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FORT LEE, Va. - Jefferson Wiggins was a Soldier in the war but
never saw direct combat. Like the majority of African-Americans who
donned uniforms during World War II, he was on the wrong side of a
segregated Army, one that generally relegated them to jobs as
laborers or restricted them to that which supported white troops
performing the most critical missions.
Despite their places
behind the scenes, Wiggins and his unit members literally found
themselves face-to-face with the horrors of war – not as a result of
wielding weapons of destruction – but clutching shovels and tossing
dirt at a Netherlands cemetery where they buried thousands of white
Americans who had died doing so.
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Jefferson Wiggins (first row, third from right) with fellow members of the 960th Quartermaster Service Company unit members during training prior to being deployed to Europe
in World War II. (Courtesy Photo)
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For Wiggins, a 19-year-old first sergeant with the 960th
Quartermaster Service Company, it was a troubling mission,
one that grew in difficulty and complexity and required a
burial in its own right – only to be uncovered 65 years
later as a way to honor the men responsible for it, said his
wife, Janice Wiggins, via a phone interview.
“Over
time, he realized it was important for him to tell the
story, because at that time he was the only African-American
Soldier of his unit who could be found still living,” she
said of her husband's 2009 revelation. “He knew if he could
not tell the story from the perspective of the black
Soldier, no one else was alive to do it. He felt it was his
responsibility to talk about it.”
Dr. Jefferson
Wiggins is not here today. He died four years after
liberating himself of haunting memories surrounding his
unit's mission to fill the initial burial plots in 1944 at
the Netherlands American Cemetery located in the village of
Margraten.
Details of Wiggins' life and the mission
of the 960th QSC at Margraten can be found in the book,
“Return to Margraten” and in the documentary, “The Fields of
Margraten,” which marked 65 years of liberation in the
Netherlands after the Nazi occupation there.
Wiggins
was one of the more than 900,000 black men and women who
served their country during the war but were mostly assigned
to segregated units subjected to substandard training, poor
living conditions and menial work.
As a member of
the segregated 960th, Wiggins didn't have the benefit of
mortuary affairs training like those who currently undergo
such instruction at the Quartermaster School here. They were
supplied with the hardware and simple instructions that
included gravesite dimensions and requirements to dig three
gravesites per day, per man. The unit's mission was
performed under the leadership of a white graves
registration element, forerunner of today's mortuary affairs
unit, according to "Return," the book Wiggins co-authored
with his wife.
Wiggins' journey to Margraten started
with his upbringing in rural Alabama as a member of a poor
sharecropper family. He was a child of the Jim Crow South,
his family the victim of Ku Klux Klan terrorism campaigns,
according to the book. He joined the Army sometime in the
early 1940s, attracted by its promises of a better life than
the one he left.
The Army Wiggins joined was one
divided by race, but in the minds of many black Soldiers at
the time, this was a mere extension of American society,
albeit a more favorable one in some respects. The issue
became more problematic when Wiggins' unit undertook the
mission at Margraten. Beginning in the fall of 1944, he and
his unit members relentlessly stabbed the frozen earth with
their shovels and picks to make graves for an estimated
20,000 U.S. service members – some likely mangled beyond
recognition, others likely attired in their blood-soaked
uniforms and still others frozen with expressions of shock
or fear – without the decencies of caskets and ceremony,
according to Wiggins in "Return." He described the mission
as grim and emotionally wrenching.
“There were some
Soldiers who actually cried when they were digging the
graves, particularly when they started to lower the mattress
covers (used as body bags) into the ground,” he recalled in
the book. “They were just completely traumatized.”
The mission of burying those who wore the same uniforms –
but who did not look like him and who were not treated like
him – was troublesome if not burdensome in light of the
difficult task at hand, said the former Soldier in the book.
“And here we all were – this group of black
Americans having to deal with these bodies of white
Americans,” he said. “The situation brought vivid thoughts
to my mind. The stark reality was we had to bury those
Soldiers although we couldn't sit in the same room with them
when they were alive. ‘Something is wrong here,' I thought.”
Despite bouts of uncertainty, the painful sense of
hopelessness the Soldiers initially felt because of their
assigned mission and the sheer amount of bodies that
required burial, most unit members were able to find the
dignity and reverence in laying to rest those who died for
the cause, no matter who they were, said Wiggins.
“We
had been commanded to give respect to those we could not
even associate with in life,” he said during a 2009 speech
in the Netherlands. “But on that first day, we realized that
whatever life experiences we'd had as African-Americans,
this was our obligation – to set aside our prejudices, our
colors, and our fears, and give to these young Americans the
honor, the respect, and the dignity they so well deserved.”
Wiggins and his Soldiers completed the mission, but it
didn't mean they were at peace with it. Wiggins later
questioned his status as a U.S. citizen and as a black
Soldier, especially one commanded to fight for someone
else's freedom when he had no sense of freedom himself. He
could not, however, bring himself to contemplate the images
of dead Soldiers at Margraten. It was subject he never
discussed, said Janice.
“Jeff didn't talk about his
experiences voluntarily,” she said, noting he, like many
WWII Soldiers, may have had some form of post-traumatic
stress disorder. “We were married for more than 40 years at
the time (of his revelation), and although he spoke freely
about his military service – being in Europe during World
War II – I never knew anything about Margraten.”
After the war, Wiggins returned to Alabama only to see –
despite having served his country in Europe – the stark
reminders of Jim Crow's throbbing heartbeat and simple
American injustice: The sight of German prisoners of war
riding in the front of municipal buses while black children
rode in the back, according to the book.
Despite what
he came back to, Wiggins pushed himself onto a lifelong path
of learning and human relations, earning several academic
degrees, including a Ph.D., and becoming a teacher,
community leader, writer and mentor in the Northeast. He
settled in New Fairfield, Connecticut, in the mid-1990s and,
along with his wife, captured many accolades as a community
advocate. He also was a popular and sought-after speaker.
Considering all of his achievements, his kind
disposition and his reputation as a bridge-builder, there
was very little to suggest her husband harbored a secret,
said Janice. In fact, if not for the efforts of enterprising
Dutch writer Mieke Kirkels, the story of the 960th may have
been forgotten, lost in the annals of the thousands of
people, places and events that make up the history of WWII.
Kirkels had done much research on Margraten and called
Wiggins in 2009, presenting him with an opportunity to tell
his story as part of a larger history project, said Janice.
Wiggins' acceptance of Kirkels proposal meant he would
have to recall the trauma he actively sought to repress for
the past 65 years. He would have to confront his ghosts, so
to speak, and come to grips with a grim history, not as a
young Soldier, but as an octogenarian. He eventually warmed
to the idea.
“Within a year after Mieke first called,
we went to the Netherlands in September 2009,” said Janice.
“He had been invited by Mieke to speak at the 65th
anniversary of the liberation of the southern part of the
Netherlands.”
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September 13, 2009 - Netherlands American Cemetery Superintendent Mike Yasenchak presents the American flag to veteran Jefferson Wiggins for his role in helping to bury thousands of American service members there during World War II. The flag had been flown over the cemetery in his honor. (Courtesy Photo)
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The visit to the Netherlands was somewhat of an awakening
for them both, said Janice, her trembling voice recalling
the warmth and gratitude expressed by the Dutch for what the
Americans did for their country.
Wiggins, in
particular, felt some measure of relief and pride to honor
his fellow Soldiers to a greater degree than how they felt
following their departure at argraten,
but he had done so at a cost.
“We had an amazing trip
there, but when we came back to the states, his personality
changed,” said Janice. “You could see he was still carrying
a burden of memories that couldn't be buried again.”
That burden, said Janice, resulted in him being “less
lighthearted and more sober” and more focused on sharing his
story – to the detriment of his personal quality of life.
“He felt he had an obligation to tell the story and
people were interested,” said Janice, “but after about a
year, I said to him that he really needed to try to put it
aside because – not that it was easy – we had to move
forward because in a way he was giving up every day of his
current life reliving what had happened at Margraten.”
Dr. Jefferson Wiggins died Jan. 9, 2013.
Janice
Wiggins said her husband, like many who serve in war, made
sacrifices for his country, and later in life committed to
telling the story of the men of the 960th Quartermaster
Service Company, who were not provided the opportunities for
recognition like white units or whose achievements did not
break barriers like the Tuskegee Airmen, but who nonetheless
answered the call of duty the best they knew how.
Jefferson Wiggins wanted to give them a voice and a place in
history, said his wife.
“I know he would have had a
great sense of satisfaction knowing that the untold stories
of those who came from humble beginnings like his own are
finally being given the honor and recognition they earned
... no more but certainly no less than the recognition that
was earned by the white soldiers with whom they served,”
said Janice. “He would have been pleased that interest in
his own story provided a vehicle for telling the stories of
so many others who performed their duty and, in doing so,
made a statement about their right to claim this country as
their own.”
By U.S. Army Terrance Bell
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2015
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