Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II

Companion volume to an upcoming PBS special, this work recounts the tragic saga of the 761st Tank Battalion, whose African American personnel trained for two years in the racist backwaters of the South, made a major contribution to Gen. George Patton's Third Army in the WW II European campaigns, then returned to the U.S. after the war to find that discrimination against them had grown worse. The 761st's military record is impressive. The battalion fought farther east than any other U.S. unit (but was prevented from making the historic link-up with the Red Army, a ceremony reserved for white troops), and led the way for U.S. forces in the liberation of Jewish survivors at Dachau and Buchenwald. In the saddest irony of all, the authors (all New York City film producers) describe how the African Americans received a warm welcome in England and from German civilians during occupation duty, and as a result were roundly resented by their white comrades in arms. Photos. (Nov.)