I can’t say I was surprised when I hit the button on my satellite television remote that gives a description of whatever program I’m watching. This one was a movie from 1949 called “Battleground.”
“American troops from all over fight in the Battle of the Bulge,” the screen read.
Well, almost all over. Hispanics were well-represented with a very young Ricardo Montalban playing one of the leading roles. There was exactly one black face in “Battleground,” appearing on screen for all of one minute, mumbling nary a syllable and cynically inserted in a scene where a chaplain criticizes the racial policies of Nazi Germany.
Twenty years later, when Franklin Schaffner’s “Patton” — with a screenplay co-written by Francis Ford Coppola — hit theaters, no black soldiers were shown with the Third Army troops who marched into the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944 or among the defenders of the Belgian town of Bastogne.
Director Steven Spielberg was criticized for having no black faces in 1997’s “Saving Private Ryan.” Spielberg and Coppola — and other Hollywood white guys — still cling to the notion that World War II was a “white thang.”
It’s a good thing I keep my own black history library handy. All black folks should. With guys like Spielberg and Coppola running around, we need them.
The Battle of the Bulge began 60 years ago today, on Dec. 16, 1944. German troops, retreating on the western front and getting the hell beaten out of them by the Russians on the eastern front, were thought to be done for. The Nazis were running out of fuel, food, supplies and men. The area of the Schnee Eifel in Belgium, near the Ardennes forest, had seen little activity for months.
Then, on the morning of Dec. 16, before light had cracked the darkness of the sky in the east, all hell broke loose.
The Germans launched a major offensive, sending Allied troops reeling backward, killing, wounding and capturing thousands. Had the Nazis captured the thousands of tons of fuel the Allies had stored in the area or the town of Bastogne, World War II might have ended differently.
They didn’t. Soldiers from the famous Red Ball Express — a predominantly black unit whose service technically ended in November of 1944 — were sent into Belgium to take out the fuel. Black soldiers from the 969th Field Artillery Battalion, along with the 755th Field Artillery Battalion, provided the firepower that allowed the 101st Airborne Division to hold off German troops until Patton’s Third Army soldiers arrived.
Maj. Gen. Maxwell Taylor commanded the 101st Airborne. His assessment of the contribution of the 969th Field Artillery was somewhat different than that of the folks who made “Battleground” and, we might surmise, Spielberg and Coppola.
“The officers and men of the 101st Airborne Division wish to express to your command their appreciation of the gallant support rendered by the 969th Field Artillery Battalion in the recent defense of Bastogne, Belgium,” Taylor wrote to the commander of the all-black unit. “The success of this defense is attributable to the shoulder to shoulder cooperation of all units involved. This Division is proud to have shared the Battlefield with your command. A recommendation for a unit citation of the 969th Field Artillery Battalion is being fowarded by this headquarters.”
That letter was reprinted in Joe W. Wilson Jr.’s “The 761st ‘Black Panther’ Tank Battalion in World War II.” The 969th got its presidential unit citation and a Belgian Croix d’Guerre with Palm as well.
In early January of 1945, while the 44-day Battle of the Bulge still raged, the 761st defeated a couple of crack German units in a confrontation at another Belgian town, Tillet. Then the Black Panthers joined with the 17th Airborne Division in pushing more Nazis back into Germany. Maj. Gen. William M. Miley, commander of the 17th Airborne, had some comments about the performance of the 761st that Coppola and Spielberg must have missed.
“What I clearly remember,” Miley wrote in a letter reprinted in Wilson’s book, “is the very fine support we received from the 761st. The reason I remember it so well is because it was so much better than what we received from units previously providing support.”
Ponder those words should you read or view news stories today about the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.
If you don’t see any black faces, you’ll know that — in what has become par for the course — you’re not getting the full story.
