was a student at the Infantry School at the same post. During the two years that followed he was professor of military science and tactic at Tuskegee Institute, the post his father had hels when young Ben was seven years old. In 1940 the elder Davis became the first Negro general in the United States Army and young Ben was sent to Fort Riley in Kansas to become Aide-de Camp to his father. While there Ben got the break he had been waiting for since the spring morning in '36 hwen he put his name on the board at West Point. The Air Corps changed its policy. It arranged to give training to a limited number of colored trainees. Ben Davis, Jr., came in with the first group. Here again the young officer found himself in a position where he simply [[underlined]]had[[/underlined]] to make good. He was no[[strikethrough]]e[[/strikethrough]]w the son of a general, the only Negro graduate of West Point serving in the U.S.Army, andhe was entering with a group of other young college men into a branch of service never before open to them. The eyes of the nation turned upon this group and especially upon young Ben. If everybody else in the group washed out, Ben could not. For if a boy with his advantages could not make the grade as flyer, them unfriendly and un decided would say that [[underlined]]no[[/underlined]] colored boy could., Well, the pressure was on again, and Ben was not sorry he had learned during his plebe year at the Military Academy how to take it. There are different kinds of pressures, but in some ways they are all alike. At least one is likely to be a preparation fot the other. Again a curtain fell between Ben and the outside world, with million [[preprinted]]V-MAIL POST OFFICE DEPT. PERMIT NO. 38[[/preprinted]] [[/bottom left]] [[bottom right]] [[preprinted]]provided. Use typewriter, dark ink, or pencil. Write plainly. Very small writing is not suitable. No._________[[/preprinted]] MAY 11 44 [[preprinted]]CENSOR'S STAMP[[/preprinted]] [[preprinted]]To[[/preprinted]] LT. Col. BENJAMIN O. DAVIS, JR. HQ. 332 FIGHTER GROUP A.P.O. 650 90PM N.Y., N.Y. [[preprinted]]From[[/preprinted]] A.DAVIS [[preprinted]](Sender's name)[[/preprinted]] 527 W157 [[preprinted]](Sender's address)[[/preprinted]] N.Y.C.32 MAY 11 1944 THURS. [[preprinted]](Date)[[/preprinted]] Page 8 of people waiting anxiously to see what would happen. A few months later news began to trickle out to them. Pictures of Ben and his companions appeared in LIFE and TIME and o their magazines. Some of the talk one overheard said that th the colored boys training at the Tuskegee field were natural born wonders in the air. Other reports were quite different. Ben heard them all, but the mean thought in his mind was that he personally, [[underlined]]had[[/underlined]] to come through. If ever there was a fellow who [[underlined]]couldn't[[/underlined]] fail, he was that fellow. And he didn't. Ben Davis won his wings with that first class of Uncle Sam's colored fliers, Yes, they put wings on h is shoulders, even though they failed to make an angel of him. Later, having risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel young Ben was given command of the first squadron of these dark eagles, [[strikethrough]]known[[/strikethrough]] the now widely known 99th. After a long period of training and waiting he took his outfit to North Africa and remained with them till they had reached a fighting edge and bagged their first [[underlined]]Messerschmitt[[/underlined]]. By that time many of the doubts of those who had hesitated to recommend Negro boys for the Air Corps were cleared away. The colored boys had demonstrated their ability. Young men who had qualified as a commander of men as well as a flying officer. He was ordered home by the Army to organize and prepare for battle an even larger outfit of colored fliers- the 332d Group, consisting of three squadrons. A few months later, with the 99th running up good scores in the skies over Rome and winning the praise of the very highest generals of the Army for their work, LT. Col. Benjamin Olover Davis, Jr., was off to the wars again. Things were lookinf better for the great cause of democracy- both at home and abroad. Arna Bontemps [[preprinted]]V-MAIL POST OFFICE DEPT. PERMIT NO. 38 Print the complete address in plain block letters in the panel below, and your return address in the space[[/preprinted]] [[/bottom right]]
