Memorial

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Corp Carlton Chapman worked for the Norfolk and Western Railroad.

He enlisted in Roanoke, Virginia on 15 December 1942.

On 9 November, C Company ran into an anti-tank ditch near Morville. The German 11th Panzer Division began to knock out seven tanks one by one down the line.

After the company commander, Capt McHenry gave the order to dismount, several men were killed by artillery shell fire and small arms when they crawled through the freezing muddy waters of the ditch.

After the battle, maintenance groups were tasked to locate damaged but still operational tanks on the battlefield so they could be repaired and used again. When they approached the Sherman, all hatches were buttoned and it appeared undamaged. There wasn't a mark on it. However, an eerie and unearthly picture presented when the tank was opened. All five crewmen were still inside Sgt Woodward, T/4 Claude Mann, Cpl Carlton Chapman, Pvt L.C. Byrd, and Pvt Nathaniel Simmons. Each still sat at his station. All seemed frozen in a moment of time from which they would momentarily awake and go on about their business. They sat there with eyes staring, pupils dialited, and no terrified looks upon their faces. No marks, no wounds of any sort on their bodies. Each wore only a faint look of surprise. And they were all inexplicably and mysteriously dead. They were all casualties of a concussion from a high explosive shell landing over the turret top, which set the waves to whitling inside the tank.

The men of the 761st who were killed during the liberation of Morville-lès-Vic are remembered on a monument at the Rue Principale, just outside the village.

The 761st Tank Battalion was the first African American armored unit to see combat and apart from some officers consisted entirely of African American soldiers.