FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:   JANUARY 10, 2003

Contact Patrick Tremblay, ptremblay@asomf.org (910) 483-3003 ext. 229

ASOM REMEMBERS FIRST BLACK PARATROOPERS

FAYETTEVILLE, NC.  A ceremony will be held at the Airborne & Special Operations Museum (ASOM) in downtown Fayetteville on February 8 honoring the men of the Black Parachute Test Platoon. The ceremony will center on the dedication of a unit memorial stone placed at the front of the museum engraved with the names of the first 23 members of the 555th Parachute Infantry Company. Sponsored by the museum, the 555th Parachute Infantry Association (the "Triple Nickles" [sic]) and Ft. Bragg's XVIII Airborne Corps, the day will begin with a parachute demonstration at 9:30 am, followed by the dedication ceremony. An educational forum will then be held in the museum's Yarborough-Bank Theater, concluding with a question and answer period. Speakers will include several of the original 23 black paratroopers, as well as other members of the 555th. The event is free and open to the public.

Army airborne began in the summer of 1940 with the Parachute Test Platoon, an all white unit tasked with creating the foundation for parachute units to be used in possible American involvement in the war in Europe. It wasn't until 1944 that African-American soldiers were given the opportunity to attend jump school. The first 17 enlisted men were chosen and trained seperately, and often more rigorously, than their white counterparts, and after being joined by the first six officers were called upon to train a battalion's worth of black paratroopers for combat. The battalion was the famous 555th Parachute Infantry.

The unit memorial stone at the ASOM will be placed across the museum's entrance way mirroring the stone honoring the origian Test Platoon. While these 23 soldiers were not the first to jump, their accomplishment was in many ways just as significant. As one Triple Nickle said it, the original Test Platoon was testing the parachutes and tactics to prove they were worthy, the Black Test Platoon was testing the men. The Army in 1944, like our society as a whole, was segregated and unfair, and the new memorial serves to honor a group of men that helped to change that.

For More Information
ASOM - Patrick Tremblay at (910) 483-3003 ext. 229, ptremblay@asomf.org, www.asomf.org.
555th Parachute Infantry Association - Joe Murchison, National President, at (813) 884-5068, www.triplenickle.com.

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