Books and films about D-Day often show an all-white group of soldiers arriving in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Among them, about 2,000 African Americans are believed to have landed at the time. The African Americans served in a United States military that separated people by race. But on Normandy, everyone faced the same dangers. The only African American force in battle that day was the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion. Its job was to set up explosive-rigged balloons to prevent German airplanes from attacking the Allies. Linda Hervieux wrote about the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion in her book “Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, at Home and at War.” Hervieux said the U.S. military resisted efforts to end racial separation policies as it prepared for World War II. The military kept separate units and separate areas for black and white troops. “This was a very expensive and inefficient way to run an army. The Army ... could have ordered its men to integrate and to treat black soldiers as fully equal partners in this war. The Army declined to do so,” she said. By the end of the war, more than a million African Americans served in the military.
