The Casper Air Army base played an outsized role in the city during World War II, but did you know it also was a significant part of its Black history? A recently unearthed newspaper column chronicled the Black GIs stationed there, and its discovery shocked the son of its author, who had no idea of his father’s history there. Robin Washington of our sister network Wisconsin Public Radio tells the story:
A wartime literary history unearthed — spelled with a Double V
Historical events need not be limited to any one categorization, and stories labeled as Black history may also fall under the heading of American history.
For Wisconsin Public Radio’s Robin Washington, add family history to the mix. Just before Black History Month, a National Park Service educator messaged him that she had discovered a significant part of his father’s military service on the home front in World War II — a story Robin knew nothing about.
“Your father wrote many articles for the Casper Army Air Base — the Slip Stream newspaper,” NPS educational contractor Sarah Nestor Lane wrote to Robin in January. “I am really excited to share that we will be including his writings about the (all-Black) 377th as part of the student readings to celebrate Casper, Wyoming’s Heritage City designation.”
Robin knew that his father, Atlee D. Washington, who died in 1983, had been stationed in Alabama as an officer of Black air cadets now famous as the Tuskegee Airmen. But he never knew about the newspaper column his father wrote before that, at the Casper base. He spoke on “Morning Edition” about the column and its historical significance.
Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Robin Washington: What was his column about and how did you find it?
Sarah Nestor Lane: I was reading through the Casper Army Air Base newspaper, which was called the Slip Stream. I noticed a column called “Under the Double V” [on Page 8 of the linked issue]. It was a really amazing find because I hadn’t seen anything like this before, where a Black squadron had the opportunity to write in a base newspaper on a recurring basis. And I noticed it was created and written by an Atlee D. Washington. Did you know that he wrote in the base newspaper?
RW: Absolutely not! I did know he wrote poetry both before and after the war and some of it was published, but no one in the family knew anything about his newspaper writing.
SL: The base newspaper was also included in the daily Casper Tribune-Herald. It’s documented that the 377th faced low morale. A lot of these men wanted to be out on the front lines overseas but were relegated to maintenance operations at home. Some of the base’s leaders, who were white, must have thought to let the squadron have a column in the newspaper. That was unusual for a Black unit.
RW: I can see Atlee’s style of writing was part of the morale building. (Everyone called him Atlee, by the way, even my brother and me growing up.) You highlight a story about a forest fire that the squadron was dispatched to put out.
SL: The 377th was sent to combat a forest fire in the Bighorn Mountains. Atlee describes the mission in detail, and at the end shares an officer saying, “No one could wish for better soldiers under fire.” That’s a double-entendre because yes, they’re firefighting, but also, they thought they would have been under fire in the war zone, not in Bighorn National Forest.
RW: There’s another column from December 8, 1943, in which he writes: “Private William Webb offers the information that his application to join the paratroopers was turned down because of one physical defect which the doctors cannot cure: a certain skin ‘ailment.’” In other words, color.
SL: What a push to the boundaries! Whenever I read his writing like that, I say to myself, “Wow, he got away with that?” And after reading so many of his columns, he became a friend to me in his writings. I could see his humor and also his seriousness and the responsibility he had, not only sharing the news and boosting morale for the unit, but also pushing on the boundaries of what was allowed to be said in this newspaper, especially about the segregation and discrimination that the unit was facing.
RW: One of the things that first caught your eye was the column’s title, “Under the Double V,” which referred to a campaign by Black newspapers calling for victory abroad over the Axis and victory at home over Jim Crow. Historian Matthew Delmont of Dartmouth University called the title surprising, saying “a lot of the white military leaders were really concerned about the idea of ‘double victory’ because they thought it meant that Black Americans were being only conditionally loyal to the country.” He said it was extraordinary for the campaign to appear in a base newspaper. But this isn’t just Black history — it’s American history, correct?
SL: I completely agree. People often think of the Civil Rights Movement as the 1950s and 60s, but we forget about some of these pioneers that helped pave the way for that. I think about one of the pieces Atlee wrote: “We overcome the enemy not only in combat, but within ourselves as well. Relinquishing prejudices, reactionary tendencies and selfishness. To the degree that we work not so much for four freedoms, but for one freedom, full and complete for all men, even to that degree, do we come into our heritage.” What a powerful message that was, for that time and into the future.
The "Under The Double V" column of Aug. 18, 1943, reports on the role of the all-Black 377th Squadron in extinguishing a forest fire in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. Written by Pfc. Atlee D. Washington (later corporal), the column ran more than a year in the Casper, Wyoming Army Air Base newspaper Slip Stream, which also ran as a supplement in the Casper Tribune-Herald. Scholars call it highly unusual for a column to have been written by a Black serviceman covering Black troops in a World War II-era military newspaper.
