With a Black Platoon in Combat; A Year in Korea

xvi, 176 pages. Illustrations. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper. Inscription reads: July 1993. To Lenore and Milt--With warm regards and love for your support and friendship. Best wishes, Lyle Rishell. Includes Preface, Korean War Chronology, Epilogue, Appendix A--24th Infantry Regiment; Appendix B--Composition of Second Platoon, and Index. Topics covered include Alpha Phase; Mobilization and Movement; Korea, the Hermit Kingdom; First Contact; The Pusan Perimeter; The Fight Continues; Perimeter Breakout; Mop-up Operations; Redeployment; Time Out; Call It Homecoming; The Han River Crossing; Thrust and Counterthrust; and Phase Omega. Lyle Rishell served as an officer with the 24th Infantry Regiment for eleven months during the Korean War. Among his decorations and awards are the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action and two Purple Hearts for wounds received during combat. Lyle entered the U.S. Army in Dec. 1944 and retired in 1967. He attended various military schools and received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He has written seven books. His first book, "With a Black Platoon in Combat," is a story of the first year in Korea with the 24th Infantry, the last segregated regiment in the U.S. Army, where he was awarded five battle stars. During his career, he served on the Army General Staff in the areas of intelligence, military operations, and research and development. He held the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star and the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the Senior Parachutist Badge, Army General Staff Badge, and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation. Ribbon. The first year of the Korean Conflict was a dark and humiliating period for many of the troops who fought there. Against a backdrop of U.S. political indecision and reduced military capability, American soldiers fought a dedicated and numerically strong enemy force that was determined to overrun South Korea. One of these units, the segregated 24th Infantry Regiment, was made up of black soldiers commanded for the most part by white officers. Lyle Rishell, an infantry platoon leader, led a black platoon of Able Company in that regiment. This book tells the dramatic, often frustrating, sometimes heroic story of that platoon in that first, fateful year of war. From detailed notes he made at the time, and from his memories of those days, Rishell reconstructs the deployment and tactics of his unit, its day-to-day actions and survival. The story that unfolds is one of honor, fear, fighting spirit, fierce combat, and the cries of wounded men. The 24th Infantry Regiment has received bad press from many historians of the Korean War, who claim that the black soldiers and noncommissioned officers were undisciplined and even cowardly in battle. Rishell's moving account, based on his own experiences, describes his men as no better or worse than any other infantrymen in the first year in Korea. His troops fought well from July, 1950, to May, 1951, in nearly constant frontline action against the North Koreans and the Chinese Communists, despite a variety of significant fundamental obstacles, including the racial prejudice of much of their own army. It is a unique and compelling story of the relationship of a white officer and black soldiers before integration of the services and the civil rights legislation of the sixties. It is also an important corrective to a poorly understood aspect of one of America's most dismal conflicts. The 24th Infantry Regiment was a unit of the United States Army, active from 1869 until 1951. Before its dissolution in 1951, it was primarily made up of African-American soldiers; the regiment is notable for serving their country when systemic racism was overt, and when black troops were treated as "second class" due to segregation. The 24th Infantry Regiment (one of the Buffalo Soldier regiments) was organized on 1 November 1869 from the 38th U.S. (Colored) Infantry Regiment (formed 24 July 1866) and the 41st U.S. (Colored) Infantry Regiment (f.…