![]() The 761st slugged its way across Europe, taking part in the battles that breached the infamous Siegfried Line, which stretched nearly 400 miles and had more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. and Robinson’s daughter, Sharon, attended Howard University at the same time.) The tank battalion was formed in 1942 in Louisiana, and was transferred to Camp Hood in Texas. “Like many black people, he wanted to show his support for America despite the segregation.”įor nearly five years, Burns served his country. He found a job as a tailor at the Bonwit Teller department store in Manhattan, but in 1940, he enlisted in the Army. Jeff headed north and settled in Inwood a year later. In 1938, the family moved to Florida, but couldn’t find work. was born in Boston, Ga., in 1904, the youngest of nine children. Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you … Don’t let them down. “… I don’t care what color you are, as long as you go up there and kill those kraut sonsabitches. “Men, you’re the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army,” he told them, according to the unit’s history, written by Lt. Renowned for his off-color language, Patton addressed the 761st six days before the unit became the first African-American armored unit to see combat. Then I began reading about my father and got deeper and deeper into it.”Īccording to statistics compiled by Joe Wilson Jr., another son of a member of the 761st, in his book “The 761st ‘Black Panther’ Tank Battalion in World War II,” the unit inflicted 130,000 casualties on the German army and captured or destroyed thousands of weapons, while battling severe weather, difficult terrain, heavily fortified enemy positions, extreme shortages of replacement personnel and equipment, and an overall casualty rate of nearly 50 percent. “Growing up, I saw Audie Murphy and other war heroes, but no one looked like my father. “Two of the most popular all-black units were the Tuskegee Airmen and the 761st,” Burns said, noting that the tank battalion created much more damage than the airmen. At the time, the military was segregated. The two other black tank battalions were the 758th and the 784th. ![]() Beginning with a sixth-grade project at the Number Three School in Lawrence, Burns, who is now 67, has made it his mission to recount stories about the 761st Tank Battalion, also known as the Black Panthers, the unit in which his father served in the tank corps commanded by Gen.
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