Battle of the Bulge, 70th Anniversary: The Wereth 11 On December 17, 1944, 11 African-American artillerymen were tortured, maimed and then killed by SS troops in Wereth, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge. In 2004, a memorial was dedicated at Wereth to the 11 and to all African-American soldiers who served in the European theater during World War II. The 11 were members of the “Negro” 333rd Field Artillery Battalion. In the heavily segregated WWII U.S. Army where most African-Americans were relegated to menial, non-combat service jobs, the 333rd was a rarity, having fought in combat all the way from the Normandy beaches. At the start of the battle, the battalion was supporting the U.S. 106th infantry division, which was quickly in danger of being overwhelmed. The battalion was ordered to retreat except for 2 of its batteries, which were ordered to stay behind to give covering fire to the surviving American infantry. On December 17th, the batteries were overrun and most of the men were killed, wounded or captured. 11 of the artillery men escaped to a nearby farm, where the farmer hid them until his pro-German neighbor betrayed them to fanatical German SS troops. The 11 men were taken by the SS troops to a nearby field where they were beaten, tortured, maimed and eventually shot. The SS left their mutilated bodies unburied, as a grim reminder to the Belgian civilians in the area. Mercifully, snow soon covered them, until the late January thaw. Their remains were not recovered until February, 1945, when advancing American troops were able to retake the area. Earlier on December 17th, other SS troopers from the same unit had participated in the Malmedy massacre, where 84 white American soldiers were shot after surrendering. It isnt clear why the SS troopers tortured the 11 African-Americans before shooting them, except that under twisted Nazi racial theory, “Negros”, along with Jews, Slavs and other non-Aryans, were “unter-menschen” (sub-humans). The Nazis found the idea of having to fight these “unter-menschen” particularly galling. In another sign of the U.S. Armys then segregation, the Army was extra-vigilant in tracking down the perpetrators of the Malmedy massacre but not in tracking down the perpetrators of the torture deaths of the Wereth 11. Post-war independent research was able to identify the particular SS company but got no further. Hermann Langer, the then 12 year-old son of the Belgian farmer, never forgot the sight of those brave Americans being led away. In 1994, he erected a small stone cross in the field where they were killed. Continued effort on the part of he and his family, as well as family members of the 11, resulted in a formal memorial being erected in 2004. There is annual ceremony at the memorial every April, in which a US Army color-guard participates. And what of those members of the 333rd ordered away before the final German assault on 12/17/44? They regrouped at the vital cross-roads of Bastogne. There, the units artillery support was crucial in the American defense. So crucial, that the unit was later awarded a “Presidential Unit Citation”. (As one historian has put it, “Everyone remembers the brave stand of the white American paratroopers at Bastogne. Few remember the black artillerymen who stood shoulder to shoulder with them.”)
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 10:56:30 +0000
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