333rd Field Artillery Battalion (United States)
The 333rd Field Artillery Battalion was a racially segregated United States Army unit of African-American troops during World War II. In World War II, they landed at Normandy in early July 1944 and saw continuous combat as corps artillery throughout the summer. Beginning in October 1944 it was located in Schoenberg, Belgium as part of the U.S. VIII Corps.
The unit was partially overrun by Germans during the onset of the Battle of the Bulge on 17 December 1944. While most of the 333rd FA Battalion withdrew west towards Bastogne, in advance of the German assault, Service and C Batteries remained behind to cover the advance of the 106th Infantry Division. The unit suffered heavy casualties, and eleven men of the 333rd were massacred near the Belgian hamlet of Wereth. After the war, the battalion was deactivated and reactivated during various Army reorganizations.
World War I and interwar period
The 333rd Field Artillery Regiment was formed on 5 August 1917 and assigned to the 161st Field Artillery Brigade, 86th Division. The regiment was sent to France but did not see action. In January and February 1919, the regiment returned to the United States and was demobilized at Camp Grant, Illinois. It was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 13 September 1929, assigned to the 86th Division, and allotted to the Sixth Corps Area. On 5 October 1929, it was relieved from assignment to the 86th Division and assigned to the XVI Corps. The entire regiment was initiated at Chicago, Illinois, in December 1930. The primary ROTC "feeder school" was the University of Chicago, and the regiment usually conducted summer training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. It was inactivated by relief of Reserve personnel on 2 October 1937.World War II
On 5 August 1942, the 333rd Field Artillery Regiment was activated as a colored unit at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma and assigned to the U.S. Third Army. As part of an Army-wide artillery reorganization involving the elimination of field artillery regiments, on 10 March 1943, the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery became same of the 333rd Field Artillery Group, the 1st Battalion became the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, and the 2nd Battalion became the 969th Field Artillery Battalion.. The group subsequently served in Normandy, Brittany, participated in the siege of Brest and battled across Northern France before arriving in the Ardennes sector as part of the corps artillery of the U.S. VIII Corps.Ardennes Offensive
The 333rd Field Artillery Group and the 969th were equipped with 155mm howitzers, and the 771st Field Artillery Battalion was equipped with 4.5-inch guns. They initially supported the 2nd Infantry Division and its replacement, the 106th Infantry Division. At the onset of the Battle of the Bulge they were behind the front lines. With the rapid advance of the Germans, the 333rd FA Battalion, except for C and Service Batteries, was ordered to withdraw west. C and Service Batteries stayed behind to give covering fire to the retreating 106th Division.As was typical of segregated units in World War II, white officers commanded black enlisted men. The unit arrived in the small village of Schoenberg, near St. Vith, Belgium, in October 1944. The Service battery was situated west of the Our River while howitzer Batteries A, B, and C were located on the east side of the river to support Army VII Corps. In the early morning hours of 16 December, German artillery began shelling the Schonberg area. By the afternoon, there were reports of rapid German infantry and armored progress. The 333rd FAB was ordered to displace further west but the 106th Division artillery commander requested that C Battery and Service Battery remain in position to support the 14th Cavalry Regiment and 106th Division.
By the morning of 17 December, the Germans had captured Schoenberg and controlled the bridge across the river that connected to St. Vith. The Service Battery tried to displace to St. Vith through the village and were hit by heavy German armored and small arms fire. Many were killed and those that remained were captured. As the men were being herded to the rear, the column was attacked by an American aircraft. During the ensuing confusion, eleven men escaped into the woods. They were by this time on the east side of the river and forced to sneak their way overland in a northwest direction, hoping they would reach American lines. At about 3 pm, they approached the first house in the nine-house hamlet of Wereth, Belgium, owned by Mathias Langer. A friend of the Langers was also present.
Wereth 11 Massacre
On 17 December, Battery C was flanked and overrun. Most of the men were killed or captured. Eleven soldiers became separated from the unit after it was overrun early on the second day of the battle. They tried to find the American lines but were unable to do so. When they reached the hamlet of Wereth, Belgium, farmer Mathias Langer offered them shelter. The area they were in had been part of Germany for hundreds of years, until it was annexed by Belgium after World War I, and three of the nine families in the village were known to be still loyal to Germany. The wife of a German soldier who lived in Wereth told members of the notorious 1st SS Division that black American soldiers were hiding in her village. The SS troops quickly moved to capture the Americans, who surrendered without resistance. The SS men then marched their prisoners to a nearby field, where they were beaten, tortured, and finally shot.The frozen bodies of the victims were discovered six weeks later, when the Allies re-captured the area. The SS troops had battered the black soldiers' faces, broken their legs with rifle butts, cut off fingers, stabbed some with bayonets, and had shot at least one soldier while he was bandaging a comrade's wounds.
The survivors of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion were ordered to Bastogne, where they were incorporated into the 969th Field Artillery Battalion. Both battalions had provided fire support for the 101st Airborne Division during the Siege of Bastogne, for which they received the Presidential Unit Citation, the Army's highest unit award.
Because it had been overrun, the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion suffered more casualties during the Battle of the Bulge than any other artillery unit in the VIII Corps. Six officers and 222 enlisted men had been either killed or become prisoners of war. The 333rd Field Artillery Group subsequently served in the Central Europe campaign to the end of the war, while the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion took part in the Rhineland Campaign.
Names
The troops killed were:| Rank | Name | From | Service number | Buried | Awards |
| Staff Sergeant | Jackson, Mississippi | 34046992 | Henri-Chapelle plot C, row 11, grave 55. | Purple Heart | |
| Technician Fourth Grade | Camden, Alabama | 34552760 | , Wilcox County, Alabama | Purple Heart | |
| Technician Fourth Grade | Piedmont, West Virginia | 35744547 | Henri-Chapelle, plot C, row 11, grave 2 | Purple Heart | |
| Corporal | Bolivar County, Mississippi | 34046336 | Fort Gibson National Cemetery, Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, plot 6, 0, 2698-E | Purple Heart | |
| Private First Class | Jefferson County, Alabama | 34553436 | Henri-Chapelle, plot D, row 10, grave 61 | Purple Heart | |
| Private First Class | Pontotoc, Mississippi | 34481753 | , Pontotoc County, Mississippi, Plot C Row 9 Grave 57 | Purple Heart | |
| Private First Class | Hopkins County, Texas | 38304695 | Henri-Chapelle, plot E, row 10, grave 29 | Purple Heart | |
| Private First Class | Emerson, Arkansas | 38383369 | Henri-Chapelle, plot F, row 5, grave 9 | Purple Heart | |
| Private | South Carolina | 34511454 | Henri-Chapelle, plot C, row 11, grave 41 | Purple Heart | |
| Technician Fifth Grade | Upson County, Georgia | 34552457 | , Highland Hills, Ohio, Section 3, Lot 3, Tier 24, Grave 22 | Purple Heart | |
| Private | Longview, Texas | 38040062 | Henri-Chapelle, plot F, row 10, grave 8 | Purple Heart |
Memorials
On 11 September 1994, Hermann Langer, son of farmer Mattias Langer who had attempted to help the soldiers, erected a small stone cross to remember the 11 murdered men. On 23 May 2004, a new memorial was built on the site of the executions and was dedicated to the 11 troops as well as all the African-American soldiers who had fought in the European theater. It is believed to be the only memorial specifically dedicated to African-American soldiers of World War II in Europe.In 2006, members of the Worcester, Massachusetts chapter of Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge dedicated what is probably the first memorial to the Wereth 11 on United States soil. It was dedicated at the Winchendon Veterans' Memorial Cemetery on 20 August. There is a memorial dedicated to the Wereth 11 in Miller Park in Bloomington, IL.