James Pratt was born and raised in Kalamazoo County. After serving four years with the USAF in the 60’s, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Kalamazoo College, a Master’s from Purdue, and a PhD from Michigan State, both in agricultural economics. He worked more that 30 years, 25 at Cornell University, with stints at Purdue and Virginia Tech, studying logistics, spatial economics, and manufacturing efficiency in the dairy industry and teaching statistics and mathematical programming to economists. He is retired and lives in Groton, New York with his wife Mildred, who is a professor of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.
 
During WWI, the 366th Infantry Regiment was an organic part of the 92nd (Buffalo) division, serving with distinction in France. In WWII, the 366th was organized as a separate regiment at Fort Devens, Massachusetts in February 1941, 10 months before Pearl Harbor. The 366th was a “colored” and “separate” infantry regiment, deceptively misleading terms. Several books and articles have been written about the 366th and they all bandy about numerous conflicting facts and statistics. Dr. Pratt’s father, Charles, served in the 366th in WWII. Charles died in 1989 and it wasn’t until 2010 that James began research into the unit.
 
Of the approximately 16.1 million Americans serving in the military in WWII, 1.2 million were Blacks. About 125,000 Blacks served overseas. Very few were trained and allowed to participate in combat, but the 366th Infantry Regiment, a tiny, ‘Colored’, ‘Separate’, speck of approximately 3,000, was a combat unit. It spent 3.5 months in combat at the Gothic line in Italy in late 1944 and early 1945. During this period, nearly all of its combat deaths (214 of 267) occurred. In this presentation, we will take short glimpses of eight individual 366th soldiers (five from Michigan).  The picture to the left is of Dr. Pratt and two men of Samichele di Bari, Italy who were young boys when the 366th Infantry was stationed in their village.