In 1944, the 761st was assigned to General George S. Patton’s Third Army in France.
Before WWII, assumptions about the inferiority of Black soldiers as combat troops dominated military thinking and supported a policy of segregating Blacks into support and service units to provide cooks, stevedores, truck drivers, orderlies, and other non-combat personnel. Only five Black commissioned officers served in the army in 1940, three of whom were chaplains.
“In a future war,” said Colonel Perry L. Miles, “the main use of the Negro should be in labor organizations.”
Even then-Colonel George S. Patton Jr. had little confidence in Black soldiers. In a letter to his wife, he wrote, “A colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in armor.”
Ruben Rivers and the Negroes of the 761st Tank Battalion, the first to go to war in armor, were to change those assumptions as they engaged the enemy for 183 straight days in six European nations. No other unit fought for so long and so hard without respite.
In October 1944, General George Patton, who had initially disparaged Black soldiers, sent a message to the War Department requesting more tankers, the best available. The only tank unit left was Negro—the 761st. The Black Panthers.

761st Tank Battalion During WWII
Deployment
US tank battalion structure, November 1944.
General Ben Lear, commander of the U.S. Second Army, rated the unit “superior” after a special review and deemed the unit “combat ready.” After the two-year training session in Texas, the 761st Tank Battalion received the order on 9 June 1944 for overseas movement three days after the D-Day landings in Normandy. The battalion aboard the British troop carrier Esperance Bay from New York arrived in Britain on 8 September 1944 and was initially assigned to the Ninth Army. After a brief deployment to England, the 761st landed in France via Omaha Beach on 10 October 1944. The unit arrived (with six white officers, thirty black officers, and 676 black enlisted men[18]) and was assigned to General George Patton’s US Third Army at his request, attached to the 26th Infantry Division.
The unit saw action in Northern France from October 1944, it fought in the Battle of the Bulge, later proceeding to the Rhineland, and spent the final months of the war on German soil.

Early August 1944. Men from the 374th Engineer General Service Regiment showing some of the ‘explosive material’ recovered on site. The Regiment, consisting of “colored” personnel, was actively involved in the preparation of the grounds and site of the 5th General Hospital. The unit was activated on 2 August 1943 at Ft. Hood, Texas, arrived in England on 28 January 1944, and landed in France on 11 July 1944.
“Who the **** asked for color?” Patton shot back in typical salty style. “I asked for tankers.”
The 761st linked up with Patton’s Third Army near Nancy, France, on October 28. The front lines lay only a few miles ahead. Suddenly, a bunch of quarter-ton Jeeps loaded with MPs and .50-caliber machine guns rolled in and took up strategic defensive positions. As the tankers stood at attention, a single Jeep and an armored scout car dashed to the head of the formation and stopped next to Colonel Paul Bates. (Bates was white; white officers commanded black troops during WWII). Everyone knew from the two ivory-handled pistols holstered at the man’s belt that this was the legendary General Patton. The three stars on his helmet and collar reflected the sunlight as he vaulted to the hood of the armored car.
Contrary to the movie Patton, it was to the black tankers of the 761st that Patton delivered his famous speech.
“Men, you are the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American army,” he began. “I have nothing but the best in my army. I don’t care what color you are, so long as you go up there and kill the Kraut sonsofbitches. Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you. Most of all, your race is looking forward to your success. Don’t let them down, and, G—damn you, don’t let me down. They say it is patriotic to die for your country. Well, let’s see how many patriots we can make out of those German sons of bitches.”
Patton was a man to be taken seriously.
“There is one thing you men will be able to say when you go home,” he concluded. ‘You may all thank God that thirty years from now when you are sitting with your grandson on your knee he asks, ‘Grandfather, what did you do in World War II? you won’t have to say, ‘I shoveled shit in Mississippi.’”
Omaha Beach, Blooded in Combat
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The 761st consisted of 760 Black men and white officers primarily operating the M-4 Sherman battle tank. Soon after the 761st Tank Battalion landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy they became the first black armored soldiers to see battle. The motto of the 761st, who were also called the Black Panthers, was “Come Out Fighting!” Before the end of the war, they more than lived up to this motto.
At Guebling, France, on 19 November 1944, the 761st was directed to hold the line until reinforcements arrived. Ruben Rivers, now a staff sergeant and a TC (tank commander), had already won a Silver Star for bravery and was suffering from an infected wound. He refused nonetheless to be evacuated, although he could hardly walk.
Daylight slowly arrived, cold and frosty with thin crusts of sleet over snow. Out of the fog rumbled Jagdtigers, the heaviest of Hitler’s armor, monsters armed with fearsome 128mm SPA guns and MG-34 machine guns. The Tigers belched flame that seemed to scorch light out of the morning. German antitank positions concealed on the far side of a slope beyond hedgerows lit up the gray sky. Barrages of explosions stomped all over and around the intersection. Two Black Panther tanks were knocked out immediately, killing Bob Hammond and Roderick Ewing.
“Pull back, pull back, Panthers!” came an order from the company commander.
“I see them. We’ll fight them!” Rivers responded.
His tank darted from cover, side by side with the Sherman commanded by Sergeant Walter James. Outnumbered and outgunned, the two iron steeds charged, diverting the German onslaught long enough for Americans caught in the open to withdraw and regroup.
Rivers and James smashed through the hedgerows and up the slope toward the enemy, all guns blazing, like jousters on steel mounts. For a few minutes, the American Shermans held their own. They seemed to exist in a charmed atmosphere as they tore furiously through fiery blasts of light and smoke and as brilliant tracers of green bounced off their thick hides.
Then a high-explosive shell caught Rivers’s tank and cracked it like an eggshell. A second shell finished the job, striking the turret and almost ripping Rivers’ body into two parts. Rivers’ tank continued to smoke out there on the field of battle for the rest of the day as American forces rallied, repelled the attack, and secured Guebling.
The Black Panther from Oklahoma who would not quit was dead.
During the 183 days Patton’s Panthers, the 761st Tank Battalion, were in continuous combat, they participated in four major Allied campaigns, including the Battle of The Bulge. They inflicted more than 130,000 casualties upon the enemy. Eight Black enlisted men received battlefield commissions, while 391 received decorations for heroism: 7 Silver Stars for Valor (three posthumously); 56 Bronze Stars for Valor; and 246 Purple Hearts. Three officers and 31 enlisted men were killed in action, and 22 officers and 180 enlisted men were wounded.
In 1997, 53 years after sacrificing his life on the battlefield, Sergeant Ruben Rivers was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. In 1998, the 761st Tank Battalion (deactivated) received a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest award that a unit can receive.
On June 9, 2009, a stretch of Highway 9 running through Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, where Ruben Rivers grew up, was named in his honor
Success on the Battlefield
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During combat operations in World War II, front-line troops rarely spent more than a few weeks on the front lines; the Black Panthers had been in combat for over 183 days straight. Before the war was over, the 761st would participate in four major allied campaigns throughout a half dozen countries including France, Germany, and Austria, and inflict over 130,000 casualties. The 761st was also highly decorated; earning throughout their six months of combat operations seven Silver Stars for Valor (three posthumously), 246 Purple Hearts, and one Congressional Medal of Honor (posthumously). Eight enlisted men received battlefield commissions.
Jackie Robinson
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Among the men serving in the 761st was baseball legend Jackie Robinson. Lt. Colonel Bates was so impressed with Robinson and his influence over the men that he appointed Robinson as the official moral officer of the 761st. Robinson would never see combat overseas, however. He was court-martialed in August 1944 after refusing to go to the back of a bus driven by a civilian on the Fort Hood military base in Texas. Robinson was acquitted of all charges, discharged, and three years later began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.