Paratrooper Lands Honors

Walter Stokes

Tampa - Walter Stokes joined the Army in World War II to fight Germans and Japanese. Instead, as a member of the first black paratrooper outfit, he fought forest fires - and discrimination.

"People were betting at Fort Benning (GA) that when the first test platoon started, that Negroes would not jump out of airplanes," said Stokes, who served a stint as an Army smoke jumper in the Pacific Northwest.

Stokes’ outfit - the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, known as the "Triple Nickle" - finally got a measure of recognition. Stokes was one of hundreds of firefighters and police officers honored at Our Heroes’ Luncheon in the Tampa Convention Center, Friday May 3, 2002.

"I’m tickled to death over it," said Stokes, adding that few people know about the unit, which later was redesignated the 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment part of the 82nd Airborne Division. "It was like a lost thing."

The eight annual Our Heroes’/Law Enforcement Appreciation Luncheon salutes safety personnel from 13 police and fire rescue agencies in Hillsborough County and special guests, including about 120 New York police officers and firefighters this year.

Special Salutes and Scholarships

Special recognition goes to the year’s outstanding representative of each Hillsborough agency. College scholarships were awarded to children of two Hillsborough Country sheriff’s deputies and two Tampa police officers.

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the Tampa-based commander of U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan, gave the keynote address at the event.

Proceeds go to the Gold Shield Foundation, which helps families of fallen police officers and firefighters and pays for their children’s college tuition.

The invitation went out to Stokes at the suggestion of Suzy Holley, community development director for the Tampa Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau, where Stokes is a volunteer.

"I was just amazed by his strength and everything he did for our country without even needing to be recognized." Said Holley.

Naive, Eager Teen Enlists

Stokes, 72, said he was to eager to be a paratrooper that he lied about his age and enlisted at 14.

The Army sent the 555th to the Northwest to fight fires, some of them ignited by Japanese bombs floated by balloons over the Pacific.

Stokes, who retired as a sergeant after 28 years in the Army, fought four forest fires in Oregon and California through the summer of 1945. He knew he didn’t want to do it for a living.

"That’s why I admire firefighters today." Said Stokes, who lives in Tampa and Great Falls, Mont.

Smoke jumpers wore football helmets and padded leather to protect them when they jumped near fires, usually crashing through trees.

Signs of Racism

The Lincoln, Neb., teenager and his cousin took a Trailways bus to Atlanta to join the paratroopers. His first real exposure to racism didn’t come until the bus reached Vincennes, Ind. Having been allowed to sit anywhere on the bus from Lincoln, he and his cousin were reassigned to the rear, behind a curtain that declared "colored only."

From there on, he encountered "colored" water fountains and bathrooms. He ordered food at bus stop restaurants from an outside window because he wasn’t allowed to dine inside. He and his cousin absorbed the segregation without thinking about it, he said.

Segregation was even more pronounced at Fort Benning, where the black recruits ate, slept and relaxed separately from the whites.

"I never realized there were so many prejudiced people in the world, to be honest."

It made him and his comrades all the more determined not to fail.

"Everybody in the country - that’s exactly what they were expecting us to do."

He noticed a strange transformation in the white instructors once he passed the ultimate test.

"They said, ‘Once you jump out of that plane, it doesn’t matter what color you are.’ "

From then on, he says, the instructors treated the black paratroopers with the same respect as their white comrades.

The 555th Parachute Infantry
Email: info@triplenickle.com

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