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(soft music)
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- [Nicholas] Being black, having dark skin in America
75 years ago was linked to being enslaved.
The legacy of slavery was deemed a necessary evil
for the development of a continent and wealth of a nation.
Forever identified as being a characteristic
of the southern states, it was ubiquitous,
existing in northern states like New Jersey
and the New England region.
It eventually took a civil war
to decide the social direction
of the rapidly expanding nation.
A fictitious character, Jim Crow,
(playful piano music)
and popular song, "Jump, Jim Crow" was created in 1828
as a minstrel performance done in blackface
by white composer, Thomas Dartmouth Rice.
♪ Wheel about and turn about and do just so ♪
♪ Every time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow ♪
- [Nicholas] It lampooned blacks
as slow witted, lazy, and cowardly.
Becoming widely popular by 1838,
Jim Crow became a pejorative term for black Americans.
(intense drum music)
At the close of the civil war in 1865,
the Klu Klux Klan and others were formed
as a paramilitary terror group
with a platform of nativist white racial supremacy.
Their object was to control the social progress
of now freed black Americans,
and they often used violence to accomplish it.
Today, the term, Jim Crow, survives,
reflecting a time period in American history
where racial segregation was made law
by Southern legislatures and would be enforced.
The Klan, as it came to be called,
terrorized the black American communities, and in 1871,
in a response to widespread violence,
Congress passed the Klu Klux Klan Act,
which authorized President Grant
to use military force to suppress the KKK.
Still, problems remained at the close of the 19th century,
and the races remained divided,
and attempts to keep it that way
reached the highest court in the land.
The legal principle of separate but equal
became United States law in 1896,
with the US Supreme Court case, Plessy versus Ferguson.
This cemented disenfranchisement
and discrimination of blacks for the next 60 years.
It was an oppressive time in the South
for most black Americans, so those who could
decided to leave for more racially tolerant northern
and western cities and states.
From 1910 to 1960, over 4 million African Americans
migrated out of the South.
But the reception they received
often was less than welcoming.
In cities like New York and Chicago,
blacks lived in squalid, expensive tenements,
and faced continued social restrictions.
After World War One, in America,
a series of violent race riots ensued across the country
in a period known as the Red Summer.
In rapidly growing industrial towns like Chicago,
frustrations and tempers grew short
on a hot summer afternoon in late July, 1919.
The city experienced a brutal five day race riot.
38 people died and more than 500 were injured
because whites accused a black beach goer
of drifting over an implied boundary
on a segregated town beach.
The boy was stoned and eventually drowned.
The city erupted.
Fact was, communities like Chicago lacked a plan
that responded to the great migration
and the growth it supported
while others felt threatened and resorted to violence,
which usually went unprosecuted.
This was the society the men
of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion were born into,
many coming from families who remained in the South.
Those families found a way to survive there
as they managed the strict social codes
which limited their mobility,
and endured segregated services,
which were underfunded and not equal.
They lived in a world where their lives did not matter much,
and their vote was not equal to whites.
They were often intimidated
to exercise their rights as citizens,
which could include voting or taking legal action
or reporting a crime if it involved a white person.
In 1945, life in America and civil rights policy
resembled that of the turn of the 20th century.
Racial segregation had become so entrenched
that it would take more than political activism
or new national legislative measures to uproot.
It would take a world changing event.
(intense music)
- [News Anchor] Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,
a date which will live in infamy.
The United States of America was suddenly
and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
from the empire of Japan.
- [Nicholas] With the attack on Pearl Harbor,
America was now at war in a global conflict
that was tearing apart Europe and the Far East.
Western democracy was fighting for survival
under the crushing totalitarian ambitions of Nazi Germany
and Hitler's warped dreams of a new world order,
led by a master Aryan race.
These plans were familiar to many
of the men who lived in the South.
This new master race, which Hitler envisioned
as a racially pure hierarchy, saw Germans at the top
and Jews and dark skin people at the very bottom.
To achieve his goals, Hitler set out
on a policy of extermination and genocide,
with his intention to wipe out the Jewish people.
Dark skinned people would be next.
Black Americans who had suffered the burden
of racism and segregation at home
now had to face an even greater peril,
their annihilation from a fanatical leader
who planned to take over the world
and who wanted to eliminate their race.
- They hated our guts, inferior, call you monkeys, whatever,
you weren't as good as a monkey.
Most of them were blonde hair, blue eyes.
They were the pure, pure people, so-called,
but I've seen SS troopers shoot their own people down.
They didn't wanna fight, that's the way they were, fanatics.
- [Nicholas] Answering their nation's call,
(soft music)
black Americans enlisted in great numbers.
They saw World War II as blacks before them
had seen their wars as an opportunity
to prove themselves equal to fellow white Americans.
The equality and respect they have long sought
since the end of the Civil War,
they believed was almost within their grasp.
Many black soldiers would go on to distinguish themselves
in heroic acts of valor,
including the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion.
(bright music)
The story of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion
began here in the desolate southwest expanse
on the edge of the Great Plains, Camp Gruber, Oklahoma.
(intense music)
Both black and white soldiers
trained here in segregated units.
The 333rd drew a majority of men from the Jim Crow South,
who rarely traveled beyond their own town borders.
Among those men were James Aubrey Stewart of West Virginia,
Curtis Adams from South Carolina,
and Robert Green of Georgia.
They were among the men who would become known
as the Wereth 11.
(glass shattering)
These men were no strangers to prejudice,
segregation, or racial violence.
(soft piano music)
Thomas forte bore witness to one
of the bloodiest race riots of the era,
the Lee Street riots in January 1942.
Sparked by tensions between black
and white recruits from rival army bases,
the number of dead black soldiers
remains in dispute still today.
Against this backdrop, one month later,
(bright music)
the Double V Campaign was born via an announcement
in a black owned Pittsburgh newspaper.
The slogan was "Democracy, victory at home and abroad."
The campaign and slogan swept the nation
as many black recruits envisioned
a new era of racial equality at home
once they defeated the Nazis abroad.
- The catalysts for the Pittsburgh Courier's launch
of the Double V Campaign was a letter
from James G. Thompson from Wichita, Kansas,
a 26 year old African American man.
Thompson was aware of the Pittsburgh Courier's role,
and felt that this publication,
which may have had as many as a million readers,
was the one he should direct his letter to.
And as a matter of fact, then other newspapers
such as the Chicago Defender, the Baltimore Afro-American,
picked up on the Double V Campaign
and became an important ally in this effort.
One that FDR opposed by the way,
felt that if there wasn't sort of
unqualified acceptance of the war effort,
that it could be detrimental to the cause
and pressured the newspapers to change their tone,
change the subject and not to push this issue,
but they proceeded.
Some interesting things happening around the country.
During the war, there were the zoot Suit Riots in LA,
course, the zoot suit was this symbol of black
sort of opposition to sacrifice in terms of rationing,
so the zoot suit was seen as a symbol of excess,
and these navy guys, Marines and members of sailors
in California attacked Mexican Americans
who were wearing the zoot suit,
and then blacks joined in to support the Mexican Americans,
and of course, the zoot suit was very popular
with African Americans, and Malcolm X,
of course, in his autobiography,
talks about his experience with the zoot suit.
- [Nicholas] During this time,
(soft music)
Eleanor Roosevelt spoke out with support.
There can be no democracy in the United States
that does not include democracy for blacks.
Americans only want to talk about
the good features of American life,
and hide our problems like skeletons in the closet.
- There are a couple of things that really sort of highlight
why the black community so embraced Eleanor Roosevelt.
She brought sharecroppers to the white house,
she opposed segregated seating
at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare,
she supported the NAACP and its efforts to stop lynching,
there was a Wagner-Costigan anti-lynching bill
that she supported when Franklin did not,
and she often voiced opinions that he could not
because he was afraid of losing Southern democratic support.
- [Nicholas] The men of the 333rd
(upbeat drum drill music)
carried the dream of equality with them
into training and into battle.
They knew that they had to stand out, train harder,
fight tougher, and win their victory at home.
Still, they had to deal with rampant discrimination
that had become even more pointed in basic training.
- As a black soldier in the United States Army,
you weren't as good as a dog, especially in the South.
I was sitting on a barrack step reading a comic book
and a state side officer come by,
told me to cut the grass, I stood up, saluted him
and told him that as a noncommissioned officer,
I'm not required to do manual labor,
you can put me in charge of a detail,
but I'm not gonna cut that grass.
He hollered, "Jail that nigger!"
There I go, man, them damn peas dropped
out of the sky from somewhere.
(bright music)
- [Nicholas] One blustery afternoon in March 1943,
the 333rd thought they had their opportunity
with the arrival of the army's newest
and most complicated field gun,
the 155 millimeter Howitzer.
It was the US Army's answer to the German's 88 gun.
(dark drum drill music)
(crickets chirping)
- Man, Oklahoma's cold, sure ain't South Carolina.
How come we bunking out here in these tents?
- What?
You expect to be bunking with white boys?
- Yeah, why not?
- Listen, everything's separate out here, Adams,
sleep, eat, train, just like home, but it works.
- Well, at least I get to take
my frustrations out shooting them guns.
(chuckling)
- Adams, you ain't got the sense God gave a goose,
we ain't gonna be shooting no guns,
we'll be stacking shelves, cleaning out barrels.
The new guns, them new guns for the white boys to shoot.
- What?
- Let's let it serve for justice, you know?
It's the best we gon do.
It's all right, man.
It's all right.
(panting)
- [Nicholas] The commander of the 333rd,
Harmon Kelsey's orders were clear,
all soldiers would begin training
on the 155s, including black recruits.
It was a daunting task from the outset for the men.
First, they had to learn the 200 page field manual,
then train together in highly specialized
orchestrated roles to operate the gun.
Each 155 Howitzer required a six man gun crew.
(dark piano music)
- First time I saw Kelsey was in Camp Gruber, Oklahoma,
and he made his little speech,
and the only way you get out of this outfit
is die out of it, there's no transfers.
(upbeat drum drill music)
- [Nicholas] Serving under Kelsey
was a plainspoken Oklahoman, Captain William McCleod,
who established a bond with the men.
- There was a lot of grumbling about, you know,
guys wanting to kick his butt.
He called the company together,
says "Anybody that wants to fight me,
I'll take off my shirt, you take off yours
and we'll have a go at it, man to man.
If you beat me, I'll shake your hand,
if I beat you, I expect you to shake my hand
and it's off the record."
Nobody made another sound.
(intense music)
- [Nicholas] McCleod oversaw the men's long
and arduous training schedule,
from spring 1943 into early 1944,
bringing them together into a cohesive unit.
Mastering the 155 became a matter
of accomplishment and pride for the unit.
In early February 1944, with their training complete,
the 333rd embarked for England.
(bright orchestra music)
Looming just four months away
was a massive secret allied operation
to invade German occupied France.
D-Day would change the course of the war,
and the 333rd would be right on the front lines.
There are few adjectives which have not been applied
to the combined amphibious and airborne assault operation
which took place on the 6th of June, 1944.
Two and a half years in the planning, Operation Overlord,
the invasion of German occupied France,
would require men and might the likes of which
had never been seen on the face of the Earth.
The men of the 333rd knew what they had to do
and what was at stake.
- Once you hit them beaches and get out
of the cold water of the English Channel,
you're a different person,
it's kill or be killed, you know this.
- [Nicholas] Once the 333rd arrived in France,
they quickly gained a reputation for their deadly accuracy.
During the battle of Lis Depuis,
the 82nd airborne, struggling with a tiger tank,
called on the 333rd to take it out.
Battery C fired four rounds from four 155 howitzers.
Two of the shells were direct hits on the tank.
(explosions booming)
The distance from battery C's guns
to the tiger tank was nine miles.
As allied troops made their push
out of Normandy in July, 1944,
the 333rd was called upon time and time again
to soften up targets for the infantry advance
at places such as Saint-Malo and Brest,
and further east, outward from the continent peninsula.
(bright fanfare music)
(people cheering)
In late August, Paris was finally liberated,
and although not strategic,
its symbolic significance was not lost on anyone.
(soft music)
With the prize of Paris now in allied hands,
General Eisenhower had a standing bet
that the war would be over by Christmas.
The refrain and the war in '44 was on everyone's lips.
Just days after liberation,
Paris showed little trace of German occupation.
In these late summer days of 1944,
(soft piano music)
men of the 333rd began once again
to dream of their lives back home.
Curtis Adams of South Carolina had a newborn son, Jesse,
whom his wife had brought to meet his dad
while he was at Camp Gruber.
James Aubrey Stewart dreamt of spring baseball
with his beloved Piedmont Giants,
where he excelled as a pitcher.
- I am among a number of scholars
who believe that the military experience
is as central to the African American experience
and the black freedom struggle
as any other kind of experience.
Seven blacks receive the medal of honor in World War Two.
(soft music)
Only two blacks have received the medal of honor
as a result of their actions in World War One.
One of those was Henry Johnson, who received his in 2015.
First was Freddie Stowers of South Carolina
who received his in 1993,
and this is only as a result of pressure
that was brought to bear on the authorities,
but we believe those behind the valor medal taskforce
and review believe that there are many more
who are worthy of consideration
and are undertaking a systematic review
to try to right the historic wrong
that has been committed against African Americans.
(intense music)
- [Nicholas] The allied push into the continent was rapid,
and the US War Department
began shifting troops to the Pacific Theater.
No one suspected that within four short months,
the war in Europe would not only not be over,
but that the toughest fighting yet still lay ahead.
By mid December, 1944, the extreme Western front
in the Belgian Ardennes had grown eerily quiet.
(wind whistling)
Many allied commanders called it the ghost front.
Supply problems in the wake of Operation Market Garden
had left this weakly defended sector virtually on its own.
The 333rd comprised of batteries A,
B, C, and headquarters battery,
settled into the Belgian Ardennes ghost front in October.
They were fire support for the combat experienced
Second Division Artillery.
As October faded into a miserably cold and wet November,
McCleod receives word that the Second Division
was being replaced by the 106th Infantry.
(bright music)
They would arrive by December 11th.
The 106th Goldenlions had never seen combat.
They were as green and inexperienced as any troops could be.
The 106th would be responsible for holding
a 22 mile front line, three times the distance
normally assigned to a division.
But since this area was known as the quiet sector,
no one considered it a problem.
Hitler's ultra secret plan known as the Ardennes offensive
(dark intense music)
had been hatched during the summer.
His operation would employ half a million men
and over 2000 pieces of artillery,
spearheading the offensive were Hitler's hand chosen
and fanatical Waffen SS, which were ordered
to spread a new wave of terror,
unrestricted by human inhibitions.
Leading the effort was the Sixth Panzer Army,
commanded by one of Germany's most decorated soldiers,
World War One and Russian front veteran,
General Sepp Dietrich.
Hitler's former body guard, Dietrich was despised
by most of the higher officer class,
who thought he lacked intelligence,
but he had a hard won reputation for bravery,
and was known as a brutal division and core commander.
The Sixth Panzer Army would follow
a path cut by Colonel Joaquin Piper,
who was greatly admired by Hitler for his fanaticism.
He was a charismatic leader,
who inspired fierce loyalty in his men.
His orders were simple,
move as rapidly as possible to the Muse river,
and take no prisoners.
Squarely in the path of the German offensive
were the unsuspecting 333rd Field Artillery Battalion,
located now just six kilometers
from the German border at Schoenberg, Belgium.
(explosions booming)
(intense music)
Just after dawn, the morning of 16 December, 1944,
Adolf Hitler's Ardennes offensive
swung the full might of the German war machine
against British and American troops.
The Germans were throwing everything they had
at the lightly defended American front lines.
Five tube naval warfare batteries
blasted high explosive rockets across the border.
Soldiers called the terrorizing sound they made
screaming mimis.
(rockets screaming)
The most devastating weapon in the German arsenal however
was their 88 gun,
(gun booming)
with a range well over nine miles.
(explosion booming)
Americans trapped by falling 88 shells had almost no chance.
- [Soldier] Keep your head low!
(soldier screaming)
(explosion booming)
- [Nicholas] The 333rd had sprung into action
at the first sound of German artillery,
(intense music)
providing fire support for the frontline infantry.
- Counter battery, fire, cell, HE, charge five, fuse quick.
- [Officer] Base deflection, right two, minor five, XI302.
- Number two, warden, ground, elevation 371!
- Round ready, Sir.
- Fire!
(guns booming)
- Fire!
- [Nicholas] By 17 December,
they had been shelled for the better part of two days.
- [Soldier] Incoming!
(explosions booming)
- [Nicholas] Exhausted with their ammunition
nearly depleted, orders came through to evacuate the unit
with the exception of the forwardmost exposed battery C.
- [Soldier] Incoming!
- [Nicholas] Orders had been issued
for the battery to remain in place
in fire support for the 106th infantry.
Commander Kelsey arrived from headquarters,
evacuating most of the men into three trucks,
leaving Captain McLeod and a handful of men
to withstand the German onslaught.
- We fired till we ran out of ammunition.
(dark music)
Can't kill with just so many with trench knives.
And they had, I'd say the Germans had to walk
over piles of their dead to get to us.
That's a hard thing to do when a man's got a rifle out
coming at you and all you've got is a trench knife,
but I got a couple of them,
some of the other guys got a couple of them.
That was the least of my thoughts, being captured.
Killed, yes, captured, no.
I think the real reason why McCleod surrendered
was to save lives, because weren't nothing else he could do.
We could all die, you know, just fought with what we had,
hand to hand combat until every man was killed,
but he didn't want that,
he wanted to try to save as many lives as he could,
and that's what he did by surrender.
- [Nicholas] Captain McLeod and the men
who could walk were taken prisoner.
The wounded were not.
(gun banging)
- All of us that were left alive,
they moved us out on the road and started walking.
(bright trumpet music)
(speaking in German)
I saw them when they were taking the pictures,
and that was propaganda,
especially when they captured black troops.
They parade you off in these little towns,
and like I said, the diehard Germans have beaten you
and you couldn't do nothing about it,
you just keep walking and look straight ahead, that's all.
- [Nicholas] While the war was over for George Shomo,
Captain McLeod, and the rest of battery C,
Colonel Kelsey and his three trucks
raced back towards St. Vith,
but the Germans had already pushed past him.
(soldier shouting in foreign language)
His convoy was surrounded.
All were forced to surrender and march back towards Germany.
American P47s continue to pound the German columns,
including those with American prisoners of war.
One came upon Kelsey's men.
(intense drum music)
(soldier shouting in German)
(gun booming)
In the chaos and confusion of the American plane strafing,
several of the 333rd were able to escape.
They joined up with other members of the unit
and headed northward through the thick forest.
These men would become known as the Wereth 11.
(wind howling)
(guns firing in distance)
- I can't feel my feet no more, they're frozen.
- Maybe, maybe just take a break.
We ain't seen no Germans for a while now.
Up there, we can take a rest today, come on.
(sighing)
(soft music)
Don't need no bible to prayer,
once you got it memorized by heart.
- Yes, Serge.
- We could all do with a little bit of prayer right now.
- Sorry, Serge.
Just keep getting a real bad feeling about all of this,
afraid we ain't gonna make it.
- We made it this far.
Don't expect you to give up now, Curtis.
We ain't going through all of this,
little walk in the woods stop the 333rd, right?
Right? Right?
- Hey, man, our guys probably kicking
they butt back to Germany by now.
(chuckling)
(uplifting music)
- I hear that.
Hey, maybe we all lost except the 106.
(laughing)
- You see these neckties, shiny shoes,
can't fight a war like that.
- Well, I'm sure they seen their share of action too by now.
- [Nicholas] Heading in the Wereth 11's same direction,
(dark music)
unbeknownst to them, was a four man SS patrol
from Gustave Knittel's 1st SS Recon Battalion.
The men had to keep off the roads
(soft music)
inside the tree line to avoid being spotted.
They thought they were heading west,
but became turned around and were actually heading north.
After an ice cold trek of 10 kilometers,
they arrived exhausted at the small hamlet of Wereth.
The first house they encountered was a farmhouse,
owned by Mathias Langer and his family.
They decided to ask for shelter.
The exhausted men were offered bread and butter
and all the Langers could spare.
The welcoming warmth of the farmhouse family
delayed the men from moving on.
Mathias Langer was taking a great risk
inviting the Americans into his home.
This part of Belgium was still part of Germany
before World War One, and several families
in the village remained loyal to Germany.
Mathias also had more than seven children living at home
that he and his wife Maria had to care for.
Their three oldest boys had gone into hiding in Belgium
to avoid becoming conscripts in the German army.
What Matthias and Maria offered these cold
and tired American soldiers was invaluable.
It is easy to imagine that these treasured hours
the 11 men spent with the Langers
were perhaps the most enjoyable and comforting
the men had experienced in a very long time.
Still, Matthias knew they remained in great danger,
and he urged the reluctant men to keep moving.
(dark music)
Soon, however, it became too late.
Gustave Knittle's 1st SS patrol arrived at the Langer home.
They had been directed to it by a woman in town
whose husband was in the SS
and knew the Langers were sheltering the Americans.
(soldier shouting in foreign language)
All were taken by surprise,
and they saw it was a German patrol.
The 11 men had two carbines between them,
and outnumbered the four Germans.
(soldier shouting in foreign language)
The Americans, however, decided that best course
was to repay the kindness they had been shown,
surrender and protect the family which had sheltered them.
The men were forced to sit on the frozen ground
beside the Langer home, while the commander
of the patrol entered the farmhouse to eat.
The 11 men remained shivering,
sitting in the cold for over an hour
until the commander returned.
The 1st SS patrol then forced the 11
to march in front of the vehicle.
Tired and barely able to walk, some men fell behind.
William Pritchet was run down,
his leg buckling and breaking
beneath the weight of the patrol vehicle.
Those who could not continue were forced
to march at gunpoint into a field 750 meters to the north.
None could imagine the horror about to descend upon them
as the patrol carried out Hitler's orders.
(gun clicking)
(camera shutter clicking)
The men were tortured, then killed,
in the cruelest and most inhuman manner imaginable
in a grizzly war crime that still shocks the soul.
- These were guys out of my outfit.
They just mutilated them and murdered them,
and left them laying out there in the field.
(dark music)
When the spring thaw come, they found their bodies.
- [Nicholas] The war crime at Wereth
was not the only atrocity committed
by the German 1st SS Division that day.
Just four hours earlier,
20 miles to the northwest at Malmedy, 84 soldiers
from the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion
were mowed down in a field by German machine guns.
20 of the 84 bodies recovered showed
head wounds with burns and powder residue
consistent with a small caliber gun
fired at point blank range.
Although an investigation was launched
into the massacre at Wereth, it was closed administratively
due to inconclusive evidence on February 19, 1947,
by lead war crimes investigator, Colonel Burton Ellis.
The crime was swept under the rug of history,
and in the final 1949 congressional report
on war crimes committed by the 1st SS division
during the Battle of the Bulge,
all names of the victims, both civilian and military,
were listed along with the war crime locations.
Wereth was absent.
(soft music)
Due to the heavy American losses
suffered in the Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge,
the US army was hard pressed
for reinforcements early in 1945.
The outstanding performance
of African American combat units,
such as the Tuskegee airmen,
the 761st Tank Battalion under General George S. Patton,
and the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion
compelled the US army to call upon
African-American volunteers from service units.
These volunteers were to train as infantry soldiers
and to be integrated into white units.
The men were formed into 52 all black platoons,
comprised of about 50 men each.
Typically, four platoons made a company.
They were added, making a fifth platoon.
(upbeat fanfare music)
At the close of the war, like the men a generation earlier
who had returned from fighting World War One
expecting well earned respect after fighting for democracy,
these veterans quickly learned
they would have to fight again for victory at home.
Jim Crow America too survived the war.
In some respects, stronger than ever.
Black veterans who played an equal part
in America's victory abroad discovered
that their hopes of a second double V victory at home
seemed to have died with their brothers on the battlefield.
- Lynching was a very important element
in the Double V Campaign because it was the most blatant
and brutal and barbaric expression of the fascism
that existed in the United States
or the racial discrimination.
(soft music)
The Japanese were watching this very carefully,
long before World War Two.
As a matter of fact, blacks and the Japanese,
black Americans and Japanese had,
had actually been on the same page for some time,
and especially around the Paris Peace Conference of 1919,
and William Monroe Trotter actually presented
to the conference a 15th point,
and that was to end racial discrimination among nations.
And the Japanese actually put this proposal on the table
and it was rejected by the United States and other nations
as a result of the United States'
and Great Britain's, you know, disapproval of it.
- [Nicholas] America in 1945
(soft music)
remained rigidly mired in racial discrimination,
which had only become more entrenched.
- I came out of the army with nothing
but the clothes on my back.
That's what happened to black troops down there.
They hand me a train ticket,
my separation papers, that was it.
And I rode in a washroom
from Alabama to Washington DC.
And there was a whole empty car
in the back of where, you know,
where I was supposed to be sitting at,
they wouldn't let us go
and it was four of us rode in the restroom,
one of the guys was a lieutenant, but I,
I didn't mind 'cause they had the combat and everything,
hell that was paradise riding somewhere in the train,
I just made the best of it.
- [Man] The GI Bill of Rights
is not a reward or a handout for a gravy train,
but rather an American way to make it easier
for each man to take his place once again in the community
and get some of those things for which you went to war.
- [Nicholas] The GI bill legislation,
created to financially assist US veterans
in building their lives once back at home
was not distributed fairly to all former servicemen.
Black veterans discovered that its benefits
were designed with Jim Crow laws in mind,
and were blatantly discriminatory.
In the New York and Northern New Jersey suburbs,
67,000 mortgages were insured by the GI bill.
Fewer than 100 were granted to non-whites.
Many banks and mortgage agencies in the South
simply refused loans to blacks.
Culturally, America had not changed
after her sons and daughters died fighting for her freedom.
Even though the US lacked a comprehensive plan
to equally support its African American
veterans and civilians, in the mid 20th century,
change slowly came nonetheless.
In 1948, the same year the Wereth incident
was omitted from the official record of war crimes.
President Truman's executive order, 9981,
(soft piano music)
removed the policy barriers
of racial discrimination in the US armed forces.
- [President Truman] There is no justifiable reason
for discrimination because of ancestry
or religion, or race, or color.
- [Nicholas] This is one of the few,
if not the first instance where the military
led its own nation on a social policy
which took its government another 17 years to enact
in the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
a law which finally abolished racial discrimination
at all levels of public life.
The service and sacrifice of the Wereth 11,
Forte, Stewart, Adams, Moss, Davis,
Mootton, Turner, Green, Pritchet,
Bradley, and Leathewood, along with countless others.
The brutal murder of these lost
and until recently forgotten 11 soldiers
should not be forgotten,
but is not what should identify them.
To do so diminishes the ultimate impact of their sacrifice
and what they exhibited in life.
Their story is a human one,
underscored by the selfless humanitarian act
of one Belgian family and the sacrificial gratitude
of 11 war weary American soldiers,
seven of whom eternally rest
at Henri Chapelle American Cemetery.
This is a story that confirms our humanity,
sense of dignity, and shared values,
despite a world war's horrors,
summed up best by American general Dennis Via,
speaking at a memorial ceremony in Wereth.
These men were brothers, sons, and fathers.
They served because, like us,
they believed in the values we hold dear,
freedom, justice, liberty.
They believed in the greater good.
For this, we are thankful for their service.
(soft music)
In October, 2017, after 73 years,
the 11 were finally recognized
with unanimous passage of joint house
and Senate Resolution 99, which corrected
the 1949 Congressional War Crime Report omission,
and honored the dedicated service and ultimate sacrifice
of the soldiers from the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion
known as the Wereth 11.
(drum drill music)