Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
The famous picture of Major David Currie VC, in the immediate aftermath of the battle to close the Falaise Gap at St-Lambert-sur-Dives. An interesting foot note in this famous picture is the German officer surrendering/talking to a Sergeant-Major from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada. Years after the war a lady in Germany saw this picture and recognized the German officer as her son, who after surrendering vanished and never seen again.
The CSM's name was George Mitchell. Currie, exasperated by the arrogance of the German officer, and exhausted and short tempered after being in constant combat for some time, said curtly to Mitchell "Get rid of this guy."
Mitchell and prisoner went down a lane just north of this picture. Only Mitchell returned.
BTW, in August of 2014, I stood in the exact spot where Currie is shown. An eerie feeling!
If this is documented, it is a war crime. Capt. Robt. Semrau was court martialed for less.
OK, so who is the fellow with the mike ?
He's fairly famous in Quebec !!
There's "known" and there's "documented".
If it was "known" but not documented, there would have been no trial. Especially at the end of WWII when everyone was busy prosecuting every German officer they could get hold of, congratulating themselves on their moral superiority. Nobody wanted any high profile trials of allied officers and non-comms for war crimes.
Even a fair number of "documented" incidents got swept under the rug at the end of WWII. It was a more expedient, less politically correct time.
And no, I'm not passing judgement on any of those men. It really was a different time, and there were different considerations at play.
I go back and forth about my thoughts on the Semrau affair. What he did was both honorable, and illegal, and that's a very fine line to walk. The fact that he was acting as a mentor to Afghan forces at the time of the incident weighs against him - he needed to be holding himself to a higher standard.
I read his biography of his experiences as a mentor, and I came away from that with no clearer idea of what to think of the man. I believe he was an honourable officer, but from his own writing, it is quite clear he was also deeply influenced by the myths of military history as presented by Hollywood.
And they were totally different eras, different wars, with different cultural rules.
On the whole, I think what Semrau did was, as I said, both honorable and illegal. That didn't give the Canadian military a lot of wiggle room, no matter what the fundamental ethics of his actions may have been. Notably, he was convicted of the equivalent of "Conduct Unbecoming" - not of murder. There was no corpse to be found, the physical evidence was long gone by the time the investigation got underway, and there were no direct witnesses to his actions - or at least none that would come forward. He was demoted and dismissed from the military, and not imprisoned.
In the other case being discussed, I doubt very much that any body was ever found, at least not that could be directly associated with the incident. Legally, no body = no murder, in almost every case. In the chaos of the campaigns on the Western Front, and the mass interments of German soldiers and officers... There was a war to be won. Nobody was asking deep questions that could be avoided. If an arrogant German officer went missing... I just don't think anyone would look too hard for answers about it.
That was the reality of what was going on at the time.
And again, I don't really want to get into judging either man particularly. I wasn't there, wasn't faced with their pressures, concerns, fears, and choices. I'm quite happy to have the luxury of never having had to face those choices.
Sharps '63 said: "The Stalinist regime was even distrustful of Russian ethnics who fought with the Allies, incarcerating many of them out of fear that they had been influenced by western democratic ideals."
"Incarcerating" is a very mild word for what happened to the entire Vlasov Army after we turned them over to Uncle Joe.
I believe a better word might have been "Interred".
Can't have Russians or Ukrainians fighting for independence, can we?
"Incarcerating" is a very mild word for what happened to the entire Vlasov Army after we turned them over to Uncle Joe.
I believe a better word might have been "Interred".
Can't have Russians or Ukrainians fighting for independence, can we?
Sporting Lad
Regular
- Location
- Vancouver Island
Roads to Moscow:
About 40 years ago, a Brit called Al Stewart wrote and performed a song called "Roads to Moscow". It's about some poor Russian footslogger
who gets captured by the Germans in the early days. In the confusion of the next day he, and a few of his comrades manage to escape and make
it back to the retreating Soviets' "line". Later on, in Berlin, some Commissar overhears him talking about his narrow escape and...he ends up being
sent to a labour camp as punishment. I'm sure that happened to many, many Russian survivors.
Maybe you know the song. I think it's a masterpiece. Very evocative--I get cold everytime I listen to it....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVGtG-ZnF0g
About 40 years ago, a Brit called Al Stewart wrote and performed a song called "Roads to Moscow". It's about some poor Russian footslogger
who gets captured by the Germans in the early days. In the confusion of the next day he, and a few of his comrades manage to escape and make
it back to the retreating Soviets' "line". Later on, in Berlin, some Commissar overhears him talking about his narrow escape and...he ends up being
sent to a labour camp as punishment. I'm sure that happened to many, many Russian survivors.
Maybe you know the song. I think it's a masterpiece. Very evocative--I get cold everytime I listen to it....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVGtG-ZnF0g
Last edited:
The French soldiers in the German army were, the war ended, imprisoned, they had the choice to stay in prison in disgrace, or from fighting in Indochina in Bilom (Light Infantry Battalion overseas) who conducted fighting hard against the Viets minh in 1948 ...
Others, captured by the French army of liberation (Gal Leclerc), were simply executed on site (Bad Reichenhall) ...
no, interred is the word, as in confined to a grave
