NY Daily News . . . "The dead were assigned to the 333rd Field Army Battalion, members of a unit lauded for its deadly aim in battle. Yet theirs was a sacrifice long ignored by their country.
"In 1949, a U.S. Senate subcommittee released an official report exhaustively detailing 12 similar massacres. Every last casualty was listed — but the Wereth 11, as they came to be known, didn’t warrant mention.
"A new book, “The Lost Eleven: The Forgotten Story of Black American Soldiers Brutally Massacred in World War II,” recounts their little-known story. Authors Denise George and Robert Child drew on extensive interviews with family members and fellow G.I.s for this account.
"The soldiers of the segregated 333rd FAB were among the first blacks to be trained for actual combat, rather than shunted into service positions. Under the command of VIII Corps, they landed on Utah Beach on June 19, 1944.
"Within the 333rd, the unit known as Charley Battery distinguished themselves from the get-go. A reporter from Yank magazine watched stunned as the unit, firing four rounds in 90 seconds, drilled an explosive into the turret of a German tank nine miles away." . . .
"A tribute to eleven WW II G.I.s of the 333d U.S. Field Artillery Battalion and to all African-American soldiers who served during World War II."
Several videos in this site including this moving roll call of the eleven. Let us try to forget today's racial outrages and recall the death of men like these while we resolve never to allow anything such as Jim Crow laws to ever again be a stain on this great nation. The Tunnel Dweller
1 comment:
I was a junior in high school ('64) when the story of two (?) black soldiers who had served in Vietnam were refused service at a lunch counter. I became a supporter of the civil rights movement at that point. They were fighting for our freedom, we needed to support their right to enjoy the fruits of freedom.
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