Larry Hayward Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 In the terms of killing of POWs in WW2 most people would think of SS atrocities. However I was recently talking to a friend who's father died recently. Before he died he told his son of a time when he was in the Commandos in NW Europe. Sometime after D-Day he and some other Commandos came across some British Grenadier (?) Guards holding a handfull of German soldiers prisoner. Earlier in the war Hitler had decreed that all captured British Commandos should be shot if captured, so there was no love lost between the Commandos and any Nazis. The Commandos had had a rough time of it on D-Day, so when they discovered the POWs were SS an argument broke out between the Commandos and the Guardsmen, with the Commandos demanding they hand over the SS soldiers. The Guardsmen refused but as the Commandos were in greater numbers and threatened to shoot the Guardsmen if they did not get out of the way, they stepped aside and the Commandos shot all the POWs. I don't doubt the story is true and it is probably not the only time it happened It makes you think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 An interesting story. Were these RM commandos or an Special Service Brigade unit? We would all have to be totally naive to assume our chaps didn't murder German prisoners. I make no apology for not caring less. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Heat of the moment killings, however inexcusible, do not compare with the events of Wormhoudt/Esquelbecq, which was cold blooded murder or Le Paradis, which was probably a mix of the two. Fritz Knoechlein was executed in 1949 for his leadership of the massacre at Le Paradis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 Here are some views of Esquelbecq Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 the barn and memorial tablet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 graves and details Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abn deuce Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 Could someone post a few of the details of the event as I have never heard of it and want to know more about it . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 A side bar to Hitler's 'Commando order' was the internment of British civilians from the Channel Islands and the confiscation of civilian radios. As a result of this listening to a radio became a capital offence, ending with British civilians in concentration camps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlienFTM Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Could someone post a few of the details of the event as I have never heard of it and want to know more about it . Check out "Hitler's Last General" (google for the quoted string and you'll find a link to Amazon - I found it in my local library; if your local library doesn't have it, clock the ISBN and order from your local library. Or buy your own!) which looks at the wartime "exploites" of Wilhelm Mohnke, who seemed to be linked to every LSSAH atrocity of the war, this one included (obviously). ISTR it also touches on atrocities by the allies, but I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Gosh, we are going to stir up another big debate here and probably on things that we have covered before. Yes executions happened on all sides and not being particularly pleasant everyone likes to gloss over it . All sides did it. Just read about the 101st taking 30 Georgian prisoners off the IV Div and shooting them all near St Mere Eglise. Also ATB had an article about US Infantry shooting a whole load of Volksturum who were trying to surrender, but unfortunately had been issued with SS Uniforms which did not go down well with the Yanks. Another thing that ATB mentioned was that some SOE took some German prisoners on a Greek Island. Just before leaving they executed one, i think that they did not have space for him. Germans were recently talking about War Crimes trial, but probably a bit late now. By our nature we are inclined to forgive those who executed our enemies. We also feel very angry about our enemies executing Allied troops. The incident at Paradise farm i find particularly disturbing, especially as it seems to have been so calculated and not a "heat of the moment" thing. And my point was what exactly? Oh, i dont know. War is hell! Tim (too) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Maybe the difference was that is was not Allied government policy to condone such actions. Yes I know the obvious rejoinder, 'but the British invented concentration Camps''. Mis use of terms. during the Boer War 1899-1901 the British military brought in Boer families, to concentrate them, and deprive the Commandos of logistics and intelligence. That many of these families died is not in dispute, but it was caused by stupidity on the part of British authorities, not as part of State policy. At the time questions were asked in Parliament, in the press and opposition to the policy was vocal. Nothing of this happened during the rule of the 3rd Reich. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Could someone post a few of the details of the event as I have never heard of it and want to know more about it . The massacre at Wormhoudt/Lendringhem/Esquelbecq (twenty miles outside Dunkirk) actually happened in a field outside Esquelbecq on 28.05.1940. British rearguard units of artillery and infantry held up an LAH SS unit, causing casualties. Once the various British groups had surrendered the SS marched perhaps 100 Brits to the field and then killed nearly all of them, some civilians and a single French POW with grenades, bullets and bayonets. The British units were 210 Anti-tank Regt RA, 4th Cheshires and 2nd Royal Warwicks. About ninety men are thought to have died. They had their ID's removed beforehand. At the site only around forty men are commemorated because so many could not be placed at the scene. A man called Bert Evans escaped and was one of the main witnesses. He had been rescued by his officer Captain Lynn-Allen, but they were found by more SS and the officer was shot dead. His body was never found and is thought to be in a mass grave at the site. The identified dead are buried in Esquelbecq with the others commemorated on the Dunkirk Memorial. Sepp Deitrich never faced trial for leading the men who carried out the massacre Le Paradise is nearer to Lille. Here another SS unit - the Totenkopf also came up against stiff defences and lost heavily on May 29th 1940. An SS officer, Fritz Knoechlein was in a huge rage and men from his 2 Kompanie lined up 96 British soldiers from the Royal Norfolks and Royal Scots plus others and machine gunned them. There is a photo of the scene showing the dead.The wounded were bayoneted and beaten to death. Knoechlein then travelled the area shooting individual British wounded and there are some perhaps wild claims his men murdered Wermacht witnesses. After the war a survivor Bert Pooley, sought justice, but he had trouble. However once he had convinced the British that the massacre had actually taken place (!) he was able to identify Knoechlein who was tried in 1948 and hanged the next year. I'll add some more site pics soon. These crimes perhaps pale in to insignificance compared to the concentration camps, Babi Yar, or to be balanced the Hamburg fire raids by Bomber Command. But they deserve mention. Both sites are very eerie and painfully sad places to visit. Since I was last at Equelbecq a lot more work has been done to smarten it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abn deuce Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Thank you for the information , I will try and read up on it further . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Degsy Posted August 31, 2007 Share Posted August 31, 2007 The massacre at Wormhout has significance for me as some of the RA men who died came from this area. Llandudno is twinned with Wormhout and many visits are exchanged every year but it seems to be one of the events that has been forgotten probably overshadowed by events at Dunkirk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted August 31, 2007 Share Posted August 31, 2007 Like the whole Little Dunkirk. From 23rd to 26th May this was the eacuation of trops from St Malo by Channel Island fishing vessels and yachts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 31, 2007 Share Posted August 31, 2007 The massacre at Wormhout has significance for me as some of the RA men who died came from this area. Llandudno is twinned with Wormhout and many visits are exchanged every year but it seems to be one of the events that has been forgotten probably overshadowed by events at Dunkirk. Indeed. There are some lovely memorials from Llandudno there. 210 AT RA were a TA regiment, I think and the batteries had men from Birmingham and all over the Midlands. as well as Wales. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted August 31, 2007 Share Posted August 31, 2007 Thank you for the information , I will try and read up on it further . Thanks Nebraska! There are some books you can still get on Amazon. I haven't read them myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Hayward Posted September 10, 2007 Author Share Posted September 10, 2007 I should have said that the Commando Unit involved was an Army unit and nothing to do with the Royal Marines. Incidentally i do not think that Hitler issued orders to have Captured RMs shot - only the Army Commandos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted September 10, 2007 Share Posted September 10, 2007 Hitler's commando order is alleged to have been as the result of landing operations, couldn't really be called Commando raids, on the Channel Islands, specifically Guernsey. Churchill pressured for a series of operations codenamed Anger and Ambassador. None produced anything of any value to the Allies. the result was the Commando Order and the deportation of all non Island born civilians to internment camps in Germany. Churchill isn't that revered in a lot of quarters in the Islands. The order applied to all small clandistine raiding forces regardless of which unit. the supposed justification was the finding of a dead German soldier with his hands bound after such a raid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted September 14, 2007 Share Posted September 14, 2007 I think this raid is covered in the biography of Anders Lassen, the fearless Dane who won a posthumous VC in 1944 in Italy. I think he was on this raid, which as Tony says included the death of a German soldier who was tied up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted September 14, 2007 Share Posted September 14, 2007 the tied soldier thing seems to be attached to several incidents. Another result was the binding of POWs, it was in a film but can't remember which one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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