The Wereth Eleven (2011)

 

              “The Wereth Eleven” is a docudrama that tells the story of eleven African-American soldiers who were murdered by the SS during the Battle of the Bulge. It uses CGI to recreate some of the incidents and archival footage, including from the Germans. There are also scenes using actors.  One of the unit’s veterans is interviewed as well as a son of one of the eleven and the son of a Belgian family that tried to give them refuge. There is extensive narration.

              The Wereth Eleven were eleven members of the 333^rd Field Artillery Battalion which was overrun on the second day of the battle. Unlike the whites from Battery B of the 285^th Field Artillery Observation Battalion that were taken prisoner that same day at Malmedy and then executed, the members of the 333^rd were taken prisoner and made it to German prison camps. There is a clip from a German propaganda film that includes members of the 333^rd being marched to Germany. The Wereth Eleven members were the exceptions to that because unfortunately they avoided capture at first. I have recently been researching the Battle of the Bulge and ran across this story. The fact that I was not familiar with it shows how unknown the story is. The movie attempts to rectify that and does a good job of it.

Thankfully, the producers decided to go a different route than movies like “Miracle at St. Anna”. Sincere efforts like that are often hurt by poor acting and dialogue. This movie avoids that by using a minimum of recreations and they are not laughable. For instance, the deaths are not the hilarious ones associated with low budget films, and even some big budget ones like “Battle of the Bulge”. The blend of CGI, footage, and real actors works. The narration is often, but adds to the story. The film has time and place for some of the scenes, but maps would have been nice. The interviewees are good and the one veteran of the battalion, George Shomo, is outstanding.

Docudramas do not get the love that some of them deserve. I would rather see a CGI Tiger tank then another tank mocked up as one. It is often the best way to tell a true war story. A good docudrama avoids the historical fiction that creeps in when you have a screenplay, actors, and limited authentic gear, weapons, and vehicles. And it avoids a big problem in low budget WWII films. They often use overage, overweight reenactors. “The Wereth Eleven” uses a trip to the Ardennes by the son of one of the Eleven and an executive producer who is an older white man wearing a uniform. It’s almost as though the movie is asking us, “would you prefer to see this guy acting in the movie?”

What “The Wereth Eleven” does, it does well, but it does not tell the whole story. Clocking in at just over an hour, it could have used more time to flesh out the discrimination the unit faced starting in boot camp and how it earned respect in France. The film briefly mentions an incident when the battalion provided very accurate fire to aid a white unit, but it does not add more depth to their evolution. It also does not do a good job fleshing out the situation they were in during the first half of December in 1944. It uses a postscript to explain the lack of an investigation and the failure to bring anyone to justice for the execution. However, those caveats aside, it does an admirable job of bringing a forgotten story to light.

GRADE =  B

Here is the story I posted about the real Wereth Eleven, don’t read on if you want to avoid spoilers.  THE WERETH 11 -  The 333^rd Field Artillery Battalion was an African-American (“colored”) unit that landed at Utah Beach in July, 1944. It was commanded by Lt. Col. Harmon Kelsey. Kelsey was not happy with the assignment and was sure the unit would never see combat because it was incompetent blacks. He was wrong on both counts. It first saw combat in Normandy when it was tasked with destroying a church steeple that was being used to snipe at 82^nd Airborne paratroopers and for artillery spotting. The men got to work, chanting their unit song – “Stand Back! Ready! Rommel count your men! Fire! Rommel, how many men you got now?”  Within minutes the steeple was destroyed, along with the Germans in it. The unit gradually  gained a reputation for being quicker and more accurate than white artillery units. In the siege of Brest, it fired 1,500 rounds in one day. An article in Yank magazine made the unit famous in the American army. It ended up being assigned to Troy Middleton’s VIII Corps. In the Ardennes, it was located near Schonberg in support of the 2^nd and 106^th Divisions. When the Battle of the Bulge began, Schonberg fell on Dec. 17, 1944. Most of the battalion was taken prisoner. 11 men escaped into the countryside. They tried to make it to American lines. They ended up knocking on the door of the Langer family. The Langers were anti-German in a small community that was mainly pro-German. They were hiding two Belgians escaping German conscription. Unfortunately, one of their neighbors ratted them out and Germans from the 1^st SS Panzer Division arrived and the Americans were take without a fight. They were led to a field where they were tortured, mutilated, and murdered. They were treated much worse than the white soldiers executed at Malmedy.  The culprits were never brought to justice.