World War II Service
He volunteered for the US Army during World War II, trained in Alabama and Florida, and served in the 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion, a segregated unit. As a black soldier, he experienced the oppression and humiliation of being a second class citizen in his own Army. His unit was involved in the Battle of the Bulge.
In April 1945, 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion was designated to be attached to the 1126th Engineer Combat Group. On April 11, 1945, Bass, then a Sergeant, and another member of the 183rd, Sgt. William A. Scott III, arrived at the headquarters of the 1126th in a forward liaison capacity. The next day, they convoyed with members of the 1126th to the town of Eisenach, approximately 100 kilometers from the Buchenwald camp, which had been discovered by allied troops the previous day. After arriving at Eisenach, Bass and others were detailed to Buchenwald to assist in relief, and were among the first American soldiers to be seen by survivors of the camp. Bass later referred to the people he saw that day as "the walking dead".
Read more about this topic: Leon Bass
Famous quotes containing the words world, war and/or service:
“Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discern only law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav’n, and by success untaught,
His proud imaginations”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)