In researching my next book, in particular some details of the Battle of the Bulge, I came across the 333rd Artillery Battalion. Two companies of this segregated "Negro" battalion were caught behind the lines when the Wehrmacht jumped off on its Ardennes Offensive, and along with other orphaned units wound up being stranded in Bastogne with the 101st Airborne Division. The 333rd fought with distinction at Bastogne and suffered heavy casualties. A tragic event was the torture and execution of eleven soldiers of the 333rd by SS troops after this handful of Americans was separated from their company in the village of Wereth, Belgium. The highly ideological SS troops who found them were inculcated with the Nazi Aryan supremacy philosophy that considered peoples of African descent as sub-human. Similar atrocities were committed by the SS on French Senegalese troops and other African colonial troops having the misfortune to be captured by the SS. I salute the troops of the 333rd and all the other American soldiers who made their heroic stand at Bastogne.