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Personal info

Full name
MOSS, Nathaniel
Date of birth
19 December 1920
Age
23
Place of birth
Harrison County, Texas
Hometown
Gregg County, Texas
Ethnicity
African American

Military service

Service number
38040062
Rank
Private
Function
unknown
Unit
C Battery,
333rd Field Artillery Battalion
Awards
Purple Heart

Death

Status
Killed in Action
Date of death
17 December 1944
Place of death
Hauptstrasse in Wereth, Belgium
Wereth, Belgium

Grave

Cemetery
American War Cemetery Henri-Chapelle
Plot Row Grave
F 10 8

Immediate family

Members
David Moss (father)
Essie (Bell) Moss (mother)
Ollie M. Moss (sister)
Anna Moss (sister)
Ruth Moss (sister)

More information

Pvt Nathaniel Moss enlisted in Dallas, Texas on 7 March 1941.

He was captured by German troops during the Battle of the Bulge in the town of Wereth, Belgium on December 17, 1944. He along with 10 other African American prisoners of the same unit had their helmets and rifles taken, were forced to sit on the cold and wet ground until dark and eventually made to run nearly 800 meters out of town, chased by a vehicle driven by the German soldiers. They then were brutally murdered and their bodies dumped in a roadside ditch. This atrocity is know as the Wereth Massacre or the Wereth 11.

An autopsy report on the 11 is ghastly: broken legs and arms, jaws shattered, fingers severed, bayonet wounds to the face and body and bullet wounds designed to inflict anguish rather than death.

Since 2004 there is a memorial at the site were these soldiers were murdered.

The complete story of the massacre can be found here: http://www.wereth.org

Source of information: Raf Dyckmans, www.wwiimemorial.com, www.footnote.com, www.fold3.com - WWII Draft Card, www.ancestry.com - family tree

Photo source: www.findagrave.com