Forgotten 'Wereth 11': Du Quoin man, Brad Daffron, remembers
Black History Month is upon us again and I was wondering if any of you know the following names of these fallen: Pvt. Curtis Adams, Cpl. Mager Bradley, PFC George Davis, Staff Sergeant Thomas Forte, Technical Corporal Robert Green, PFC James Leatherwood, Pvt. Nathaniel Moss, PFC George Moten, Technical Sergeant William Edward Pritchett, Technical Sergeant James Aubrey Steward and PFC Due W. Turner.
Sadly, not too many of us do because these brave heroes of the 333rd FAB (Field Artillery Battalion) were brutally murdered after surrendering to Hitler's murderous Nazi SS troops during the Battle of the Bulge. These men were referred to as the "invisible soldiers."
These 11 men were part of the bigger 333rd which was a 155mm howitzer battalion unit backing up the much larger segregated 969th field artillery unit. These were three firing batteries (A, B & C) and at the request of the 106th Division Artillery Commander the 333rd was ordered to displace, leave "C" batter and set up a position to support the 14th Calvary and the 10th Division.
The service battery set up in St. Vith along the Our River on the morning of December 17, 1944. The German army was able to take control of the bridge and the men of the 333rd were under intense heavy fire that those not killed were forced to surrender.
The "Wereth 11" that came from different batteries decided that surrender was NOT an option. The men took off overland in a northwest direction hoping to hook back up with American lines. By 3 p.m. the 11 men who were armed with only two rifles, cold , hungry and exhausted from traversing through heavy snow finally approached the small nine-house hamlet of Wereth, Belgium.
This part of Belgium was not too "American friendly" and had not looked at Americans as "liberators" because the small town was part of Germany before the first war and the townspeople saw themselves as Germans not Belgians.
The men, however, were greeted by Mathias Langer, the owner of the small hamlet who DID NOT share in the Nazis' war machine and took the 11 men in, hid them and gave aid to them the best he could.
It is said the Nazi patrol entered the town around an hour later, roughly 4 p.m. and had been tipped off by a Nazi sympathizer. The 11 men knowing the Nazis would inflict serious reprisals on the Langer family thanked Mr. Langer and left his home, surrendering without resistance.
The 11 men were made to sit in the extreme cold until nightfall and were marched to the outskirts of two where they were systematically tortured and killed.
I love military history which I why I chose to write about the Wereth 11. These men gave the Nazis one hell of a fight and gave their lives in defense of this country, but because of the lines of segregation these men at the time were not even mentioned.
Herman Langer, son of Mathias, who sheltered and fed the men, was so infuriated with the American miliary over the treatment of blacks in the military that he erected a small shrine and cross at the spot where these men were murdered.
In 2001 Belgian citizens took on the task of erecting a fitting memorial to the Wereth 11 and in 2004 the memorials has become a tourism spot and sacred ground!
God bless these men and their families and that you so much for the sacrifices of the past, present day and to our future!
--Bradley Daffron, Du Quoin