"From Harlem to Hitler"
That was among the slogans that soldiers of the Triple Three chalked on the projectiles that they sent the enemy's way...
Author’s Note: From 1982 to 1985 and again from 1989 to 1993, I served in Headquarters Battery, 4th Battalion, 333rd Field Artillery Regiment, a United States Army Reserve unit stationed in South Bend, Indiana. The Fourth of the Triple Three was the lineal descendant of the 969th Field Artillery Battalion, a decorated World War Two unit that served in the 1944-45 northern European campaign, including the Battle of the Bulge, which raged from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945—eighty years ago. Lest we forget, the story of the Triple Three’s war follows.
During World War One, the United States Army embodied three components: the Regular Army, the National Guard, and the National Army, the last consisting of units raised specifically for war service. The 333rd Field Artillery Regiment was formed in August 1917 as a unit of the National Army and was assigned to the 161st Field Artillery Brigade, 86th Infantry Division. The Regiment served in France during World War One, though it saw no action. It was disbanded after returning to the United States in 1919 but was reconstituted ten years later as a unit of the Organized Reserves, stationed in Chicago, Illinois.
In 1942, the 333rd was ordered to active duty for World War Two. In mid-1943, however, the Army decided to abolish regimental identities in all branches except Infantry, replacing them with a flexible group organization. The 333rd, then stationed at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, was reconfigured as follows: Regimental Headquarters became Headquarters & Headquarters Battery, 333rd FA Group (Mtz) (Cld), the 1st Battalion became the 333rd FA Battalion (155mm How) (Truck-D) (Cld), and the 2nd Battalion became the 969th FA Battalion (155mm How) (Truck-D) (Cld). All three were then separate, self-contained units. Each battalion was equipped with twelve 155mm M1 howitzers, truck drawn; the group headquarters was capable of commanding up to four FA battalions.
The designation (Cld) indicated that the units were composed of black troops. In the segregated US Army of World War Two, black Americans served in separate units under white officers—though by 1944 between one-third and one-half of the officers in Colored units were also black.
The 333rd FA Group arrived in England in February 1944, where its attached battalions were reequipped with tracked prime movers (designations changed from Truck-D to Track-D). At the same time two more battalions, the 578th FA and the 741st FA, both equipped with tractor-towed 8in howitzers, were attached. The Group was allotted to the VIII Corps Artillery. In July 1944 it landed in the Normandy bridgehead and immediately entered combat. During the Normandy campaign, the 333rd FA Group's outstanding performance earned it a reputation as one of the best field artillery units in the European Theater.
The 333rd FA Group subsequently participated in the pursuit of the enemy to the German frontier, arriving at the Belgian village of Schönberg, not far from St. Vith, in early October. By December 1944, the Group had two FA battalions under command: the 333rd and the 771st, while the 969th was under the 174th FA Group. Both groups were assigned to VIII Corps Artillery and tasked to support VIII Corps’ 106th Infantry Division and 4th Cavalry Group, which held an eighteen-mile front along a stretch of high ground called the Schnee Eifel, about twelve miles east of St. Vith.
On 16 December, the German Army launched its last big offensive of the war, attacking through the Belgian Ardennes with the objective of recapturing Brussels and Antwerp, splitting the Allied line, and destroying major US units. The attack came as a complete surprise to the Allied command, and the Germans scored an early success in the VIII Corps sector. They drove back the 4th Cavalry Group with heavy losses and encircled and captured two of the three infantry regiments of the 106th Infantry Division on the Schnee Eifel. In killed and prisoners, the 106th lost some 9,000 men,
This disaster soon engulfed the 333rd FA Battalion at Schönberg, which is bisected by the Our River. The Battalion HQ and Service Battery were on the west side of that river and the battalion’s three firing batteries were emplaced on the east side—all directly in the path of the southern pincer of the German attack. Orders to displace farther to the west came too late: the 333rd was overrun and partly broken up. Service Battery and Battery C were captured by the Germans; the rest of the Battalion suffered additional losses as it withdrew. By the end of the day on 17 December, the 333rd had lost seven of its twelve howitzers and two-thirds of its men.
The survivors of this debacle attached themselves to the still-intact 969th FA Battalion, which despite repeated clashes with the advancing Germans was able to withdraw into the Belgian town of Bastogne. There the 969th took up firing positions in support of the 101st Airborne Division, which had been ordered to defend this vital road hub "at all costs.”
Only two field artillery battalions in Bastogne were equipped with the hard-hitting 155mm howitzer: the 755th FA and the 969th FA. Their guns became the lynchpin of the American defense, providing effective fire support to the defenders who, despite four-to-one odds, beat off every German attack until relieved by units of General George S. Patton's Third Army. By then, the 969th FA was down to three operational howitzers and was almost out of ammunition. For this action, the battalion received the US Presidential Unit Citation and the Belgian Croix d'Guerre with Palm. The regimental coat of arms and motto ("Three Rounds") commemorate the 969th's gallant stand at Bastogne.
In an atrocity that long remained unknown to the American public, eleven soldiers of the 333rd FA Battalion were murdered by German troops during the battle. These men had been captured when their unit was overrun but later managed to escape. While trying to regain the US line, they were recaptured near the Belgian village of Wereth by a German patrol of the 1st SS Panzer Division. There and then the SS troops brutally killed their prisoners, bludgeoning and bayoneting the unarmed men to death. Only in 1994 was the terrible fate of the Wereth Eleven widely publicized and in 2013 a congressional resolution recognized their sacrifice.
After the Battle of the Bulge, the 333rd FA Group and its attached battalions soldiered on until the end of the war in Europe. All were inactivated in 1946, but the 333rd and 969th were later reactivated and served postwar. In the late 1950s, when the Army decided to restore regimental identities in the Artillery branch, the firing batteries of the 969th FA became Batteries D, E, and F of the 333rd Artillery Regiment. In 1971, Battery D was redesignated as 4th Battalion, 333rd Artillery (redesignated again as the 333rd Field Artillery Regiment in 1972 when Field Artillery and Air Defense Artillery were made separate Army branches), withdrawn from the Regular Army, assigned to the Army Reserve, and headquartered in South Bend, Indiana. The Fourth of the Triple Three thus perpetuated the lineage and honors of the 969th FA Battalion. The 4-333 FA's peacetime higher headquarters was the 428th FA Brigade, also a Reserve unit located in South Bend. Its CAPSTONE (mobilization) higher headquarters was the 212th FA Brigade, located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Soldiers of the 4-333 FA wore the shoulder sleeve insignia of the 428th FA Brigade.
After many years of faithful service, the Fourth of the Triple Three was inactivated at South Bend, Indiana, on 14 August 1993. Today, a single separate target acquisition battery (TAB) in the Regular Army is the sole active representative of the 333rd Field Artillery Regiment.
I designed this this coat of arms to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the inactivation of the 4th Battalion, 333rd Field Artillery, in which I served for many years. The blazon (heraldic description) and symbolism of the coat of arms are as follows:
BLAZON: Azure, a chief or, in chief three roundels gules, in base an arrowsheaf of the second, point down. Crest: On a wreath of the colors third and second a lion passant regardant of the second, armed and tongued of the third, bearing the guidon of Headquarters Battery, 4th Battalion, 333rd Field Artillery, proper. Motto: ROUNDS COMPLETE.
SYMBOLISM: Blue and yellow (gold) are the colors of the United States Army; scarlet and yellow are the colors of the Field Artillery branch. The three colors of the shield, three roundels and three arrows suggest the regimental designation. The three roundels and three arrows additionally suggest the regimental motto: THREE ROUNDS. The arrows, suggesting the unit’s ability to engage the enemy at long range, are point down to symbolize the completion of the unit’s mission and its honorable inactivation. The crest displays a lion, the heraldic symbol of Belgium, where the unit won the Presidential Unit Citation and the Belgian Croix d'Guerre with Palm for action at Bastogne during World War II. The lion is depicted “passing in review” with the guidon of Headquarters Battery, symbolizing the unit’s inactivation ceremony. The motto, ROUNDS COMPLETE, is the message transmitted to signify that a Field Artillery unit has completed its assigned fire mission.
You’re a terrific writer Thomas👍
We disagree about much but I deeply commend your willingness to immerse yourself in the largely thankless task of preserving and passing on some important information about Afro-American contributions in World War Two.