The men of Montford Point received a rigorous boot camp experience and extensive training afterward, despite training under an all white officer corps. After late 1943, however, black noncommissioned officers had replaced the original white drill instructors. Determined to see the black recruits succeed, they pushed them harder than had their white predecessors. Roger Smith, an African American photographer working for the Office of War Information, photographed members of the 51st Defense Battalion, the first combat unit formed at Montford Point, in training in March, 1943. His images, from the Library of Congress, provide the best visual record of the training the men of Montford Point received. Unless otherwise noted in the credit line, the photographs in this portion of the exhibit are his.