Officers of the 2nd Ranger Company going over plans for a night attack by members of the company against a North Korean held town in the X Corps area of Central Korea. Officers shown are, L-R: First Lieutenant Warren E. Allen - Company Commander, Lieutenant Vincent Wilburn - 2nd Platoon Leader and Lieutenant James Queen - Company Executive Officer. 12 February 1951
The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was activated from Fort Benning, Georgia on 06 October 1950. Personnel, all four-time volunteers, were drawn from the 3rd Battalion, 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment and the 80th Anti-aircraft Artillery Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division. All of these brave and outstanding patriots had to volunteer four times in order to join this elite unit; first they volunteered to join the Army, second they volunteered to become paratroopers, third they volunteered for combat. The parent organization for this unit was Company “A”, 2nd Ranger Battalion, which was deactivated following World War II. The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was a very special unit - one might characterize the men of this unit as the best of the elite.
The Company went through a highly concentrated, rigorous course of training at Fort Benning, Georgia and shipped out to Port of Embarkation, Camp Stoneman, California, arriving by train on 07 December 1950 nine years to the day after Pearl Harbor Day. The company staged for overseas shipment and boarded the USNT General Butner at San Francisco, California on 09 December 1950. Enroute to Korea, the Company stopped briefly at Honolulu, Hawaii, then sailed on to Yokohama, Japan, arriving on 24 December 1950 - Christmas Eve. The Company entrained at shipside for movement to Camp Zama, Japan, where final preparations were made for shipment to Korea.
On 30 December 1950 (barely one day before New Year’s Eve) the Company was airlifted from Tachikawa Air Force Base, Japan, K-2, Taegu Air Force Base, Korea. The unit was assigned to the Eight United States Army and attached to the 7th Infantry Division. The Rangers closed into the 7th Division area at 0200 hours 31 December 1950, New Year’s Eve.
The 2nd Ranger Company was deployed to Korea at a time when the United Nations forces were facing staggering odds. Three days after their arrival in Korea, the Rangers saw their first action. Red guerrillas were harassing a medical aid station adjacent to their command post. One hundred an fifty strong, the guerrillas crept down from the mountains at an early morning hour and opened fire on the medics from close range. A wall of expertly laced firepower by the Rangers jarred the unsuspecting Communists to a halt. Suddenly shouts of “Buffalo” (the battle cry) filled the air. The marauders turned and fled terrorized, back up the mountain draw. Some got away, but the ground was littered with bodies of dead communists who had made their last raid.
The 2nd Ranger Company was attached to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team on 23 February 1951. On March 1951, the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) became the first United States Army all-Black unit to make a parachute jump behind enemy lines when it jumped with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team at Munsan-ni, Korea. The hard-hitting company, commanded by Captain WARREN E. ALLEN of Los Angeles, California, was attached to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team specifically for this daring mission.
After jumping from C-46 airplanes a few minutes after the first wave, the Rangers landed in the rice paddies, moved up to the primary objective, on through enemy rifle, machine gun, and mortar fire to higher terrain and killed many enemy troops; capturing 30, and routing the remainder of the resistance.
While attached to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, the 2nd Ranger’s enviable reputation was becoming legend throughout the 7th Division’s operational area. Fighting with the leading elements of the 7th Infantry Division, the 2nd Ranger company distinguished itself in all phases of combat operations. They fought gallantly from offense to defense to offense, and to pursuit. The 2nd Ranger Company exhibited a high degree of aggressiveness and flexibility of arms that gained them the respect of every unit of the 7th Infantry Division. Members of the 2nd Ranger Company earned numerous awards for valor. Unit awards include the:
* Korean Presidential Unit citation
* Korean Service Medal
* Combat Infantry Streamer
* Bronze Arrowhead - For Parachute Assault at Munsan-ni
* Chinese communist Forces Intervention - BSM
* First United Nations Counter - Offensive - Bss
* Bronze Star in the center of parachute wings for combat jump at Munsan-ni
* Bronze Star for Spring Offensive
* Bronze Star for Summer Offensive
The troops of the famed 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) were all pioneers in their own right. They blazed a trail though uncharted jungles they fought tenaciously and won against an uncanny and sinister enemy. Their accomplishments on the field of battle are legendary and will forever be recorded in the military annals of elite United States combat units.
Members of the 2nd Ranger Company (Airborne) aboard ship en route to Korea in 1950. First lieutenant Warren E. Allen, Company commander, is standing second from right.
Detroiter fought discrimination, frostbite to fight with elite unit
by Betty DeRamus
Clinton Cleveland parachuted into combat in Korea in 1951, making an 800-foot jump that jarred his frostbitten feet. That leap landed him in the history books.
Cleveland was a member of the Second Airborne Ranger company, the only all-black Ranger company in American history.
“We were the first and the last,” says Cleveland. “We were the first all-black Ranger company, the first all-black company to parachute into combat, and we were the last all-black unit activated by the Army.”
The U.S. Army’s legendary Rangers were a small, elite band of volunteers who were supposed to jump behind enemy lines, stir up havoc, sow confusion and escape. They specialized in ambushes and raids.
They were fewer than 700 Airborne Rangers among the 500,000 U.S. troops in the Korean conflict, all assigned to regular Army divisions, according to Robert W. Black, author of Rangers in Korea.
A native Detroiter and graduate of Northwestern High School, Cleveland enlisted in the Army in 1947. He quickly re-joined when the North Koreans invaded South Korea two days after his June 1950 discharge.
In the summer of 1950, he wound up with the 82nd Airborne in Fort Bragg, N.C. Then the Army revived the Rangers and called for volunteers. Eager for excellence, some way to shine despite discrimination, Cleveland volunteered. He was assigned to the Second company in Fort Benning, GA.
“I wanted to be part of the best,” explained Cleveland, 70, who spend 20 years in the Army, retired as a lieutenant and lives in Detroit.
Though President Harry Truman had ordered the armed services desegregated in 1948, vestiges of segregation persisted into the 1950s.
The Second Ranger Company was assigned to the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, but saw no action initially because, according to Cleveland, the commanding officer of the 7th Division “didn’t feel black folks could cut the mustard.”
After a new commander took over the 7th Division, things changed. However, Cleveland nearly missed his combat opportunity when his feet became frostbitten, a common occurrence in a country where water froze in canteens on cold nights.
When Cleveland and another frostbitten Ranger arrived at the hospital where they were scheduled to be evacuated, they heard their outfit was about to make a combat jump. The two men immediately began hitchhiking back to their unit, Cleveland says.
On March 23, 1951, the Second Ranger Company jumped into combat against the Chinese at Musan-ni, Korea. One member of the Second was killed in action and one wounded. The company fought in four major campaigns and received numerous citations, including 10 Silver Stars and 11 Bronze Stars.
However, unlike black units such as the Tuskegee Airmen, who never lost a bomber they escorted, and unlike the black soldiers who fought with the French in World War I, the Second Ranger Company rarely appears in documentaries about black fighting men.
But Clinton Cleveland will never forget the day he leaped into a Korean valley from a plane flying 100 miles an hour - leaving footprints in history’s path.
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