US 92nd Infantry Division

The 92nd Infantry Division (92nd Division, WWI) was a segregated infantry division of the United States Army that served in both World War I and World War II. The division was organized in October 1917, after the U.S. entry into World War I, at Camp Funston, Kansas, with African American soldiers from all states. In 1918, before leaving for France, the American buffalo was selected as the divisional insignia due to the "Buffalo Soldiers" nickname, given to African American cavalrymen in the 19th century. The "Buffalo Soldiers Division" divisional nickname was inherited from the 366th Infantry, one of the first units of the division organized.

The 92nd Infantry Division was the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during World War II, as part of the U.S. Fifth Army, fighting in the Italian Campaign. The division served in the Italian Campaign from 1944 to the war's end.

World War 1

The 92th in November, 1918.

As was the case with the 93rd Division, parts of the 92nd served under and alongside the French Army after both the main American Expeditionary Force, adhering to the racial policies of the progressive President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine, refused to allow African-American soldiers serve in combat with them.

Officers of the 367th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division, on the Western Front, presumably in 1918.

The 92nd was a National Army unit formed from black draftees, with a cadre of 154 NCOs transferred from the four Regular Army regiments, mostly led by inexperienced black junior officers fresh out of training and commanded by white officers. They were a green and untried unit that was not allowed to maneuver as a division before they were committed to the line. After arrival on the Western Front, the 92nd, like all AEF units, trained for deployment in the trenches. They began to be fed into the French sector front lines by company in mid-August 1918. The 92nd Artillery Brigade came on line only in October 1918. Ralph Waldo Tyler was assigned to report on the 92nd Division by Secretary of War, Newton Baker. Tyler was the first and at the time, only accredited African American reporting on the Great War.

The 92nd Division saw combat in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive during November 1918.

World War 2

George Company of the 92th Division during the Italian Campaign on December, 1944

The division was reactivated as an infantry division with the "colored" designation, under the command of Major General Edward Almond, on 15 October 1942, ten months after the American entry into World War II, at Fort Huachuca, Arizona and spent almost two years training in the United States. In late July 1944, the 370th Infantry Regiment was sent overseas to Italy and temporarily attached to the 1st Armored Division. The rest of the division would be sent overseas in September of that year, and the division as a whole would see heavy combat during the remainder of the Italian Campaign.

Major General Edward Almond, Commanding General of the 92nd Infantry Division, inspects his troops during a decoration ceremony, March 1945.

A platoon of 92th on their knees praying in 1944.

During the 92nd Division's participation in the Italian Front, the Buffalo Soldiers made contact with units of many nationalities: beyond the attached 442nd Regimental Combat Team (442nd RCT), they also had contact with the colonial troops of the British and French colonial empires (Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese, Indians, Gurkhas, Arab and Jewish Palestinians) as well as with exiled Poles, Greeks and Czechs, anti-fascist Italians and the troops of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB).

The division's magazine was The Buffalo. Its art director, Ted Shearer, would go on to create the early African-American comic strip Quincy.