Shout Out To Company E, 372nd Colored Infantry Regiment
The Company E basketball team, nicknamed “The Bloody Hand.”
Here’s a shout out to the courageous men of Company E, 372nd Colored Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division.
The 93rd was that famous World War I racially segregated fighting unit nicknamed the “Bloody Hand Division” by the French.
Here’s an excerpt from the team profile at BlackFives.com:
Most of the nearly 400,000 African American soldiers who served in the US Army during World War I worked in segregated labor battalions, but 20 percent fought in two specially created all-black combat units, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions, under command of white officers.
After the war, some Company E veterans formed a basketball team, based in Springfield, Ohio. Led by Freeman Lee, the Company E squad played other all-black teams in the region, including the Center Street Colored YMCA of Springfield and the Pioneers, Keystones, and Swastikas of nearby Cleveland.
This team has one of the most fascinating logo forensics stories associated with it. I’ll write about it at a later date and if you want to be notified then please join our list.
(Photo courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society.)
