Did African Americans in world war 2 fight in German if so what divisions?

Answer 1

The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions were the traditionally black formations. The enlisted men were black but the officers were white. Ned Almond, who went on to command the X Corps in Korea for MacArthur, commanded the 92nd ID when it fought in Italy. (The Second Cavalry Division, which saw action in the Pacific, was also a black formation).

The US WWII Army, in addition to its divisions, had hundreds of "independent battalions" of various types - artillery of various calibers, engineers, signals, tanks, tank destroyers, and so on. Probably half the men who saw combat were members of one of these non-divisional units. A few of them were black units, such as the "Triple Nickels", the 555th Anti Aircraft Artillery Battalion, the 761st Tank Battalion, and the 614th and 827th Tank Destroyer Battalions, all of which gave good service.

By late 1944 the US Army in Europe was deep into a "replacement crisis". No one had anticipated just how fast riflemen would be lost once the Army came fully to grips with the Germans and entered into sustained combat, and the supply of replacement riflemen was completely insufficient. Many divisions were so depleted of rifle strength that without drastic measures they could no longer be placed in the line. In these circumstances the Army changed its attitude and put out a call for volunteers, and black troops - from quartermaster and labor battalions and the like, where most black troops were forced to serve, were accepted. Many of these men gave up their sergeants stripes to go as volunteer privates to fight as infantrymen. Sometimes these guys were formed into black platoon (with white officers) and attached to shot-up all-white companies as a "fifth platoon". Only in Patton's Third Army were these volunteers integrated directly in as replacements into the existing structure.

See Related Links below for some information on the black divisions of the WWII Army.