960428

Black World War

II soldiers

to get top honor

50 years late:

WASHINGTON: It comes a half-century late, but the US Defense Department has finally nominated the first black World War II heroes for the highest military honor, US News and World Report said Saturday.

A US Army report the magazine obtained concluded the reason that blacks had been ignored was racism.

In an exclusive cover report in its May 6 edition, the magazine said that after a selection process nearly three years long, the Pentagon's nomination of seven black war heroes -- only one is still living -- for the Medal of Honor has been forwarded to the White House and Congress.

While only the president may award the Medal of Honor, in this case Congress must provide waivers because the time limit for awarding World War II medals expired in 1952.

US News said the waivers were included in the 1997 defense authorization legislation that typically passes Congress in October, the start of the fiscal year.

Though 1.2 million blacks served in the segregated US military during World War II, none were awarded the top medal. Nine got the second-highest medal, the Distinguished Service Cross.

In 1992 the army began reviewing its awards to blacks, contracting with Shaw University, an historically black college in North Carolina, to research records, US News reported.

The magazine said the study, published in a "closely held" 272-page report, found no evidence than any black soldier in World War II was nominated for the medal of honor.

The study said at least four of the seven men who are now candidates for the Medal of Honor previously had been recommended for the honor.

The study found no official document showing racial bias, but the authors concluded that "segregating units by race complicated and slowed training, exacerbated relations between officers and enlisted men and between commanders and their units and undermined the morale of these units in both subtle and obvious ways."-AFP