• 14 •
Somewhere in the review of the charges and statements, the Camp Hood Staff Judge Advocate determined that the original charges against Robinson were not only stacked but also that some of the specifications would be difficult to prove. Getting a conviction of an officer, by his fellow officers, for using “vulgar, obscene, and abusive” language to a civilian bus driver in the presence of “ladies” as being “conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman” would be all but impossible—especially considering that evidence existed showing that Robinson had been called a “nigger” on several occasions. Cuss words were no strangers to anyone on an army camp—male or female—given that famed army leaders such as Lt. Gen. George Patton and other senior leaders were known for their “salty” language.
Apparently, the Judge Advocate Office also determined that disrespect to Capt. Wigginton, if displayed, was a result of the interaction between Robinson and Bear. This left only two charges (Appendix R): disrespect toward Capt. Bear and failure to follow a lawful order from Capt. Bear. While the reduction in the number of charges and specifications might appear to benefit Robinson, the emphasis downplayed the cause of the incident, that is, of Jackie’s being told to go to the back of the bus and of his being called “nigger.”
What had begun as a confrontation between a black officer and a white civilian bus driver who told him to go to the back of the bus had now become an official matter of a black officer being disrespectful toward and not following the orders of a white superior officer. Although Capt. Bear, with the camp’s Judge Advocate Office’s assistance, had prepared the original charges, only Robinson’s commander could formally recommend a General Court-Martial. According to nearly every account, including a much later interview with his widow, Col. Bates refused to sign the charge sheet. Camp Hood officials countered by transferring Jackie to the 758th Tank Battalion, whose commander readily signed the charges.
This version of events makes for a good story, but there is no evidence to support the claim. It is more likely that Jackie was transferred to the 758th because the 761st was already in the process of moving to East Coast ports for deployment to the European Theater. With Jackie, still on limited duty from his ankle injury and pending court-martial, the transfer would have been more administrative than punitive or based on racial prejudices. The question of the transfer is further confused by the fact that Col. Bates remained behind at Camp Hood to testify at Jackie’s trial before joining his battalion on its way to Europe.
Jackie returned from his leave in California to find that court-martial proceedings were progressing. Correspondence from the 5th Armored Group, Camp Hood, and the XXIII Corps on July 10 and 14 stated, “While the officer concerned was a member of the 761st Tank Bn. at the time the alleged offense was committed, this Headquarters is informed he has been reassigned to the 758th Tank Bn., 5th Armored Group.”
Camp Hood officials were also well aware that they had on their hands a situation that might bring negative national attention. On July 17, only ten days after the incident and in the midst of the investigation, Col. E. A. Kimball, commanding officer of the 5th Armored Group, made a telephone call to Col. Walter L. Buie, the chief of staff of the XXIII Corps. Upon the completion of the call, Buie recorded a typed summary (Appendix S) of their conversation. Such a summary, or Memorandum for the Record, is extremely unusual between staff officers and commanders. Its primary purpose is for the person making the summary to protect himself in possible future investigations.
Buie wrote that Kimball said, “I have a case here involving a colored officer who got in trouble in connection with a bus. . . . This is very serious case, and it is full of dynamite. It requires delicate handling.”
According to the memo, Kimball had continued by saying that an “Inspector” (someone from the Officer of the Inspector General) should be brought in to investigate. Buie had responded that none was available and asked if Kimball’s headquarters could investigate it on their own.
The memo shows that Kimball responded in the affirmative but added a statement that contained the status of racial relations at Camp Hood at the time. According to Buie’s summary, Kimball said, “The bus station situation here is not good, and I am afraid that any officer in charge of troops at this Post might be prejudiced.”
There were likely many similar conversations to those of Buie and Kimball at various levels at Camp Hood and at XXIII headquarters. None, however, were recorded or otherwise have survived the passage of time.
Courts-martial proceedings are generally viewed by those outside the military as being kangaroo courts with little protection or rights for the accused. Jackie reinforced this perspective in his book when he wrote, “Anyone who knows about the Army court martial system can tell you it’s loaded mostly in favor of those bringing charges.”
Actually, that conclusion is not factual. Courts-martial of the period were indeed “loaded,” not at the trial itself but rather through a meticulous administrative, investigative, and review process before accusations ever went to trial. A pre-trial investigation procedure, similar to a civilian Grand Jury, occurred before charges could be advanced. There were also strict rules regarding “command influence” to prevent commanders from making verbal or written comments on their thoughts on the guilt of the accused. Guilty verdicts and punishments were reviewed by the chain of command in what would compare to an appeal process today.
In the Robinson case, on July 17 an initial Charge Sheet was prepared listing Jackie as the accused and thirteen witnesses as having made attached sworn statements for the prosecution. No witnesses were listed for the defense. On the same date—July 17—Jackie was placed under arrest at McCloskey General Hospital. Later stories would exaggerate this part of the process as his being placed in arm and leg chains and taken to a jail cell. In reality, as a commissioned officer, his arrest merely meant that he was restricted to the hospital grounds—no locks, no chains, no bars on doors. He was also free to travel with no escort from the hospital to Camp Hood as a part of the investigation.
Jackie had not been standing idly by even before his arrest. On July 16, he handwrote a letter on McCloskey General Hospital stationary (Appendix T) to Truman Gibson, now an assistant to the Secretary of War, asking for advice and help. Still being the “good soldier,” Robinson wrote, “I don’t want any unfavorable publicity for myself or the Army but I believe in fair play.” Later in his letter he repeated, “I don’t mind trouble but I do believe in fair play and justice.”
Gibson forwarded the letter within the War Department with the notation, “This man is the well known athlete. He will write you.”
Robinson also wrote to the NAACP summarizing his situation and requesting legal assistance. The NAACP responded that they would be unable to help because of the large number of similar requests they had received. A fellow black officer, writing anonymously to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) said that they should investigate the situation to reveal “. . . just how rotten the whole business is” and added that the situation was “. . . a typical effort to intimidate Negro officers and enlisted men.”
Other black officers wrote to African American newspapers, including the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, seeking publicity of the pending trial. Still others wrote to their congressmen and senators asking them to investigate.
None of these efforts had any influence on the pending court-martial. Military justice, unlike its civilian counterpart, moves quickly and decisively. Most of the responses to Jackie’s requests for assistance arrived after the trial ended, resulting in the army’s merely responding with the court-martial verdict and with no other details. The black newspapers, despite their circulation and influence, were weekly rather than dailies, and the trial concluded before they could mount any amount of significant coverage.
Despite requesting legal support from outside sources, Robinson accepted the Defense Council, 2nd Lt. William A. Cline, that the Army appointed to him. Cline, born in 1912, about 190 miles southeast of Camp Hood in Wharton, Texas, attended Texas College of Mines, Columbia University, and the University of Texas at Austin before graduating from the Cumberland University Law School in Tennessee. He then joined his father’s law practice in Wharton where he mostly practiced contract and administrative law before the war. Although too old for the draft, Cline volunteered for the army shortly after Pearl Harbor. Instead of being trained as a staff judge advocate, he earned a commission at the Field Artillery Officers Candidate School. Assigned to Camp Hood in a tank destroyer battalion scheduled for deployment to North Africa, the unit converted to an amphibious tank battalion for the invasion of Sicily after the fighting in Africa ceased. During the transition, XXIII Corps detailed Cline to court-martial duty.
He and Jackie apparently developed a relationship in the short time before the trial. In a later interview, Cline recalled that, when he first learned of his appointment as defense counsel, he went over to Jackie’s quarters to discuss the case. According to Cline, he had a lengthy visit but at the time Jackie still thought the NAACP was going to send legal help. Cline remembered telling Jackie that outside assistance was a good idea because, he said, “I came from just about as far South as you can get.”
In one visit with Jackie, Cline took along his son who was a huge football fan and wanted to meet the UCLA hero. Cline also said that Jackie talked a lot about his mother and Southern California.
In his biography, Jackie wrote, “My first break was that the legal officer (Cline) assigned to defend me was a Southerner who had the decency to admit to me that he didn’t think he could be objective. He recommended a young Michigan officer who did a great job.”
Jackie likely made the decision to seek additional military assistance after Cline’s admission and when it became apparent that the NAACP was not going to provide legal representation and he did not have sufficient financial means to hire a civilian attorney.
That young Michigan lawyer Cline recommended as additional counsel was 1st Lt. Robert H. Johnson. Although Johnson was a University of Michigan Law School graduate, he was serving as a white infantry officer in the segregated 679th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Otherwise, little is known about him at the time except through Jackie’s comments in his autobiography and through the trial records where he took a major part in examining and cross-examining witnesses.
Camp Hood officials referred the charges against Robinson and statements from the witnesses to Major Henry S. Daugherty of the 5th Armored Group, then serving as the Article 70 of the Articles of War investigating officer. While his responsibilities resembling those of a civilian grand jury—that is, to determine if sufficient evidence existed to refer the case to court-martial by applying the binary system of yes or no to reach the ultimate decision—Daugherty had the primary role of taking charge of the witnesses and their statements. In reviewing the documents he received, Major Daugherty realized that a statement from an important witness was missing. Mrs. Virginia Jones, the woman Robinson had sat with on the bus, had not gone to the MP Station, and, thus, she had made no statement. On July 19, Daugherty directed Capt. Bear to secure Mrs. Jones’s story of the incident. In his statement of that same date (Appendix U), Bear said, “Attempts had been made previously to obtain the name of the person in order that we could obtain a statement from her regarding the incident. Shortly after learning her name I proceeded to Belton, Texas (20 miles to the east), and contacted Mrs. Virginia Jones.”
According to Bear, “She informed me that she had received a call from Lt. Robinson, and that she expected him to come along on the bus to Belton to see her. She was expecting him to arrive when I talked with her. She told me that Lt. Robinson had told her that he wanted to talk to her before she went before the investigating officer. Mrs. Jones further stated that she wanted to talk to Lt. Robinson before making a statement to anyone. She refused at that time to make a statement before discussing it with Lt. Robinson.”
Apparently, Mrs. Jones did talk with Robinson because later in the day she gave her statement (Appendix V) to Bear. For the record, she said, “I got on the bus first and sat down, and Lt. Robinson got on and came and sat beside me. I sat in the fourth seat from the rear of the bus, which I have always considered the rear of the bus. The bus driver looked back at us, and then asked Lt. Robinson to move. Lt. Robinson told the bus driver to go on and drive the bus. The bus driver stopped the bus, came back and balled his fist and said, ‘Will you move back?’ Lt. Robinson said, ‘I’m not moving,’ so the bus driver stood there and glared a minute and said, ‘Well, just sit there until we get down to the Bus Station.’ We got to the Bus Station and Lt. Robinson and I were the last two to leave the bus. The bus driver detained Lt. Robinson and demanded to see his pass. Lt. Robinson said, ‘My pass?’, and the bus driver said, ‘Yes, I want to see your pass.’ Lt. Robinson asked him what did he mean wanting to see his pass, and we then got off the bus. A woman walked up to Lt. Robinson and shook her finger in his face and said, ‘I’m going to report you because you had a right [sic] to move when he asked you to.’ She stood there and argued with Lt. Robinson awhile, and I don’t remember what all was said. Lt. Robinson did not say anything at first and then he said, ‘Go on and leave me alone.’ So she walked into the bus station, and about that time the crowd around the bus driver and Lt. Robinson thinned out, and the bus driver said something to the Lt. which I did not hear.”
Mrs. Jones concluded, “I did not hear him say anything vile nor vulgar at any time, nor he did not raise his voice.”
Over the next three days, Daugherty conducted the Pre-trial Investigation. In his report dated July 20, 1944, Daugherty wrote that he had investigated the charges dated July 17 against Lt. Robinson “in accordance with the provisions of Article of War 70.” Preprinted provisions of the form stated, “I informed the accused of the nature of the charges alleged against him; of the names of the accuser and all witnesses, so far as known to me; of the fact that the charges were about to be investigated; of his right to cross-examine all available witnesses against him and to present anything he may desire in his own behalf, either in defense or mitigation; of his right to have the investigating officer examine available witnesses requested by him; and that it was not necessary for him to make any statement with reference to the charges against him, but that if he did not make one it might be used against him.”
The report then stated, “In the presence of the accused, I have examined all available witnesses and documentary evidence under direct and cross examination testimony.” Daugherty then listed the thirteen witnesses who had been examined, followed by three who were not called to testify because Jackie had made it known that he did not desire to cross-examine them. The original statements of all the witnesses were attached to the cover sheet.
In paragraph 8 of his report Daugherty stated, “Trial by General Court Martial is accordingly recommended.”
In his final paragraph, Daugherty wrote, “In arriving at my conclusion, I have considered not only the nature of the offenses and the evidence in this case, I have likewise considered the age of the accused, his military service, the necessity for preserving the manpower of the Nation in the present emergency, of salvaging all possible military material, and the established policy of the War Department that trial by general court-martial will be resorted to only when the charges can be disposed of in no other manner consistent with military discipline.”
Daugherty did not record or make notes on his questioning of the witnesses as it was not required under the provisions of Article of War 70. At the subsequent trial Jackie testified that several of the witnesses gave somewhat different accounts to Daugherty than to Capt. Bear.
On July 20, Daughtery completed his report and forwarded it to the headquarters of the 5th Armored Group commander, Col. E. A. Kimball. Despite being the one who had said in his telephone conversation on July 17, that he was afraid “that any officer in charge of troops at this Post might be prejudiced,” Kimball indorsed the report on July 24 by writing “trial by General Court Martial recommended.” He forwarded the case to the Commanding General, XXIII Corps.
The Judge Advocate of XXIII Corps, Lt. Col. Richard E. Kyle, reviewed the documents and forwarded them to the Commanding General of XXIII Corps on July 25. His report stated that he had “carefully examined the charges and all accompanying papers” against 2nd Lt. Robinson and found “the charges are appropriate to the evidence.” He then wrote, “I recommend trial by general court martial.”
Kyle then added a paragraph of “Instructions to the Trial Judge Advocate, military language for prosecutor.” It said, “Trial will be expedited, but under current policy, accused will not be brought to trial within five days after service of charges without his consent, unless military necessity requires such action.”
This was not a “rush to judgment” but rather a reflection of the times. The war was reaching its peak in Europe and in the Pacific, and the Army needed the trial to take place before witnesses and court personnel were transferred from Camp Hood.