Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-03-02

BEl OuLos
By COL. WILLIAM HAYWARD.
The Three Hundred and Thirty
ninth infantry, U. S. A., more famil-
iarly known as the old Fifteen New
York, is no more.
Their job done, and we'll done the
negro lads who volunteered in this
city, battled through France TO vic
tory and marched triumphantly into
Germany. are back again in civilian
life. turning toward their hundred
daily tasks.
But now there are not just color
cd bows, not merely the ehautfeurs,
the walters, the red caps, the Pull
man porters, that they were
before they put on the olive-drab
they have served so we'll They are
men, real men-better Americans. !
am proud Of them, and think the
nation must be proud Of them, if the
splendid ovation they received upon
their return meant anything.
| confess | am lonely without
them. And they, doubtless, will be
lonely without each other, those
buddies who went through so much
together.
| earnestly hope that the state and
city will not allow this splendid or
ganization to pass out of existence,
but will rebuild around the nucleus
of these men and their flags from
which hang the Croix de Guerre,
Fifteenth New York to which their
children and their grandchildren will
belong, an organization with home
Of its own in the shape of big,
modern armory. .
How the Fifteenth Went to Battle.
Two years before our trouble with
Mexico the legislature passed bill
providing for a negro national guard
regiment for New York. Various at
tempts to raise one failed. Cover
nor Whitman finally asked me if !
would organize the outfit. | had
seen no military service for l8
years, though | was on the reserve
list of the national guard, having
been a captain in the Spanish-Ameri-
can war and a colonel of the Ne
braska National Guard at the age of
%. But | went about the task and
the result was the Fifteenth regi-
ment was started in June, 1916, and
BY October we had 1000 in the
ranks. | was then the only white
officer. The other commission-hold-
ers were colored. They were Cap
tain Marshall, Captain Fillmore,
Lieutenant Lacey, Lieutenant Reed
and Lieutenant Europe, the famous
musician. Brooklyn and the San
Juan hill district filled up the en-
listed personnel
On April 8, 1917. two days after
the United States entered the war,
we were inspected by federal officers
and a week later were recognized as
a regular unit Of the federal guard.
At Full War Strength.
In June, 1917, we went to full war
strength OF 1000 men and So officers.
The battalion did the pioneer work
at Camp Upton, another at Camp
Dix. The third guarded 900 miles
Of railroads in New York, New Jer-
sey and Pennsylvania. The machine
gun company guarded 1000 interned
spies and pro-German prisoners at
Ellis Island. / would like to point
out that in all our territory there
was not a wreck, an explosion, an
escaped prisoner or any other trou-
bic. Two battalions went to Spar
tauburg for training, but remained
there only couple of weeks.
We sailed on the transport Poca-
hontas-the old Princess Irene-on
November II, 1917, but when two
days out were forced to return. be-
cause of a bent piston rod. We got
away again on December3, but fire
started in a coal bunker and we came
back On December II we made our !