You are on a need-to-know basis. You’re told only what’s relevant, and nothing more. Rumors, innuendo, extra little details, none of that’s important; only what you need is what you get. But read “The Lost Eleven” by Denise George and Robert Child, and you may wonder what else you’re missing.
Hitler reportedly did not want the 1936 Olympics in his Berlin.
Not a sporting man, he didn’t see the point, until he was told that the games might be a good chance to showcase his Aryan athletes. He acquiesced and was openly seethed when African American star Jesse Owens snatched medals away from Hitler’s all-German track team.
“Almost 5,000 away,” Owens’ achievements made a strong impression on young George Davis, who puffed with a patriotic pride that lingered and that carried him to the recruitment office when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Against his father’s wishes, Davis joined the Army. But serving Uncle Sam didn’t protect a man from Jim Crow.
At the beginning of the War, say George and Child, fewer than 4,000 African Americans were enlisted in the military. Most landed in racially-segregated, noncombat units, tasked with “menial labor” well behind the front lines, which rankled them. Many were eager to see action, and were denied it, but Davis and his fellow soldiers at Camp Gruber, Okla., got what they wished for: their 333rd Field Artillery Battalion was ultimately trained to operate the new 155mm Howitzers.
They were going overseas. From Normandy in late June, 1944, to France and Brittany, the 333rd and 969th Battalions did what they were sent to do; by September 1944, they were on their way to Schönberg, Belgium, to a “Ghost Front,” so-called because it was “quiet.” Once there, men of both Battalions heard German rockets and believed that the sounds were recordings meant to fool them into believing German troops were nearby.
About Post Author
