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XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

19 Dec, 10 tweets, 4 min read

THE WERETH 11: A THREAD IN 10 TWEETS

A tragically under-examined tragedy of the Battle of the Bulge is that of the all-black 333rd Field Artillery Battalion.

2 of 10: In 1943, the men of the 333rd formed on Camp Gruber, Oklahoma to the European theater. During their training, the men faced segregation on and off-post. These American Soldiers were forced to sit in the back of the troop buses & were denied access the post movie theater

3 of 10: The 333rd entered the war in 1944 and landed in Normandy shortly after D Day.

4 of 10: The battalion began fighting in the St. Vith area of Belgium in April of 1944. The unit’s main gun was the standard M114 155mm howitzer (towed). The 333rd had an impressive record, once firing 1500 rounds in 24 hours and later capturing a village in France.

5 of 10: The men fought like lions. In May, the 333rd claimed a French village from German hands, capturing dozens of German prisoners.

6 of 10: During the initial ferocious German Panzer push into Saint Vith during the Ardennes Counteroffensive, the battalion was overrun. 11 men, separated from the unit, scattered into the village of Wereth. A local Belgian family took them in and offered them protection.

7 of 10: Ultimately, SS storm troopers found these 11 black troops. They were held out in freezing weather and questioned. They were then brutally tortured and killed.

8 of 10: For decades, this atrocity was largely overlooked, overshadowed by the Malmedy massacre of white Soldiers. Discriminated against in their own country, the Wereth 11 fought in Europe to save the free world from tyranny. They died without equal rights.

9 of 10: Today let's remember Curtis Adams, Mager Bradley, George Davis Jr., Thomas Forte, Robert Green, James Leatherwood, Nathaniel Moss, George Motten, William Pritchett, James Stewart, and Due Turner.

FINAL TWEET: After the war, the 333rd was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its courage in the Battle of the Bulge. At the time President Truman signed that citation, the U.S. military remained segregated.

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XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

@18airbornecorps

21 Dec

1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.

2 of 16:

Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.

3 of 16:

The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.

Read 16 tweets

XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

@18airbornecorps

20 Dec

1 of 19:

Hey there! It's us! Thanks for following our Battle of the Bulge series!

Got time for a quick thread on Allied intelligence and German deception? Just give us 19 tweets.

Let's go

2 of 19:

Many of you have pointed out how critical we’ve been of the Allied generals in our Battle of the Bulge series thus far. We’ve mentioned the remarkable failure of Allied intelligence that led to the smashing initial success of the Ardennes Counteroffensive.

3 of 19:

We should mention, however, as some of you have in our DMs, the totality of circumstances weighing on the matter led Eisenhower and Bradly to believe the German forces had nothing left in terms of a counterpunch in the Ardennes.

Read 19 tweets

XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

@18airbornecorps

20 Dec

1 of 12:

Back to our no-b.s. Battle of the Bulge account. Here we are in Bastogne, mid-day, Wednesday, December 20, 1944.

Let's take a look at the 101st Airborne's force array.

[if you haven't been following along, may be worth going back through our threads]

2 of 12:

Many accounts of the 101st in Bastogne would lead you to believe that [acting commander] Tony McAuliffe’s 101st Airborne fought alone against a multi-German corps attack. Not true.

3 of 12:

The 101st finds odds & ends laying about: engineer, artillery, & armor elements that were in the area when the German counteroffensive started & had survived the initial thrust. McAuliffe smartly takes these bits and pieces and incorporates them into his interior lines.

Read 12 tweets

XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

@18airbornecorps

20 Dec

1 of 11:

DECEMBER 20, 1944

BATTLE OF THE BULGE, DAY 5

At this point, the reserve forces (the 82nd and the 101st and the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne) are in sector and in their fighting positions. For the first time ever, the XVIII Airborne Corps is operating in combat.

2 of 11:

On this day 76 years ago, the 82nd Airborne establishes a defense against the 6th SS Panzer Army in the small Belgian town of Werbemont. This was the northern shoulder of the German bulge.

3 of 11:

It was freezing cold in Werbemont, as temperatures dropped to around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Light snow covered most of the ground.

Read 11 tweets

XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

@18airbornecorps

19 Dec

1 of 44

Let’s take a moment and catch up with this Battle of the Bulge series, shall we?

2 of 44

Planning for the German attack that would launch the Battle of the Bulge “officially” began in September 1944, and it’s a little interesting because Germany was not in a good place. They were losing friends left and right.

3 of 44

Japan had recently suggested to Hitler that he begin peace talks with the Soviets.

Read 44 tweets

XVIII Airborne Corps🐉

@18airbornecorps

19 Dec

1 OF XVIII: THE DAMNED ENGINEERS

DECEMBER 18, 1944, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, DAY 3

#BoTB

The desperate German gamble was working.

2 of XVIII: For months he doubted this would work. Now, 59 hours into the daring German Ardennes Counteroffensive, Joachim Peiper, leading a group of SS stormtroopers at the front edge of the German advance, looked down from his cupola & realized the US resistance had melted away

3 of XVIII: As the sun went down over Neucy, Belgium on Dec 18, 1944, Peiper realized he was really going to push into Habiemont and secure the bridges allowing the follow-on-forces westward advance. If the Panzer forces could reach fuel, Antwerp (100+ miles away) was in play.

Read 18 tweets

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