The 761^st Tank Battalion, the “Black Panthers,” was the first independent black armored unit in the history of the U.S. Army to see combat. Independent because the law at that time decreed blacks and whites couldn’t serve in the same outfit.

The brass had reservations about using black soldiers in combat roles. The CO of Army Ground Forces, General Lesley J. McNair, argued they would be just as effective as white troops. In 1941, the Army began to enroll blacks into combat units.

Prior to 1941, blacks were relegated to labor units, truck drivers, cooks and orderlies. Old opinions die hard. Their own Commanding Officer, “Old blood and Guts” General George S. Patton Jr. said, “…I have no faith in the inherent fighting ability of the race.”

The 800 man strong 761^st (motto: “Come Out Fighting”) trained for over two years before it shipped overseas. Fully armed, the unit was outfitted with fifty-four M4 Sherman and fifteen M5 Stuart tanks.

The most famous member of the 761^st was baseball legend, SSgt. Jackie Robinson.

In the fall of 1944, Able Company and the 104^th Infantry Regiment launched an attack on German positions in northeastern France. As they approached the town of Vic-sur-Seille, a German roadblock halted the advance. Withering enemy fire poured into the American column. Casualties mounted.

The pride of Hotulka, Oklahoma, Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers, the tank platoon sergeant in the lead tank, jumped from his tank, attached a cable to the roadblock and pulled it off the road while bullets snapped all around him. The column proceeded into the town and won the day. Rivers was awarded The Silver Star for his heroism.

A week later, Rivers was back in his usual position, in the lead tank. Able Company led an assault on German positions in the French town of Guebling. As the Panthers entered the town, River’s tank hit a mine. The Tanks’ right track was blown off.

Rivers was seriously injured. The medics found him with a jagged bone sticking through his pants. Shrapnel had cut his leg to the bone from knee to thigh. His commanding officer said, “Ruben, you’ve got a million dollar wound. You have a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. You’re going home.”

“Captain, you’re gonna need me. I’m staying.”

“Goddammit, Ruben, I’m giving you a direct order. You’re going back!”

“This is one order, the only order, I’ll disobey.” Turning to the medics, he said, “Clean and dress this thing.”

Risking losing his leg, Rivers refused evacuation and continued to fight in another tank. The lead tank.

The Germans knew their backs were against the wall. If they lost eastern France, the Allies next stop would be the Fatherland. Patton’s tanks broke through line after line of enemy defenses. The Germans fought with the ferocity of the desperate.

Anti-tank fire swept the American tank columns. Rivers poured fire into enemy positions. They reciprocated by zeroing on River’s lead tank and hammered it with shells. The first shot penetrated the tank spraying the interior with steel fragments, wounding all of the crew. The second shot decapitated Rivers. The daring, fearless fighter was gone. The same officer whose orders he disobeyed recommended him for the Medal of Honor.

The Panthers fought their way across Europe, participating in four different major campaigns in six different countries.

By the end of the war, the 761^st had been in continuous combat for 183 days. During that period, the Black Panthers suffered 50% casualties, earned one Medal of Honor, seven Silver Stars, fifty-six Bronze Stars and 246 Purple Hearts.

This from a unit that didn’t have “ inherent fighting ability.”

Despite facing fierce discrimination at home, the 761^st showed the world a loyalty, valor, bravery and fighting ability equal to their white brothers-in-arms.

Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Eureka Boat

Andrew J. Higgins was the brusque, outspoken, bourbon loving, red tape hating founder and owner of New Orleans based Higgins Industries.

He was described by Dwight D. Eisenhower as “…. the man who won the war for us… if Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs (landing craft, vehicle, personnel), we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”

America’s nautical savior was born in 1886 in Columbus, Nebraska. His early years were spent on the banks of the Platte and Loup Rivers. Both rivers were shallow and full of sandbars. Only shallow draft boats could navigate its waters. It is thought this is where Higgins’s interest in this type of watercraft began.

In the basement of his parent’s home, Higgins constructed his first boat. A minor detail of being unable to move the finished boat from the basement to the outdoors due to its size was remedied in typical Higgins style: he knocked down the wall that stood in his way.

His inborn desire for independence and self-confidence showed up early. He was thrown out of prep school for brawling and never looked back.

After a stint in the Nebraska National Guard, he moved south to pursue opportunities in the lumber business. He saw a market with oil drillers and trappers who operated in the waters of the Gulf Coast seaboard. In 1926, he developed a shallow draft boat with a recessed propeller in the stern and a “spoonbill” bow so the craft could slide over submerged obstacles and flotsam without jamming the propeller and a “spoonbill” bow so the craft could be run up on riverbanks.

But Higgins Lumber and Export Co. faced stiff competition from larger lumber companies that ultimately put them out of business in 1930.

Nevertheless, the indefatigable Higgins kept the boatbuilding side of his business and began constructing motorboats, tugs and barges for private firms. He also could count the U.S. Coast Guard as a client.

Lady Luck smiled on the hard-charging Higgins.

The U.S. Marine Corps was always interested in finding better ways to get men across a beach in amphibious landings. After twenty years of dealing with failure by the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Ships and the frustration that The Bureau of Construction and Repair could not meet their requirements, they became interested in Higgins’s boats. He produced a prototype that met the design requirements of the USMC in 60 hours. He called it the “Eureka” boat. It was a plywood, shallow-draft, barge-like rear engine craft and it out-performed the Navy-designed boat. The military called it the “Higgins Boat.”

The only drawback to its design was that the troops on board had to climb over its side to disembark, thus exposing them to enemy fire in a combat situation.

The Japanese, meanwhile, had developed ramp-bowed boats for use in the Sino-Japanese War since 1937. U.S. Navy & Marine observers showed a picture of one to Higgins. It featured a front ramp for troop disembarkation. He immediately got on the phone to his chief engineer, described the Japanese design to him and told him to have a mock-up built for inspection upon his return to New Orleans.

In a month, successful tests of the ramp-bowed Eureka boat on Lake Pontchartrain convinced Higgins and the military this was the answer.

At thirty six feet stem-to-stern with a 10ft, 10inch beam (widest point of the vessel), all plywood, a rear-mounted 225 hp diesel engine, with less than a three foot draft, it could make twelve knots in calm water.

In later designs, the front ramp extended the with of the craft and two .30 cal. machine guns were added aft. It could hold a 36-man platoon of men in full battle dress or a jeep and a twelve-man squad. Helmed by a four man crew, it was possible for a boat to rush onto shore, disembark men and supplies, reverse itself off shore and head back to a supply ship in three minutes.

The little boats were used in all major invasions of the war – Sicily, Italy, North Africa, Normandy and the islands of the Pacific. In the course of the war, Higgins Industries turned out over 20000 such vessels and added to its repertoire with fast PT boats, twenty-seven foot airborne lifeboats which could be dropped from a bomber and 56 foot tank landing crafts.

All the while, Higgins fought running battles with the Bureau of Ships, the Washington bureaucracy and powerful eastern shipyards.

“If the Navy wants something sensible, why the hell don’t they just listen to people like us who have had years of experience?”

                                                         —- Andrew Jackson Higgins

 The Higgins boat changed modern warfare forever. The Allies now had an easily replacable, formidable tool that eliminated the need for established harbors or minesweepers prior to landing an assault force.

After the war, Higgins was socked with an IRS investigation and was largely forgotten by the public and military.

The inventor of some 30 patents relating to amphibious landing craft, the tough, straight-ahead, hot-tempered old boat-builder passed away on August 1, 1952. He was buried in Metairie Cemetery, just outside of New Orleans.

In 1987, the fleet oiler USNS Andrew J. Higgins was named in his honor and a statue of his likeness in Columbus, Nebraska.

Precious little recognition for “…the man who won the war for us….”

The most decorated military unit in U.S. history was the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army.

The 442^nd was comprised of “Nisei’s” — first generation Japanese-Americans. All were enlisted men led by Caucasian officers. All were volunteers and most hailed from Hawaii.

After Pearl Harbor, all Japanese-Americans were classified as “4C” (enemy alien) and not allowed to enlist in the Armed Forces. FDR reversed that decision, and on 2/1/1943, Nisei’s began to join up.

They saw fierce fighting in eight major campaigns in Europe, in Italy, France and Germany. Casualties were high. The original unit strength of 3800 was replaced three times.

The unit’s members earned a total of an unheard of 18143 decorations for valor, including twenty Medals of Honor, 560 Silver Stars, 4000 Bronze Stars and 9436 Purple Hearts.

Ironically, as these men fought bravely for their country, the backlash after Pearl Harbor against people of Japanese descent in the U.S. resulted in their relatives languishing in internment camps for fear of “fifth column” sabotage action in the U.S.

“Go for Broke” became the unit’s motto. It is a gambling expression describing players who would risk all their money on a single roll of the dice.

Wilm Hosenfeld

Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld was a mild-mannered schoolteacher from the central German state of Hesse.

Born into a family of a middle class, pious Catholic schoolmaster, his upbringing emphasized Catholic charity work, German patriotism and Prussian obedience.

He was also influenced by the Wandervogel movement that became popular at that time. This organization was a back-to-nature youth group whose adherents stressed freedom, personal responsibility, nationalism and a return to the values of the German Teutonic era.

He saw action in WWI, was seriously wounded and received the Iron Cross 2^nd Class.

After the war, he retired from the Army and taught school. In 1935, he joined the Nazi Party, but as time passed, he became disillusioned with their policies towards Poles and especially Jews.

In August 1939, the month before Hitler invaded Poland and began WWII, Hosenfeld was drafted into the Wehrmacht-Heer (German Army). He was posted to Pabianice, a town in central Poland, where he built and ran a POW camp.

In 1940, he was posted to Warsaw where he was promoted to Hauptmann (Captain) and attached to the Wach-Regiment Warsaw as a staff officer and battalion sports officer. He remained there for the rest of the war.

It was during this time he, with several other German Army officers, developed a sincere sympathy for the people of occupied Poland. Ashamed by what some of their countrymen were doing, they offered to help Poles in need whenever possible, contrary to Nazi Party orders.

As early as 1939, against Nazi regulations, he allowed POWs access to their families. When he was transferred to Warsaw, he used his position to give refuge to people, sometimes arraigning for the papers they needed and jobs at the local sports stadium, which was under his pervue. He helped hide persecuted people, including Jews. He helped Jewish pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman hide from the Gestapo in the ruins of Warsaw, an act that was portrayed in the 2002 movie The Pianist.

He befriended numerous Poles and even tried to learn the language. Contrary to Nazi orders, he attended the local Polish Catholic churches, heard Mass and received Communion.

Hosenfeld was captured by the Soviets as he led a Heer company on a mission to Blonie, a town west of Warsaw.

The Soviets accused him of war crimes (he had committed none) and sentenced him to 25 years of hard labor.

In 1950, Szpilman learned the name of the German officer who hid him from the Gestapo. He launched a campaign to have the Soviets release Hosenfeld, which was unsuccessful.

Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld died in a Soviet concentration camp in 1952 of a rupture of the thoracic aorta.

On February 16, 2009, Yad Vashem (Israel’s monument to Jews who fought Nazi oppression and Gentiles who aided Jews in need) posthumously recognized Wilhelm Hosenfeld as Righteous Among the Nations.