Their names were Curtis Adams, Mager Bradley, George Davis, Jr., Thomas Forte, Robert Green, James Leatherwood, Nathaniel Moss, George Motten, William Pritchett, James Stewart, and Due Turner. They came from Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Texas, Arkansas. Thrown together by war, they were members of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, a segregated African American unit serving in Belgium during World War II. When the Germans began what came to be known as “the Battle of the Bulge” in December 1944, the 333rd stayed in place to support the withdrawal of the mostly white infantry regiments around them. These eleven men were captured by the Waffen-SS in a forest near the town of Wereth; they were tortured and murdered, and their bodies left unburied. Although the fact and nature of their sacrifice was well documented, it was never officially recognized by the U.S. government until 2017.[1]
