The "Five Yanks" were a group of five American volunteers, Robert Cox, Charles G. "Chuck" Bolté, John F. "Jack" Brister, William "Bill" Durkee, and Heyward Cutting, who enlisted in the British Army in 1941, before the United States entered World War II. They were among the first five Americans to fight against Nazi Germany on the ground, serving as officers in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and participating in the North African campaign. The men were referred to as the "Five Yanks" by the British press at the time, and as the "Five Musketeers" by U.S. Ambassador John G. Winant, and were some of the very first Americans to fight against fascism even before their country joined the conflict.
Background During the early years of World War II—before the United States entered the conflict—a group of five young Americans volunteered to fight for Britain against Nazi Germany. Nicknamed the "Five Yanks" by the British press, these men were Robert Cox, Charles G. "Chuck" Bolté, John F. "Jack" Brister, William "Bill" Durkee, and Heyward Cutting. All five were Ivy League students (three from Dartmouth College and two from Harvard University) who were dismayed by the U.S. government's reluctance to confront fascism in Europe.
In May–June 1941, more than six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, they took the extraordinary step of enlisting in the British Army, effectively becoming the first American ground troops to fight the Nazi army in World War II. They received officers' training in England and were commissioned as second lieutenants in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. This unusual arrangement was made possible by British officials (including Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and KRRC Colonel Sir Hereward Wake) with the support of U.S. Ambassador John G. Winant, who saw propaganda value in Americans fighting "shoulder to shoulder" with British troops.
The five volunteers departed New York in July 1941 via Canada and arrived in Britain in August, where they were welcomed as harbingers of eventual American involvement. Despite U.S. Neutrality Acts that technically forbade serving under a foreign flag, these men risked their citizenship to stand against fascism on principle. Winant affectionately dubbed them his "five musketeers," and British citizens emerging from the Blitz expressed gratitude for their commitment.
Service in North Africa After months of training in England (at places like Winchester) and acclimation in Egypt, the Five Yanks were deployed as platoon leaders with the British Eighth Army in North Africa. They were assigned to motorized infantry units with the famed "Desert Rats" and attached to the 4th Light Armoured Brigade during the decisive Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. On the southern sector of the Alamein line, Lieutenants Jack Brister and Bill Durkee led their platoons into the initial assault, helping divert Axis fire in support of the main British offensive. Meanwhile, a short distance away, Lieutenants Chuck Bolté, Heyward Cutting, and Rob Cox took up roles further north with the 1st Armoured Division, all as part of the KRRC contingent integrated into British forces. The Second Battle of El Alamein proved to be a turning point of the war. The five Americans saw heavy action in this 12-day battle. Four of the five were wounded in the intense fighting against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. Only Lt. Brister emerged from El Alamein uninjured. Lt. Bolté was gravely wounded by an artillery shell, Lt. Cox was shot in the back, and Lts. Durkee and Cutting also sustained serious injuries from shell fragments and gunfire. Their presence was touted in Allied news reports—the spectacle of American volunteers in British uniform was used to boost morale, symbolizing the "Yanks" fighting alongside Brits even before the U.S. formally entered the war.
After Alamein, the five were separated by circumstance. Lieutenant Bolté's right leg had to be amputated near the hip due to his wounds, removing him from active combat. Lieutenants Durkee and Cutting also required long recoveries in military hospitals in Egypt. Only Brister and Cox were fit enough to remain on the front lines by early 1943, just as the final phase of the North African campaign was underway. Both Cox and Brister fought through battles like the Mareth Line offensive in Tunisia. However, neither would live to see the Allied victory in North Africa. Lt. Robert Cox was killed by a sniper on April 19, 1943, during operations near Djebel Zaghouan in Tunisia. Just eight days later, on April 27, 1943, Lt. Jack Brister was struck by a stray artillery shell and killed near Medjez-el-Bab. Brister"s death came only about two hours before official papers arrived approving his transfer to the U.S. Army, a move he had requested so he could rejoin his countrymen once American forces were in the field. Both Brister and Cox were buried in Commonwealth war cemeteries in Tunisia, and their sacrifice as Americans in British service was noted with honor by comrades and the press.
Members
Robert H. Cox (1919–1943) Robert Hill Cox was a recent Harvard graduate from New Jersey when he volunteered for the British Army in 1941. Born into a prominent American family (he was a descendant of founding father Roger Sherman and U.S. Secretary of State William M. Evarts), Cox grew up with a strong sense of patriotic duty. In college he supported U.S. intervention against Hitler, and his draft lottery number was near the top of the list in 1941. Unwilling to "sit mediocre" while war raged, Cox decided to act: "I love America, and I could not sit [by] while America was being attacked...America is a faith and...must be dynamic or perish," he wrote in a letter to his mother to be opened in the event of his death. In May 1941, during a visit to Dartmouth College, Cox helped persuade several friends to join him in volunteering for the British forces.
Cox and the others enlisted through the British embassy and were commissioned into the King's Royal Rifle Corps. After training in England, Lt. Cox was deployed to North Africa in mid-1942, where he commanded an infantry platoon in the 7th Armoured Division during the Second Battle of El Alamein. There he was shot in the back and wounded, one of several injuries that temporarily took him out of action. He recovered and rejoined his unit for the Tunisia campaign in early 1943. On April 19, 1943, Lt. Cox was leading his men in the hills near Djebel Zaghouan, Tunisia, when he was killed by an enemy sniper. He was 24 years old at his time of death. His name appears on Harvard's memorial honor roll for World War II. Cox received a military funeral service that also included part of a traditional British church service.
His brother Archibald Cox later served as Solicitor General of the United States. His niece, journalist Rachel S. Cox, later chronicled his story and those of his four compatriots in the book Into Dust and Fire.
Charles G. "Chuck" Bolté (c.1920–1994)
Charles Guy Bolté was a Dartmouth College senior from Connecticut and Rhodes Scholar who emerged as the de facto leader of the Five Yanks. While still an undergraduate in April 1941, Bolté won national attention by publishing an open letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt headlined "Now we have waited long enough," imploring the U.S. to join the fight against Hitler. This impassioned plea, printed on the front page of the Dartmouth student newspaper, was reprinted in papers across the country and even read into the Congressional Record by U.S. Senator William H. Smathers. Bolté's outspoken interventionism reflected his conviction that America could not stand aside. In mid-1941, upon learning through British contacts that Americans could enlist in the UK forces, he and two Dartmouth classmates (Brister and Durkee) volunteered alongside Harvard men Cox and Cutting. After commissioning, Lt. Bolté was posted to North Africa with the 7th Armoured Division. At the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942, he led a motor platoon into combat and was severely wounded during the fierce engagements. A shell blast mangled his right leg; after an agonizing month of treatment, doctors amputated the leg near the hip to save his life. Bolté was invalided back to the United States in June 1943, walking with an artificial leg. In July 1943 he married his college sweetheart and soon began devoting himself to advocacy for his fellow veterans. Bolté became a prominent voice in the American Veterans Committee (AVC), a progressive, racially integrated veterans' organization whose motto was "Citizens first, veterans second." As the AVC's national chairman and spokesman in the late 1940s, he campaigned for veterans' benefits, civil rights, and world peace, arguing that the ideals for which the war was fought should shape the post-war world. Bolté also worked in publishing (including as an editor at Viking Press) and later at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He authored several books; his first, The New Veteran (1945), was dedicated to "John Frederick Brister and Robert Hill Cox – brave men who died fighting and were their own memorial." Bolté lived a long life despite his wartime injuries. He remained a writer and public intellectual into the 1950s and 1960s, and even named one of his sons John Cox Bolté to honor his fallen comrades. Charles G. Bolté died in 1994.
John F. "Jack" Brister (1920–1943) John Frederick "Jack" Brister was a Dartmouth graduate (Class of 1941) from Ambler, Pennsylvania, known for his intellectual and creative talents. He was an honor graduate of Ambler High School. In college he was a writer of plays and stories and co-founder of a campus literary magazine, The Dartmouth Pictorial. In his senior year, he won a play contest and received praise from Robert E. Sherwood. Brister's graduation editorial in June 1941 captured his moral resolve: after initially penning a satire on war, he concluded that although he "conscientiously object[ed] to war" on principle, "America must fight Hitler... We're ready. Ready to fight. Ready to destroy. Ready, if necessary, to be destroyed." This nuanced conviction – opposing war's horror yet recognizing the necessity of combating fascism – typified Brister's outlook. Along with Bolté and Durkee, his Dartmouth classmates, Brister joined the British Army in mid-1941, completing officer training and shipping out to North Africa by mid-1942. Lieutenant Brister commanded an anti-tank infantry platoon in the KRRC attached to the 7th Armoured Division at El Alamein. In that massive battle, Brister distinguished himself as the sole American among the five not wounded in action. Fellow soldiers noted his "infectious grin" and quiet courage under fire, which earned the respect and affection of the British Tommies he led.