The WWII Tank Battalion That Fought Despite Itself
Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story Of The 761st Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes.
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anthony Walton.
Read by Peter Francis James, with an introduction by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Random House Audio.
Five Hours (abridged) on four CDs.
Reviewed by Todd Steven Burroughs
Say the name George Patton, and the average American mind immediately recreates a scene or two from the 1969 Hollywood classic starring George C. Scott. But the members of the 761st Tank Battalion not only knew Patton, but also served under the great World War II general.
Those tanks at the snowy, freezing climax of the film, fighting in the Battle of The Bulge? "That was us," one of the battalion's members said in the interview portion of the audiobook "Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story Of The 761st Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes."
But Hollywood painted the all-Black unit white. The most prominent African-American in "Patton" was the soldier-manservant who drew his bath.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (yep, that one) and writer Anthony Walton, a Bowdoin College professor, re-create in great detail the story of the first Black WWII combat unit to fight side by side with white soldiers. Actor Peter Francis James provides crisp narration to an important chapter of American history told with new (read: Black) eyes and ears.
Thanks to the now oft-repeated story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the collective history of World War II's Black soldiers is well known.
Historical summary:
Young Black men from around the country became soldiers and racial ambassadors on a world stage. They fought in a Jim Crowed military, withstanding white racist harassment. They fought lowered expectations among the American brass stateside and rumors in Europe (spread by white American GIs) that they were monkeys with tails. They decided that heroism would trump anger. Anxious to prove themselves as men and Americans, they lobbied hard for the right to risk their lives for a nation not yet finished with lynching those that looked like them. Their bravery and loyalty were not rewarded when they finally proved themselves in combat. A double victory won, they returned to a racist nation determined to keep the veterans in their place. Proper recognition came decades later, when many of their remaining number turn into ancestors.
This story is repeated in "Brothers In Arms," but with a twist: Patton's involvement.
When Patton's Third Army had to make its post-D-Day drive toward Germany without enough tank units, he didn't hesitate to call them up. "Had anyone less of his stature called the battalion," wrote Abdul-Jabbar and Walton, "they [the battalion members] might never have been allowed to see action."
The battalion's members looked up to the tough-as-nails general: "They would have followed him into Hell," wrote the authors.
But the admiration was not reciprocal.
Patton, like many in the American military, did not believe that Blacks had the intellectual capability to handle sophisticated equipment like tanks. Although the great general gave them an initial pep talk, privately, in his diaries and letters, the military legend turned out to be just another white man who believed Blacks lacked the right stuff. (After all, the unit was created just to impress the North's Black voters and the Black press.) The battalion racked up more than 250 Purple Hearts, 2,000 combat miles and 183 straight combat days in Europe between post-D-Day 1944 to V-E Day 1945. But Patton's attitude remained unaltered.
America's military establishment also refused to evolve. Its members downplayed the battalion's accomplishments immediately after the war, saying its accomplishments weren't Presidential citation-worthy.
In well-described (if often plain) prose, "Brothers" follows three Black soldiers, the central character being Leonard "Smitty" Smith, a friend of Abdul-Jabbar's father.
All the typical scenes are well "seen." Basic training. Fighting against German "tiger" battalions through scores of small towns and hamlets between France and Germany. The horror of concentration camps. Their individual love affairs with their vehicles-in this case, their Sherman tanks. Injury and death. Victory and defeat.
The indisputable highlight of the five-hour, four CD set is its final segment. James' interview with two of the 761st removes the historical dust. Hearing the soldiers' controlled anger over their treatment reminds the listener that this past is not that far away. One veteran described the war a "so-called fight for democracy, and freedom." His brief frankness serves the story better than the long, straightforward, "objective" narration.
This audiobook is a must for any World War II junkie.
Copyright © 2004 by Todd Steven Burroughs
Todd Steven Burroughs, Ph.D. (tburroughs@jmail.umd.edu) is an independent researcher/writer based in Hyattsville, Md. He is a primary author of Civil Rights Chronicle (Legacy), a history of the Civil Rights Movement, and a contributor to Putting The Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching (Teaching For Change/Poverty & Race Research Action Council), a K-12 teaching guide of the Civil Rights Movement. He is writing a biography of Death Row writer Mumia Abu-Jamal.