This is the story of the 761st tank battalion, the Black Panthers, who fought for 183 consecutive days across six European countries during World War II, breaching Hitler’s Zigfrieded line, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, and liberating concentration camp prisoners.
They accomplished all of this while the United States Army’s official position stated that African-Ameans could not think fast enough to fight in armor.
Their combat record stands as extraordinary, while the recognition they received stands as shameful.
Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers died in combat on November 19th, 1944.
And he received the Medal of Honor on January 13th, 1997, which means 52 years passed before his country acknowledged what he did.
The battalion earned a presidential unit citation in 1945, but the army denied it and they finally received that citation in 1978, 33 years after the I war ended.
We’re going to examine the verified combat record of the 761st Tank Battalion that documented acts of valor that should have made them legends and the institutional racism that tried to erase their story from history.
March 15th, 1942 brought the official constitution of the 761st Tank Battalion with activation following at Camp Claybornne, Louisiana on April 1st.
That date matters because April 1942 meant the United States had been at war for less than 4 months.
The country was scrambling to build an army.
And from the very beginning, the military was activating segregated black units, not because they wanted to use them, but because political pressure was mounting to allow African-Americans to serve in combat roles.
Training started on M5 Stewart light tanks at Camp Claybornne before the battalion transferred to Camp Hood, Texas, which is Fort Kavazos now, in 1943.
The upgrade to M4 Sherman medium tanks equipped with 75mm main guns happened there and by deployment time the battalion comprised 712 men consisting of six white officers, 30 black officers and 676 black enlisted personnel.
Equipment included 54 M4 Shermans and 15 M5 Stewarts organized into what they called a mosquito fleet company.
The 761 trained for 2 and 1/2 years before deployment, which tells you everything you need to know about how the army viewed them.
White tank battalions were being formed, trained for 6 to9 months, and shipped to combat while the 761st sat at Camp Hood training, drilling, practicing, waiting.
And the delay wasn’t because they weren’t ready.
General Ben Lear, commander of the US Second Army, raided the unit superior and declared them combat ready in 1944.
Superior meant combat ready meant qualified to fight.
And still they waited.
Deployment finally came on June 9th, 1944, 3 days after D-Day when the manpower crisis in Europe finally overrode the prejudice keeping them stateside.
Omaha Beach saw them land on October 10th, 1944, and they linked up with Patton’s Third Army near Nancy, France.
On October 28th, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Lever Bates commanded them, a white officer who assumed command on July 4th, 1943.
And Bates stood out as unusual for his time, or really for any time.
Promotions came his way repeatedly and he turned them down to stay with his battalion.
He refused to sign court marshal papers against Jackie Robinson after the future baseball legend had his famous bus incident at Fort Hood.
And years after the war, he established a scholarship at his alma mater specifically for descendants of 761st members.
Jackie Robinson served as the unit’s morale officer in 1943 and 44, but never deployed overseas with them because he got court marshaled and acquitted for refusing to move to the back of a military bus at Fort Hood before the unit shipped out.
That’s the environment these men operated in, training to fight fascism abroad while dealing with racism at home.
November 7th, 1944 brought the 761st Tank Battalion into combat at a town called Morville Levic in France, supporting the 26th Infantry Division.
And the timing couldn’t have been cruer.
The night before their first combat action, Lieutenant Colonel Bates took a serious wound, likely from friendly fire, and got evacuated before he could lead them into battle.
February of 1945 would pass before he returned, which meant that on the eve of their first battle, the man who had trained them for over a year, the man who had fought to keep them together was suddenly gone.
Command fell to Captain John D.
Long of Baker Company, an African-American officer they called the Black Patton.
Captain Long led the first thrust into Morville Vic with Sergeant Roy King’s Sherman as the lead tank and a German Panzer Foust, which is an anti-tank rocket knocked it out inside the town.
King took a wound but refused evacuation and ran through German fire to help a white infantryman who was pinned down.
12 days later, Roy King was dead.
and a captured German officer later said King’s conduct was only equaled by that of a Russian tank crew under similar circumstances.
A German officer steeped in Nazi racial ideology compared a black American tanker to the Russians who the Vermach respected as fierce fighters.
Morville marked just the beginning of a nightmarish November.
Charlie Company moved on the town and fell into a tank ditch trap with seven tanks knocked out immediately.
German pill boxes pouring fire into the trapped column and First Sergeant Samuel Turley ordering his crews to dismount and organizing resistance from inside the ditch.
Then he climbed out, climbed out of cover into the open and began laying down covering fire with a machine gun so his men could reorganize.
German machine guns killed Samuel Turley.
He got recommended for the Medal of Honor and there wasn’t enough surviving documentation to process it decades later.
That becomes a recurring theme in this story.
Extraordinary valor followed by official recommendations and then nothing.
November statistics tell their own story because numbers don’t lie.
Their first month of combat, just 30 days, brought 24 killed, 81 wounded, and 44 non- battle casualties for a total of 156 losses out of 712 men.
22% casualty rate in one month, 14 tanks destroyed, 20 damaged.
And what did they accomplish? Over 15 towns captured including Morville, Levik, Moyanvik, Vikur, Whisa, Chateau, Salan, J, Albastro, and Sara Unautious combat or holding defensive positions, but offensive armored warfare in the worst possible conditions.
The Lraine campaign inm an late autumn with muddy fields, hedgerros, fortified towns, and an enemy that wasn’t retreating anymore.
The German army was falling back toward the fatherland and fighting for every kilometer.
Reuben Rivers came from Tecumpsa, Oklahoma, half black and half Cherokee.
And over 11 days in November 1944, he performed three separate acts that each individually would have earned most soldiers a significant decoration.
November 8th, 1944, near Vikers found rivers commanding the lead tank in a column when they encountered a German roadblock.
The Germans had felled a tree across the road, mined it, and were pouring fire into the column from covered positions, which stopped the entire advance.
Rivers dismounted his tank, got out in the middle of a firefight, attached a cable to the tree, got back in his Sherman, and dragged the obstacle clear while taking direct enemy fire so the column could advance.
That action earned Ruben Rivers the first silver star awarded to any member of the 761st Tank Battalion.
8 days later, on November 16th, his tank hit a mine near Guing and shrapnel tore open his leg from thigh to bone.
The battalion medic wanted to evacuate him immediately, but Rivers refused.
He also refused morphine because he wanted to stay alert and he took command of another tank and continued fighting for three more days with his leg laid open and gangrine setting in.
November 19th brought the company near Borgal where Captain David Williams saw the tactical situation deteriorating and ordered a withdrawal.
Reuben Rivers radioed back with five words.
I see him.
We’ll fight him.
Then positioned his tank to cover the company’s retreat until two German shells hit his turret and killed him instantly.
Captain Williams submitted River’s Medal of Honor recommendation on November 20th, 1944, one day after his death.
And the recommendation went to Colonel Hollis Hunt, where it got ignored.
Simply ignored, not denied or rejected with an explanation, but filed away and forgotten.
433 Medals of Honor got awarded during World War II with over 1 million African-Americans serving in uniform and not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor during the war.
President Clinton finally awarded Reuben Rivers Medal of Honor on January 13th, 1997, 52 years after his death when he presented it to River’s sister, Grace Woodfork.
Captain David Williams attended that ceremony, elderly by then, having spent over 50 years championing Rivers case and trying to get official recognition for what he’d witnessed on those battlefields in France.
52 years means most people who served with Reuben Rivers, who saw what he did, died waiting for their country to acknowledge his valor.
Ruben Rivers exemplified quiet, determined courage, while Sergeant Warren Galial Harding Crey represented aggressive, almost reckless ferocity in combat.
Cesy’s full name tells you something about the time he grew up in because Warren Galial Harding Crey was named after President Warren G.
Harding.
And in November 1944, he earned a reputation that would follow him through two wars.
November 10th, 1944 brought the destruction of Crey’s Sherman and most tankers when their vehicle gets knocked out retreat to safety and wait for a replacement.
But not Warren Cesy.
He dismounted, found a 30 caliber machine gun, and personally eliminated a German gun crew and two forward observers before commandeering a jeep, a jeep with a mounted 30 caliber and driving it directly at enemy positions while drawing fire so infantry could execute flanking attacks.
The next day brought a replacement Sherman that became mired in mud under direct enemy fire and Casey stood exposed in the turret manning the 50 caliber machine gun and providing covering fire for infantry while his tank sat completely immobilized just standing there in the open firing.
Warren Cressy got recommended for the Medal of Honor but received a Silver Star and a battlefield commission to second lieutenant instead.
Korea came next where mortar fire destroyed his jaw.
He retired as a major and Arlington National Cemetery received him with full military honors.
His case represents one of several documented instances where 761st soldiers clearly deserving the Medal of Honor received lesser awards or nothing at all.
And the pattern stands as unmistakable.
Extraordinary valor led to official recommendations that mysteriously got downgraded or disappeared into administrative limbo.
December 16th, 1944 brought the German army’s last major offensive on the Western Front.
the Arden’s offensive that we call the Battle of the Bulge and the 761st got reassigned to the 87th Infantry Division and moved to Belgium approximately 30 mi southwest of Bastonia.
The fighting at a town called Tilly from December 31st through January 7th to 9th became one of their most documented engagements and documented matters here because this is one of the battles where we have detailed records of what actually happened, not just general accounts of bravery.
Captain Charles A.
Gates.
They called him Popgates.
Led a 10-tank assault against elements of two elite German units consisting of the Furer Beglight Brigade and the 113th Panzer Brigade.
These weren’t second rate occupation troops, but some of Germany’s finest remaining armored forces equipped with Panthers and Tigers.
Early in the assault, Gates tank got knocked out and he continued coordinating the attack on foot using a radio man to stay in contact with his remaining tanks.
11 tanks went into that assault.
Nine got destroyed, but till it fell because the 761st had split the German lines at three points and helped hasten the relief of Bastonia.
Captain Gates earned a silver star, retired as a colonel, and became the first black person in Missouri knighted in the Order of St.
George, which is the military order associated with armor and cavalry.
A couple of other moments from Tilllet give you a sense of how these men fought.
Staff Sergeant Frank Cochran’s tank took three hits, and he radioed back that they’ve hit me three times, but I’m still giving them hell.
While Lieutenant Moses Dade’s tank lost its turret, the entire turret blown off, and he drove the damaged vehicle toward German positions while firing the hull machine gun with no main armament, just driving toward the enemy and firing whatever he had left.
Something else happened during the Battle of the Bulge.
That tells you what these men were dealing with beyond the German army.
On January 9th, 1945, a Nazi propagandist named Mildred Gillers.
Americans called her Axis Sally began broadcasting on the 761st’s radio frequency, trying to demoralize them with racist messages and convince them they were fighting the wrong enemy.
During this same period, a captured German prisoner asked Sergeant Johnny Holmes, “What are you doing here? This is a white man’s war.
” Holmes responded with words worth remembering when he said, “You ain’t got no black or white when you’re over here and the nation is in trouble.
You only got Americans.
” You only got Americans.
Coming from a man serving in a segregated unit who couldn’t drink from the same water fountain as a German P back in the United States who was fighting an enemy that at least acknowledged his presence while his own country tried to pretend he didn’t exist.
March 1945 in the Sigf freed line assault matter because this is where we have the most thoroughly documented combat statistics for the 761st numbers that came directly from official army records and got verified later in the presidential unit citation they eventually received the Sief freed line the Germans called it the west wall stood as Hitler’s primary defensive barrier consisting of a system of bunkers pill boxes tank traps and fortifications running along along Germany’s western border.
Breaking through required combined arms operations with infantry, armor, artillery, and air support working in coordination.
Attachment to the 103rd Infantry Division brought the 761st into a 72-hour assault from March 20th through 23rd, 1945.
72 hours, 3 days.
And here’s what they accomplished according to official records.
Seven Ziggf freed line towns captured, 31 pill boxes destroyed, 49 machine gun imp placements destroyed, 61 anti-tank guns destroyed, 451 vehicles destroyed or captured, and over 4,100 enemy casualties inflicted.
Those numbers come verified from the presidential unit citation.
4,100 casualties in 72 hours achieved while facing elements of 14 different German divisions.
The Vermacht was throwing everything they had left at that section of the line and the 761st punched through.
Something needs addressing here because historical accuracy matters.
Sources claim the 761st inflicted 130,000 enemy casualties during the war and that number appears in popular histories, documentaries, even some veteran accounts.
But there is no traceable primary source for it.
The presidential unit citation, which stands as the most authoritative official document we have, states only thousands of enemy casualties, and the only specific verified figure remains the 4,100 plus during this 72-hour Sief Freed line assault.
130,000 casualties would represent an impossible ratio for a single battalion of about 700 men.
The 76k1st’s actual verified record needs no exaggeration because the documented facts stand as extraordinary enough.
And when we repeat unverifiable statistics, we actually undermine the credibility of the real achievements.
The Sigfrieded line breakthrough stands as verified documented proof of tactical excellence under the worst possible combat conditions.
May 4th, 1945, four days before the war in Europe ended, brought the 761st into participation in liberating a place called Gunskirkin concentration camp, a subcamp of the Mount Housen Gusen system in Austria, arriving alongside the 71st Infantry Division.
Approximately 15,000 Hungarian Jews got found there, with most near death from starvation, typhus, and dysentery.
The SS guards had fled days before leaving the grounds littered with corpses, and the survivors could barely comprehend that liberation had come.
A survivor named Sonia Shriber Whites was 17 years old when the 761st arrived.
And years later, she wrote a poem called The Black Messiah about being liberated by black soldiers.
That moment carries weight that’s hard to fully articulate because victims of Nazi racial ideology, people who had been systematically dehumanized, starved, worked to death because of their ethnicity, got freed by American soldiers that their own country’s racial hierarchy had marginalized.
Sonia White survived, immigrated to the United States, and spent the rest of her life speaking about the Holocaust and about the black soldiers who liberated her.
That intersection of racial oppression and liberation, victims of one racial ideology freed by victims of another, carries a weight that’s hard to fully articulate.
The next day, May 5th, brought the 761st to Styr, Austria, where they linked up with the Soviet first Ukrainian front at the Ends River, among the first American units to meet Soviet forces.
May 8th, 1945 brought the end of the war in Europe.
83 days of continuous combat across France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Austria, participating in four major Allied campaigns.
And now it was over.
Section 8, Patton’s documented contradiction.
General George S.
patents relationship with the 761st reveals something about how racism functioned in the military and how easy it is for mythology to obscure historical reality.
October 28th, 1944 near Nancy, France brought Patton’s speech to the assembled 761st Tank Battalion, well documented through Tresvont Anderson, an embedded journalist who published an account of it in his 1945 book, Come Out Fighting.
Patton’s words went like this.
Men, you’re the first negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army.
I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good.
I have nothing but the best in my army.
I don’t care what color you are, as long as you go up there and kill those crouch sons of Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you.
Most of all, your race is looking forward to your success.
Don’t let them down and damn you, don’t let me down.
Powerful speech, inspiring even.
And for decades, this became the story people told about Patton and the 761st.
That he believed in them, that he gave them their chance, that he recognized their worth.
Patton’s diary sits preserved at the Library of Congress.
And that same day, the same day he gave that speech, he wrote this in his private journal.
The 76th verse gave a very good impression, but I have no faith in the inherent fighting ability of the race.
No faith in the inherent fighting ability of the race stands as what he actually believed.
Patton’s postumously published memoir war as I knew.
It contains this passage about how a colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight an armor.
And he expressed his belief at the time and never found the necessity of changing it.
never found the necessity of changing it even after the Sigf freed line, even after Tilllet, even after 183 days of continuous combat that proved everything he believed was wrong.
Another myth needs correcting because it gets repeated constantly.
Patton did not recommend the 761st for a presidential unit citation, which stands as a common misconception.
Captain Ivan Harrison submitted that recommendation on July 25th, 1945, and the Army denied it on August 18th, 1945, stating the action was not sufficiently outstanding.
General Eisenhower formally denied it again on February 12th, 1946.
Not sufficiently outstanding after the Sief Freed line breakthrough.
not sufficiently outstanding.
After 183 days in combat, Patton gave the 761st an opportunity to fight, which stands as significant because they might never have seen combat without his operational need for tank units.
But he gave them that opportunity while personally believing they would fail.
And he never changed that belief despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
That’s the reality of George S.
Patton and the 761st Tank Battalion.
Understanding what the 761st accomplished requires understanding the system they were fighting within.
And that doesn’t mean the German Vermacht, but the United States Army.
1925 brought the Army War College, the institution that trains highle military officers, producing a classified study titled The Use of Negro Manpower in War.
This wasn’t some fringe document, but official Army intellectual product produced by an all-white faculty at the military’s premier educational institution.
The report concluded that African-Ameans were very low in the scale of human evolution, claimed they had smaller brains, stated they lacked courage, and were dominated by moral and character weaknesses.
official US Army doctrine with Secretary of War Henry Stimson defending these findings and the policies they produced while asserting that black soldiers were less capable of handling modern weapons.
This intellectual framework kept the 761st in training for 2 and 1/2 years.
This is why their Medal of Honor recommendations disappeared.
This is why the presidential unit citation got denied with the claim that their actions were not sufficiently outstanding.
The cruel irony that the men of the 761st lived with every day was that German prisoners of war in the United States had access to whites only facilities denied to the black soldiers who captured them.
A German P could eat in restaurants where a 76 tanker couldn’t sit and could use restrooms marked whites only while the man who had taken him prisoner couldn’t.
You were fighting an enemy that at least recognized you existed while your own country tried to pretend you didn’t.
The combat record exists, documented and verified.
Major General Willard S.
Paul of the 26th Infantry Division officially commended the 761st for conspicuous courage and success and praised the gallantry with which they faced some of Germany’s finest troops and that commendation sits in the official record.
The Sief Freed line statistics stand verified.
The towns liberated stand documented.
The decorations, even the ones that got reduced or delayed, sit in the files.
You can’t erase facts.
You can ignore them, suppress them, delay recognition for decades, but you can’t erase them.
The timeline of recognition for the 761st tells its own story because the delays speak volumes.
November 20th, 1944 brought Captain David Williams submitting Reuben Rivers Medal of Honor recommendation one day after River’s death.
The paperwork going to Colonel Hollis Hunt and then nothing.
July the 25th, 1945 brought Captain Ivan Harrison submitting the battalion’s first request for a presidential unit citation.
August 18th, 1945 brought the army denying it with the reason stated as not sufficiently outstanding.
February 12th, 1946 brought General Eisenhower formally denying the PUC request again.
Decades passed with the men of the 761st going home, dealing with Jim Crow, raising families, some fighting in Korea, some in Vietnam, getting older, waiting.
January 24th, 1978 brought President Jimmy Carter, awarding the 761st Tank Battalion the presidential unit citation 33 years after the war ended.
Many of the men who earned it were dead.
Some were elderly.
But finally, officially, the United States government acknowledged that their actions were in fact sufficiently outstanding.
The individual Medal of Honor recommendations remained ignored.
1993 brought Shaw University commissioning a comprehensive study of why no African-American received the Medal of Honor during World War II with Dr.
Daniel K.
Jabbran leading the research.
The study’s conclusion came blunt.
It was simply racism.
And the researchers noted there’s no official explicit documentation of discrimination because recommendations were never processed, but determined definitively that the failure of an African-American soldier to win a Medal of Honor most definitely lay in the racial climate and practice within the uh army during World War II.
October 1996 brought Congress lifting the statutory time limit for awarding the Medal of Honor to African-American World War II veterans, requiring special legislation, having to change the law to allow recognition for valor that should have been recognized 50 years earlier.
January 13th, 1997 brought President Bill Clinton awarding the Medal of Honor postumously to seven African-American World War II veterans, including Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers of the 761st Tank Battalion 52 years after his death.
His sister Grace Woodfork received it while Captain David Williams, the man who submitted the original recommendation in November 1944, attended the ceremony, elderly but alive, to see the recognition he’d fought for finally arrive.
President Clinton presented that medal and said, “No African-Amean who deserved the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II received it.
Today, we fill the gap in that picture.
52 years to fill that gap.
What we know with certainty about the 761st Tank Battalion’s combat record comes from verified statistics drawn from official Army sources and the presidential unit citation.
183 days of continuous operational employment from November 7th, 1944 to May 6th, 1945.
34 enemy tanks destroyed.
461 wheeled vehicles destroyed.
113 large guns captured or destroyed.
Four airfields captured.
Over 30 towns liberated across six countries.
71 of their own tanks lost with approximately 50% casualties approaching 350 casualties from a 712man unit.
34 killed in action consisting of three officers and 31 enlisted, 202 wounded, consisting of 22 officers and 180 enlisted.
Decorations awarded include one medal of honor.
Though it took 52 years, 11 silver stars, though some sources site seven because the documentation isn’t perfect, 69 to 70 bronze stars, approximately 300 purple hearts, and one presidential unit citation awarded 33 years late.
Elements of 14 different German divisions got faced during the Sief Freed line assault alone.
Four major Allied campaigns got fought.
15,000 concentration camp prisoners got help toward liberation and they stood among the first American units to link up with Soviet forces.
These stand as the verified facts requiring no embellishment because the actual record proves remarkable enough.
The 761st Tank Battalion story comes down to evidence versus ideology at its core.
The ideology enshrined in Army War College reports repeated by secretaries of war believed by generals held that African-Americans couldn’t think fast enough to fight in armor that they lacked courage that they were biologically inferior.
The evidence said otherwise through 183 days in combat, through the Sief Freed line breakthrough, through TLET, through Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers refusing evacuation with his leg laid open and fighting for three more days before dying in combat.
Through Sergeant Warren Cressy standing exposed in his tank turret, manning a 50 cal while immobilized under fire.
Through First Sergeant Samuel Turley climbing out of a tank ditch to provide covering fire for his men.
What makes this story particularly important in 2026 is that it demonstrates how institutional racism doesn’t just harm individuals, but corrupts the historical record itself.
33 years passed before a presidential unit citation got awarded.
52 years before a Medal of Honor arrived, and extraordinary acts of valor got witnessed, documented, and recommended for recognition before getting systematically ignored because they contradicted prevailing beliefs about race.
The 761st story isn’t just about World War II, but stands as a case study in how racism shapes what gets remembered and what gets forgotten, who gets honored and who gets erased, which facts get preserved, and which get buried in filing cabinets for 50 years.
President Clinton finally awarded Ruben Rivers Medal of Honor in 1997 when Grace Woodfork received her brother’s medal more than half a century after he earned it.
Captain David Williams attended, elderly and white-haired, watching the recommendation he’d submitted in 1944 finally get honored.
How many other witnesses were dead by then? And how many men who fought alongside Rivers, who saw what he did, who deserved to see him honored, died waiting.
The 761st Tank Battalion proved that courage has no color, that tactical excellence isn’t determined by race, that American soldiers are American soldiers regardless of what an Army War College report claims.
They proved it with documented combat effectiveness that required no exaggeration and no mythology.
Their country systematically denied them recognition for decades in return.
Facts eventually prevail which stands as the good news if there is good news in this story.
You can delay recognition.
You can downgrade decorations.
You can file Medal of Honor recommendations in the back of a drawer and pretend they don’t exist.
But you can’t ultimately erase the combat record.
The Sief Freed line statistics remain real.
The towns liberated remain real.
The 15,000 concentration camp prisoners remain real.
The 183 days remain real.
History eventually catches up with the truth, even when it takes 50 years.
The 761st Tank Battalion, the Black Panthers, fought two enemies in World War II and defeated one on the battlefield, while the other took half a century to overcome.
Both victories matter.
Both deserve to be remembered, and the verified facts of what they accomplished prove extraordinary enough to need no embellishment.
That’s the story of the 761st Tank Battalion.
Not the mythology, not the exaggerations you’ll find in some sources, but the documented, verified, extraordinary truth.
