Memorial

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S/Sgt Harvey Woodardwas a chauffeur before he enlisted at Fort Benning, Georgia on 11 October 1941.

On 9 November, C Company ran into an antitank 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 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 this Sherman, all hatches were buttoned and it appeared undamaged. There wasn’t a mark on it. However, an eerie un 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 an go on about their business. They sat there with eyes staring, pupils dilated, no terror on their faces. No marks or wounds of any sort on their bodies. Each wore only a faint look of surprise. And they were all, inexplicably, mysteriously dead. They were all casualties of a concussion from an high explosive shell landing over the turret top, which set the waves to whitling inside the tank.

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.