United we stood; segregated he served
Every World War II veteran has a story worth hearing. But Aurora resident William "Paul" Vaughn has a perspective on the war shared by very few.
From 1943 to 1945, Vaughn was a member of the U.S. Army's 379th Port Battalion, 5th Army Division, which was made up entirely of black soldiers, years before the Army dropped segregation in its ranks. Now 92, Vaughn says he has seen tremendous change, both in and out of his home city, but still vividly recalls the way he was treated in the Army while serving his country.
(Marianne Mather/Staff Photographer)
(Marianne Mather/Staff Photographer)
I owe this story to Richard Irvin.
Aurora's own alderman at large hooked me up with Paul Vaughn after asking why I've never done a feature on local black World War II veterans. The answer was simple: I didn't know any. So Richard put me in touch with two of them. (The other, Leonard Lewis, wasn't feeling up to an interview, and I hope he gets better soon. I'd still very much like to talk to him.)
I met Paul Vaughn at his cozy East Side home, and was warmly greeted by three generations of his family. Vaughn is easygoing, and a joy to talk to. Even when discussing some of the most difficult parts of this story, he was laid-back.
I tried hard to make this story reflective of its subject, but it was tough. Vaughn isn't bitter about any of the racial discrimination he saw while serving in the segregated Army, and everything he said was just matter-of-fact. That's how the world was then. It's gotten better, and Paul Vaughn has lived to see that change.
One of the first things Vaughn said when I met him was that there aren't a lot of World War II veterans like him left. He's right, and I think it's important to capture these stories now, while we can. But more than that, I just love meeting people like Paul Vaughn, and talking to them about what they saw and what they lived through.
Men like Vaughn are a national treasure. And treasure them we should.
-- Andre Salles, staff writer
Still, Vaughn, a genial and laid-back man, says the Army was good for him, and he tells these stories with a laugh now. He's a happy man. He lives in an East Side house with his third wife, Gladys, to whom he's been married for 16 years. ("I wore out the other two, and they passed on," he says.) He's constantly surrounded by family, including his seven children and 25 grandchildren.
Life wasn't always this easy, though. Vaughn was born in Kentucky, but his family had to move, and quickly, when his grandfather ran afoul of the Ku Klux Klan. He was being chased one evening, Vaughn said, and he stopped just long enough to warn the rest of his family. Once they left Kentucky, Vaughn never saw his grandfather again.
The family settled in Plainfield, then moved up to Aurora. Vaughn went to East Aurora High School, where he picked up the bass tuba, and played in the band. After graduating in 1940, he started working for the Burlington Northern Railroad, in a time when he couldn't get served in local bars after a long day's labor.
In 1942, Vaughn was drafted into the Army. He officially shipped out on July 10, headed for training in Louisiana, and when he stepped onto the train, he got his first taste of the segregated military. The men had to pull the window shades down on the train because "they didn't want people to see the black soldiers," he said. "I felt bad about that."
From Louisiana, Vaughn was sent to New Jersey for more training. And then in January of 1943, he was shipped overseas to the war in Europe — specifically, to Naples, Italy, and then to Marseille, France. Vaughn's job was to load and unload guns and tanks on docked ships, but he also found a more fun duty — playing his tuba in the Army band.
For him, military service was a way to see the world.
"I hadn't traveled like that before," he said. "I saw all kinds of people. I was glad for that."
Vaughn said he never had to shoot at anyone, and was never shot at himself. He did have friends who saw action, including one who was shot in the head. Vaughn still has the helmet with the bullet lodged in it. And one precarious day, his ship lost power in the middle of an ocean infested with German submarines. But within 24 hours, the engines were working, and all was well.
"That was lucky," he said. "Those German subs were just blowing ships out of the water."
Vaughn tells these stories with a bit of a seen-it-all shrug. But his voice rises a little when he starts talking about the way black soldiers were treated, and the rampant racism he encountered while in the Army.
For one thing, he said, his white commanding officers didn't trust the black soldiers with real bullets while on guard duty. Vaughn was made to stand guard over Army compounds and vehicles with guns loaded with rubber bullets.
"They were afraid of the black soldiers, that we would rebel," Vaughn said.
The women of Italy and France "didn't see color," Vaughn added, but his fellow soldiers did. He remembers one time he was headed to a show in Marseille with "a nice French lady," when about half a dozen white soldiers jumped them.
"I told her to run that way, and I ran this way," Vaughn said. "I ran to where the other black soldiers were. If I didn't, they'd have killed me."
Vaughn was in Marseille on May 8, 1945, when the German army surrendered. He was honorably discharged on Oct. 3 of that same year. "Everyone was glad to see me," he said of his return to Aurora. "I was really popular then."
The following September, Harry S. Truman convened his President's Council on Civil Rights. In October of 1947, that council returned with several recommendations, including integrating the military. And in July of 1948, Truman signed an executive order doing just that.
By October of 1954, when the last racially-segregated unit in the U.S. military had been abolished, Vaughn had long since left his military life behind. But he credits President Truman with bringing about important change.
"He was the one who said, 'No more of this,'" Vaughn said.
Vaughn has seen his city, which was "always a good place for blacks," embrace the same change over the years. He tells these stories as if that's what they are — stories. He betrays no sense of bitterness or anger. He says he enjoyed the service, and that by and large, people treated him wonderfully. He's had a good life, and he knows it.
Vaughn and Gladys have traveled the country in recent years, moving from New Mexico to Tennessee to Florida to many other places in between. They moved back to Aurora in 2007, where Vaughn has settled into his later life in comfort.
Vaughn will be 93 in January. He knows there aren't too many of his generation left, and even fewer World War II veterans still around to share the old stories. But as with most things, he's not worried. He believes people will still care about the history and won't let it fade away.
As for himself? He's got one simple wish for his future.
"I would like to live to be 100," he said, chuckling. "After that, the Lord can take me up there."
