As was typical of segregated units in World War II, white officers commanded black enlisted men. On 5 August 1942, the 333rd Field Artillery Regiment was activated as a colored (segregated) unit at
Camp Gruber,
Oklahoma, and assigned to the
U.S. Third Army. As part of an Army-wide reorganization that eliminated regiments in all arms except the infantry in favor of the more flexible "group" concept, on 10 March 1943, the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery (HHB) of the 333rd was redesigned the HHB 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 333rd Field Artillery Battalion landed at
Normandy in early July 1944. The unit was sent to
Brittany, where it participated in the
siege of Brest in August and September, then 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 unit arrived in the small village of Schönberg, near
St. Vith,
Belgium, in October. The Service Battery was situated west of the Our River while Batteries A, B, and C were located on the east side of the river to support the
VII Corps. By the morning of 17 December, the Germans had captured Schönberg and controlled the bridge across the river that connected to St. Vith. Service Battery tried to displace to St. Vith through the village, and was hit by heavy German armored vehicle and small arms fire. Many men 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. By the end of the day, the battalion had only five howitzers left, the rest having been abandoned in the retreat. 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.
Wereth 11 massacre During the ensuing confusion, 11 men escaped into the woods. They were by this time on the east side of the river, and had to sneak their way overland in a northwesterly direction, hoping they would reach American lines. At about 3:00 p.m., 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. 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 Panzer Division deployed in the area 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.
Names The troops killed were:
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 the first memorial to the Wereth 11 on United States soil. It was dedicated at the Winchendon Veterans' Memorial Cemetery on 20 August. In 2016, a memorial was erected in Miller Park,
Bloomington, Illinois. Each soldier is named.
End of the war 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, including the battalion commander, and 222 enlisted men had been either killed or become prisoners of war. Nine howitzers, thirty-four trucks, and twelve weapons carriers were lost. The 286 men that remained in the battalion were mostly reassigned to the 578th and 969th Field Artillery Battalions. The battalion was originally scheduled to be disbanded because of the heavy losses it had suffered and the difficulty in obtaining replacements, but in the interim, the few men remaining in the skeletonized battalion performed guard and labor duties. Sufficient replacements did not arrive to reconstitute the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion until April 1945. The 333rd Field Artillery Group served in the
Rhineland and
Central Europe campaign to the end of the war. == After World War II ==