Posted on 05/24/2014 6:01:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
Strange, the once obscure villages that war makes unforgettable, forever resonant with the echoes of battle. Gettysburg. Hastings. Lexington and Concord. The fate of nations, and of freedom, was determined by what happened at such places. And their names became indelible. So it is with the names of massacres, too, names soaked in blood and shame. Names like Fort Pillow. That was the Union post in Tennessee just north of Memphis where black troops wearing the uniform of the United States Army were slaughtered. It wouldn't be the first time.
It happened in 1944, too. In the middle of the Battle of the Bulge, the last great German offensive of the war that took the Allies completely by surprise. Having finally broken out of the hedgerows in France, encountered bridges too far and advances suddenly turned into retreats, now the Allied armies were poised on the edge of victory by Christmas. It lay just across the Rhine.
And then ... the panzers were everywhere. The bulge in the Allied lines had erupted, whole divisions were broken and scattered, the outcome of the war itself was in doubt. The front was collapsing.
Then came Malmedy. A lightly armed American convoy trying to escape the rout was captured by the SS near that village, the GIs collected in an open field, and then ... mowed down by machine-gun fire.
When American forces regained the initiative and returned a month later, they would find 84 frozen bodies under the snow. But word of the atrocity had spread within hours of the massacre. And so did the rage. All along Allied lines. And back home, too. The mask of the enemy had been torn away, the evil underneath it revealed. It wasn't necessary to put the order in writing: Take no prisoners. A fever for vengeance took hold, and would have to run its course before it abated.
Who could forget Malmedy?
But who now remembers Wereth? That's the little hamlet where a small detachment of the redoubtable 333rd Field Artillery Battalion had taken refuge. The 333rd, an all-black outfit in those Jim Crow days, had fought its way across northern Europe since D-Day, only to be caught in the Bulge along with the rest of VIII Corps. The detachment had been part of the two batteries left behind to cover the American retreat when the front collapsed.
Mathias and Maria Langer hid the fleeing Americans in their farmhouse, but an informant told the SS about them. The 11 Americans were taken prisoner and marched off. To a small, muddy field where they were shot, but not before being tortured and maimed. Legs were broken, skulls crushed, fingers cut off. Their ordeal must have lasted for the better part of a day; the Americans had become playthings to be torn apart for the amusement of sadists. The 99th Infantry Division would find only their broken remains when it entered the village a month later. Then the Wereth Eleven were pretty much forgotten.
Till half a century later. That's when Hermann Langer, the son of Mathias and Maria, would put up a cross at the site of the Forgotten Massacre. His sister Tina said he was haunted by the memory of the GIs being taken from the farmhouse, and was determined to commemorate the massacre. A decade later, the Belgians would erect a stone monument on the site. They remembered.
Let the country whose uniform these American soldiers remember them, too, on this Memorial Day.
They came from Mississippi and Texas and South Carolina and West Virginia and Texas and Alabama ... and one of them was from Arkansas: PFC Due W. Turner, 38383369, lies buried at Henri-Chapelle, Plot F Row 5 Grave 9. He's officially listed as a native of Columbia County, Arkansas, but last time I looked at the Columbia County Courthouse website, with its picture of the county's monument to its war veterans, there's still an empty space under the list of World War II veterans inscribed there. Let it be filled with the name
Due W. Turner
Why give people the impression that it was US Army regular troops?
If it doesn’t make a difference to you, then let people know that it was a Colorado state militia.
“Sand Creek was done by Colorado Militia volunteers, not regular US Army troops. “
A common thread elsewhere/elsewhen
Han;s Mill, MO 1838
The militia involved in the massacre was led by Colonel William Jennings, Sheriff of Livingston County. At the time of the attack it consisted of 240 men...
Iron County, UT 1857
Another massacre, again, a local militia.
Red River, LA 1874
In 1874 a **paramilitary organization** of Southern Democrats known as the White League attacked Republican officeholders. The massacre took place in Red River, Louisiana and left 26 people dead.
A Militia? You guess.
BTW - Wounded Knee was Army Regulars, the 7th Calvary.
In more modern times...
Ludlow, CO 1914
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed.
IF you do a search of “militia” and “massacre” you see examples all over the world, even today.
Whether or not the action is cloaked by the notion of “organized military” is immaterial, as is the timeframe, it all proof of the ability of Mankind to be a savage....
My point was that I’m unsure on the practical difference at the time. Were these part-time soldiers on a weekend raid, like we usually think of the milita, a Home Guard, if you will, or were they full-time soldiers just like those fighting back east, only Volunteers instead of Regulars?
If the first, then the distinction between Regulars and militia is significant. If the second, then IMO it is not and the US Army is fully responsible.
At the time, something over 95% of Union army were Volunteers.
The unit most certainly wasn’t a State Militia, since CO didn’t become a State till 1876. Hence the state nickname, the Centennial State. :)
***I get annoyed when people make fun of the 7th Cavalry, because they were American GIs fighting for us,***
People don’t realize that Custer went against a larger force of Sioux and Cheyenne who had just invaded the CROW territory. The CROW were our allies against the Hostile Sioux, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot tribes.
As for torture, if a person was captured the torture began immediately. First the soles of the feet were sliced off and it was a long walk back to the Indian camp.
I laugh at a Remington painting of a cavalryman taken prisoner. He still has his boots on.
Every time I have ever looked into Sand Creek, it always looked like Chivington and his drunken Colorado guys were on their own crazy massacre in the Colorado territory,
Chivington was forced to resign from the militia, and was banned from Colorado politics, politics which had always been his purpose.
I don’t disagree. It is notable that it is very easy to find detailed accounts of the Sand Creek Massacre.
Much more difficult to find detailed accounts of the Indian raids and accompanying atrocities that had caused the CO militia to be so angry.
At Sand Creek all the militia guys did was respond in muted kind to Indian atrocities. It was wrong, but not by Indian standards. By ours.
I’m always amused by Indian activists who get such a charge out of recounting what happened at SC, when all the soldiers did there was imitate the Indians, in a somewhat pallid way.
Depends upon the situation.
If the men being captured are criminal minded and refuse to change their thinking, after proper judicial proceedings they may be handled by deadly force.
well I am glad they apologized and I also agree that the onerous terms after WWI contributed to the cause of WW II
If one wanted to we could look further in history, you will see why Indians were not trusted.
Julesburg Massacre.
Fort Mimms.
Massacre of the Fort Dearborne school children.
Massacre of the Pennsylvania school children during the Conspiracy of Pontiac.
Fort Sandusky massacre.
Fort St Joseph Massacre.
Fort Ouiatenon Massacre.
Fort Michilimackinac Massacre.
Fort Venango Massacre.
Fort Le Boeuf. No massacre as they escaped to Fort Pitt.
Fort Presque Isle Massacre. (Treachery of the worst sort)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_War#Small_forts_taken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_massacre
Here is a list of other massacres. Be careful as they often do not tell the whole story. For example, at the Council House massacre in San Antonio, it makes it sound like the Indians were lured in then killed.
What happened was the Indians brought in some captive white children WITH THEIR FACES BURNED OFF. This is what set off the massacre.
My oldest book on the Minnesota massacre was published in I think, 1865, or a little before.
“Minnesota Massacre” doesn’t google so well, and I don’t expect to ever see a movie on it.
***Much more difficult to find detailed accounts of the Indian raids and accompanying atrocities that had caused the CO militia to be so angry.***
Try these books. MASSACRES OF THE MOUNTAINS by J R Dunn Jr. Written a during the late 1870s. Lots of details as to WHY!
The author admits he likes Indians but is not willing to sugarcoat many of the findings in his own research and interviews with people of those days.
And this one THE INDIAN WARS OF 1864 by Captain Eugene Ware. University of Nebraska Press.
Then I have a very old rare copy of ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY OF PIONEER LIFE by Augustus Lynch Mason (1883)
THE SAVAGE YEARS anthology edited by Shepard Rifkin. articles taken from old newspapers and pioneer diaries.
Comanches, The History of a People by T.R. Fehrenbach
And this:
You will never look at the Indian Wars in the same light again.
Thanks. 100 day volunteers is a whole other kettle of fish than 3 year volunteers.
The Germans didn't really have much right to complain about the Treaty of Versailles.
If you want to see harsh terms, take a look at what the Germans imposed on the Russians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk
That sure makes clear, what I was struggling to say.
The Wake murders were not right away were they? I thought the massacre was in October 1943.
The post 1865 Army had the Negro 24th and 25th Infantry and 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments after the later restructuring. Have been a little interested in that era. One of my GG Grandfathers was Arthur MacArthur’s First Sergeant in the 13th Infantry at one time.
I KNOW the US Navy had black sailors aboard ship but don’t know about Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
Having lived in Europe for seven years, I can assure you the old time anti-Semitism still exists. I found it in some of the most unexpected places.
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