Paul L. Bates
Encyclopedia
Paul Levern Bates served a distinguished and decorated career in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

, which most notably included commanding the first black tank battalion to enter combat in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, however he also gained notoriety as the white colonel who refused to court-martial future Baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

.

Bates, who was born in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, Ca., graduated in 1931 from McDaniel College
McDaniel College
McDaniel College is a private four-year liberal arts college in Westminster, Maryland, located 30 miles northwest of Baltimore. The college also has a satellite campus located in Budapest, Hungary. Until July 2002, it was known as Western Maryland College...

 (at the time named Western Maryland College), where he was a star football player and a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He also worked as a high school football coach and a teacher before entering the Army as a First Lieutenant in February 1941.

In January 1943, then Lieutenant Colonel Bates, took command of the 761st Tank Battalion, all of whose enlisted men were black. The unit, whose shoulder patch had a black panther, inflicted thousands of casualties on the enemy and captured, destroyed or liberated more than 30 major towns, four airfields, three ammunition-supply dumps, 461 wheeled vehicles, 34 tanks, 113 large guns and a radio station.

When the unit completed training in rigidly segregated boot camps in Louisiana and Texas, Bates refused a promotion from Lieutenant Colonel that would have separated him from what he regarded as one of the best tank battalions in the Army. He was eventually promoted to Colonel.

While in Texas, Bates refused to court-martial a black officer who had refused to move to the rear of a bus at Fort Hood. That officer was Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

, who was subsequently court-martialed for insubordination, but not convicted, and left the 761st before it went overseas. Praising Bates for his fairness and good judgment in his autobiography, Robinson would go on to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The 761st entered combat in November 1944 as part of General George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...

's Third Army and fought for 183 consecutive days without relief, according to David Williams, a battalion veteran and the author of the novel Hit Hard. The battalion fought in France, then in Germany, where it pierced the Siegfried Line, and then in Belgium, where it fought the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...

. The 761st also fought in Luxembourg and Austria. In all, the 761st Tank Battalion went from Vic-sur-Seille, France, to the Enns River in Steyr, Austria, where it linked up with the Soviet Army.

Ironically, Bates was the first member of the 761st to be wounded. Among its 687 enlisted men and 41 officers, 276 received the Purple Heart
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...

 for wounds in action and 36 died in combat. During World War II, Bates was awarded the Silver Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....

 and two Bronze Stars, in addition to the Purple Heart. In 1963 he was awarded the Legion of Merit
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements...

 when he retired from the Army, having served in combat commands in Europe, at the Command and General Staff College
Command and General Staff College
The United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas is a graduate school for United States Army and sister service officers, interagency representatives, and international military officers. The college was established in 1881 by William Tecumseh Sherman as a...

 in Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth is a United States Army facility located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, immediately north of the city of Leavenworth in the upper northeast portion of the state. It is the oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C. and has been in operation for over 180 years...

, Kan., and at the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

.

In 1978, after a 33-year struggle by the unit’s veterans, President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 awarded the 761st a Presidential Unit Citation “for extraordinary heroism in action.”

Following his retirement Colonel Bates remained in close touch with the veterans of the 761st and their families, attending yearly reunions and establishing a scholarship at McDaniel College
McDaniel College
McDaniel College is a private four-year liberal arts college in Westminster, Maryland, located 30 miles northwest of Baltimore. The college also has a satellite campus located in Budapest, Hungary. Until July 2002, it was known as Western Maryland College...

 for lineal descendants of the battalion members who served the unit from August 1944 through April 1945. The Paul L. Bates Memorial Scholarship Fund was established in 1999 under the terms of his will, and is administered and maintained by the Board of Trustees of McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland.

In 1993, the 761st made news because of a PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 documentary, Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II
Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II
Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II is a 1992 documentary film directed by Bill Miles. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature....

, in which two of its former enlisted men said the battalion had participated in the liberation of the Dachau and Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...

 concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...

. But Colonel Bates, along with other officers, noted that the unit was spread over a 50-mile front supporting the 71st Infantry Division at the time and would not confirm the claim. The unit did however liberate Gunskirchen
Gunskirchen
Gunskirchen is a town in Upper Austria, Austria. The village has 5,296 inhabitants . The mayor is Karl Grünauer of the Social Democratic Party of Austria....

, a subcamp of the Mauthausen complex
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...

.

Colonel Bates was buried at Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...

in Virginia on March 1, 1995 with full military honors.
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