Private Major Banks, a young black soldier in the 97th Engineering regiment reported for sick call on May 20, 1942. The medics sent him to the little hospital in Valdez, Alaska.
Banks grew up in New Canton, Virginia. He didn’t enter the Army until January 1942, so he came late to the 97th, part of its hurried March expansion from Battalion to Regiment at Eglin Field. The Army routinely vaccinated soldiers against Yellow Fever, had vaccinated the men of the 97th Battalion long since. They vaccinated Banks and the newer soldiers at Eglin Field in late February and early March.
Problem. The Army didn’t know it, but during March 1942, vaccinating soldiers and shipping them overseas at a frantic pace, they vaccinated several thousand of them with contaminated serum. Two months later, in May, soldiers all around the world came down with serum hepatitis.
In May the Army sent Private Banks back to the hospital in Valdez—doctors diagnosed Banks with jaundice, progressive, acute atrophy of liver. In truth, Banks had serum hepatitis.
On June 30 Captain Walter Parsons wrote to his wife Abbie, “One of the colored boys died early this morning and things are in quite a stir about this little camp.” Private Banks had lingered for several weeks, getting progressively weaker, until the last day of June.
Parsons determined that Pvt. Banks deserved the honor of a military funeral and set out to get him one. The citizens of Valdez objected; didn’t want a black man buried in their cemetery. Parsons would have none of that. In the end they designated a piece of ground just across the creek from the cemetery as a ‘negro’ section.
Parsons arranged for “a truck load of boys [to come] down to bury the chap… We fixed him all up in a casket we got off of a boat… Had a firing squad, bugler, military escort and everything plus about ten officers and twenty-five or thirty white soldiers from a nearby camp.”
Hi, Mr. and Mrs. McClure! As the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions for the Valdez Museum, I’m fascinated by the story of Private Major Banks, and in particular the history of a “negro” section of the Valdez cemetery. Would you mind sharing your sources for this article? I’ve attempted to do follow-up research, but it’s proved frustrating — there was no newspaper in Valdez in the early 40s to check, and the City Council minute books of the time have no mention of the agreement. I would love to know more. Also, if you have any photographs or documents related to the 97th Regiment, would you consider donating them (or copies of them) to the Valdez Museum archives? You can reply to this at agoldstein@valdezmuseum.org. Thanks very much — I love your site! Regards, Andrew Goldstein, Curator, Valdez Museum & Historical Archive.