I-8 Jewish Travel: World War II Buffalo Soldiers

Photo of Buffalo Soldier at Camp Lockett, on display at the Gaskill Brothers Stone Store Museum
Photo of Buffalo Soldier at Camp Lockett, on display at the Gaskill Brothers Stone Store Museum

-63rd in a Series-

Exit 51: Buckman Springs Road, Pine Valley, California ~ Camp Lockett 

By Donald H. Harrison

Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison

camp lockett signCAMPO, California – Like many Army installations, Camp Lockett was built for utility rather than for beauty.  Rare would be the architectural student who would come to marvel at its buildings.  But in the nation’s memory, Camp Lockett nevertheless deserves an important place.  It was one of those outposts where the time and talents of many black soldiers were squandered during much of World War II because white units, filled with the racial prejudice of the day, didn’t want to fight alongside them.  So instead of joining the nation’s combat troops in the war against the Germans or the Japanese, the black enlisted men of the 10th and 28th  Cavalry Regiments, under the watchful eyes of their white officers,  patrolled the quiet Mexican border and languished in San Diego County’s back country.

Such was not the fate of all black soldiers; other units such as the 92nd Infantry Division, though segregated, were sent in 1944 to Italy, where they fought the Germans in such locations as the Po Valley. Others such as the 761st Tank Battalion and 183rd Combat Engineers, were present in Germany and Austria at the time of, or just after, the liberation of such Nazi concentration camps as Dachau, Buchenwald and Gunskirchen (a sub-camp of Mauthausen).  As a Jew, aware of how my own people suffered during World War II, how they were segregated from other Europeans, dehumanized, and finally mass murdered, I can’t help but empathize with those black soldiers who wanted to prove themselves to be loyal and determined U.S. citizens and to rid the world of totalitarian, racist dictatorships.  Although the Jewish connection to this story may be tenuous, it is nevertheless one of strong emotion.

Along with my grandson, Shor, 14, and longtime family friend, John Everett Finley, a former Navy enlisted man who is the third-generation of his African-American family to have served in the U.S. military, I recently visited Camp Lockett, named for Spanish-American War veteran Col. James R. Lockett and known to many as the home of the “Buffalo Soldiers” – a somewhat controversial term. According to the most-told story about the name’s origin, during the American Indian wars of the late 19th century, Native Americans saw the dark skin and curly hair of Negro troops and likened them in that aspect to the buffalo of the plains.  Another version suggests that the American Indians admired the black troops, even as they admired the buffalo, as fierce fighters who didn’t go down, even after being wounded. Other versions say it was not the Indians, but white troops, who pinned the moniker on them.

Whatever the truth may have been, the “Buffalo Soldier” name stuck, and various all-black units came to identify with it proudly.  Today there are Buffalo Soldier reunions and reenactments.  Here in Campo, there are displays about the Buffalo Soldiers at the Gaskill Brothers Stone Store Museum operated by the Mountain Empire Historical Society.  A far more extensive museum is planned by organizers of the 100-acre Camp Lockett Event and Equestrian Center (CLEEF).  The organizers also anticipate setting up the kind of obstacle course for riders on which the mounted black troops of the 10th and 28th Cavalry Regiments trained.

From left, Cpl. Everett Shankle; Lt. Col Garfield William Finley Jr., and John Finley
From left, Cpl. Everett Shankle; Lt. Col. Garfield William Finley, Jr.; and John E. Finley  (Family photos)

John Finley’s great uncle, Sgt. Everett Shankle, was a Buffalo Soldier, one of those who served with the 92nd Infantry Division in Italy.  John’s father, Garfield William Finley Jr., so admired his Uncle Everett that he became a career soldier, rising in the Army to the rank of lieutenant colonel.  Lt. Col. Finley’s family cherishes stories of his childhood, when he would march around the house in Uncle Everett’s cavalry boots.  When John’s turn came to serve, he enlisted in the Navy, spending a good deal of his eight years of military service on ships and on bases as an electronics technician.  John said whereas his great-uncle Everett was segregated into an all-Negro unit; his father Garfield, serving in integrated units, suffered less discrimination than his Uncle Everett.  Once, while traveling through Texas in the early 1960s in his Army officer’s uniform, Garfield was denied service at a café, but that was the only incident that came to mind.  As for John, himself, he said that during his Navy service, “race was rarely an issue for me, but when it was, it was more a nuisance than a major problem.”

At the Gaskill Brothers Stone Store Museum, we learned that at the beginning of World War II, the all-white 11th Cavalry Regiment, as part of the Southern Land Defense Center, patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border against possible enemy invasion, and protected railroad bridges and tunnels as well as the Morena, Barnett and Otay reservoirs from potential sabotage.  Six months after the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the 11th transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, trading in their horses for motor vehicles.  The 10th was transferred meanwhile from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Camp Lockett.  With numerous non-commissioned officers from the 10th Cavalry chosen to serve as its cadre, the 28th Cavalry was created in late 1942.

In a video presented by the museum, Fred Jones, a retired master sergeant with the 28th Cavalry Regiment, said that unlike the troops of the 10th Regiment, which had a history extending back to the Indian Wars of the late 19th century, the men of the 28th Regiment had grown up in cities of the Midwest and for the most part were unfamiliar with horses.  Nevertheless, he said, they were happy to be in the cavalry, charmed by the romance of the Buffalo Soldiers’ history and their unique uniforms, “boots and spurs which made them look sort of glorious.”

He recalled that when the 10th and 28th drilled together: “We all rode in formation… the first time we rode around at raised pistol at sort of a trot…went around again at a trot with rifles.  The next time we rode around at a full gallop with pistols drawn.”  It was particularly difficult for cavalry members who had to carry machine guns or mortars on the backs of secondary horses.  “If the pack was loose, the horse would rear up, or kick,” he recalled.  The most terrifying exercise of all was the full cavalry charge, as there was always “that worry that something could happen…. Your horse could fall and the rest of them would have to ride over you.”  He remembered that even while galloping, riders were expected to maintain “4 feet from your horse’s nose to the hocks of the horse in front of you, and 6 inches from your boot to the boot of the man riding next to you.   Holding it was practically impossible.”

A total of 7,107 acres in the Campo area were purchased or leased by the U.S. Army for the housing and training of the two cavalry regiments.  Camp Lockett covered an area of approximately 15 square miles – measuring five miles from east to west, and three miles from north to south, where it adjoined the U.S.-Mexico border.  On the grounds of the former Camp Lockett is the southern terminus of the 2,663-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail, which hikers may follow from the Mexican border all the way to the Canadian border. Some of Camp Lockett’s hundreds of buildings are being re-used today, such as by the headquarters of the Mountain Empire School District.  Others buildings are abandoned, rat infested, and awaiting demolition or refurbishment.

Ferguson home will house museum at the Camp Lockett Event & Equestrian Center
Ferguson home will house museum at the Camp Lockett Event & Equestrian Center

A former member of the Mountain Empire School District board, Cliff Northcote, who today serves as president of the Camp Lockett Event and Equestrian Facility, told us that the planned museum will be located within the refurbished home of Frank Ferguson, one of the designers of the binational San Diego & Eastern Railroad which was built through Campo in the early 1900s.  During World War II, Camp Lockett’s commander was billeted in Ferguson’s old home.

Northcote said he would like to move one of the abandoned barracks buildings to a spot near the Ferguson House and re-create what a Buffalo Soldiers barracks would have looked like – everything from their beds to their personal belongings.  He said a similar facility is on display at Fort Stockton, Texas, where other contingents of Buffalo soldiers had been stationed.

Elsewhere at the Camp Lockett Event and Equestrian Facility, there are plans to install a refurbished barracks near the terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail to provide hikers with a place to rest before or after the arduous hikes.  Plans also call for demonstration areas where visitors could see leather working, saddle making and blacksmithing.

From left, Rafael Flores, Kathy Flores, Cliff Northcote, John Kasovia are volunteers and board members of the Camp Lockett Event & Equestrian Center
From left, Rafael Flores, Kathy Flores, Cliff Northcote, John Kasovia are volunteers and board members of the Camp Lockett Event & Equestrian Center

Kathy Flores, a CLEEF board member, said the equestrian obstacle course would closely parallel the training members of the 10th and 28th did to familiarize their horses with various conditions they might encounter, so that the horses would not become frightened.  For example on the new obstacle course, horse and rider will have to cross bodies of water and railroad tracks, go in and out of gated areas, and pass under low hanging trees.

The facility also will include RV and tent campsites.  The primitive sites won’t have water and electrical hookups at each spot, but will be equipped with two individual corrals for the horses, a picnic table and a fire ring.  Along another ridge of the facility will be more fully equipped pull-through spots suitable for an RV and a horse trailer.

Before the 10th and 28th shipped out to Algeria in 1944, where their units were broken up, the cavalry men fought a forest fire in the adjoining Cleveland National Forest, and also had some opportunities for on-base entertainment. According to a historical report compiled for the County of San Diego in July 2007, the USO brought both black and white entertainers to Camp Lockett.  These included, among others, Dinah Shore, Dale Evans, Betty Grable, Sammy Davis Jr., Ethel Waters, Hattie McDaniels, and heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis.  Of interest is the fact that Dinah Shore was a Jew, and Sammy Davis Jr. later in his life would convert to Judaism.

After the 10th and 28th were deactivated in Algeria, some of their members were reassigned to the 92nd Infantry Division.  It’s possible that some of them met John Finley’s great-uncle Everett!
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From eastbound Exit 51 turn right on Buckman Springs Road, go 10 miles to right turn on Highway 94, then 1.5 miles to left turn on Forest Gate Road.  The address of the Camp Lockett Event and Equestrian Center is 799 Forest Gate Road, Campo.

Next: Kitchen Creek Road

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com