RE: Death after bailout
-
Thursday, April 10, 2008 1:04 PM
Here is a little more concerning the murder of Airmen by civilians in Germany
RUSSELHEIM ATROCITY (August 26, 1944)
On a bombing mission over Germany, a US 8th Airforce B-24 bomber, piloted by 2nd Lt Norman J Rogers, was hit by flak and crash landed some 90 miles south of Hanover. The nine man crew were captured, one with a broken ankle was taken to hospital. The other eight were put on a train to a P.O.W. camp. On the way, the train stopped at Russelheim where the airmen dismounted and were marched through the town under guard. During the march they were set upon by a crowd of townspeople and pelted with stones, bricks and shovels. Two airmen ran for their lives and escaped. The other six, battered and unconscious were shot by the local Nazi leader, a foreman in the towns Opel Works. All were buried in a common grave. Later, the bodies were recovered and re-interned in the Lorraine Military Cemetery at St Avold in France. After the war eleven of the perpetrators were found and arrested. Five men were found guilty and hanged, two women received a 30 year jail term, two other men, 15 years each, and one to 25 years. One was acquitted.
(In August 2001, one of the survivors, tail gunner Sidney E Brown, of Florida, was invited back to Russelsheim by the town municipality to receive a formal apology from its citizens. On the 60th anniversary of the atrocity , August 26, 2004, the town dedicated a memorial to those killed)
That same year, 1944, on December 13, three British airmen were captured and were being marched through the streets of Essen on their way to a Luftwaffe unit for interrogation. The three man escort was commanded by Hauptmann Erich Heyer who ordered the escorts not to interfere if civilians attacked the prisoners. Attacked they were as the party crossed a bridge. Sticks and stones were thrown and a pistol was fired which wounded one of the prisoners in the head. The prison and one of the civilians, Johann Braschoss, were sentenced to death. One of the escorts, Private Koenen, was sent to prison for five years and two other civilians, Karl Kaufer and Hugo Boddenberg, to life imprisonment and ten years respectively. The death sentences were carried out on March 8th 1946. On March 22, 1945, five RAF aircrew were captured after baling out from their damaged aircraft during a raid on the Dreierwalde airfield in which around forty civilians and Luftwaffe personnel were killed. Marched to an interrogation centre by a three man German guard, under the command of Oberfeldwebel Karl Amberger, the party turned on to a track leading into a wood. There the prisoners were shot in cold blood. One prisoner, Australian Flt. Lt. Berick, though wounded, managed to escape. At a British Military Court at Wuppertal on 11th to 14th March, 1946, Karl Amberger was found guilty of shooting unarmed prisoners of war and was sentenced to death. He was hanged on May 15th. 1946.
Sincerely yours,
PA.Dutchman
Son of Tech Sgt. Raymond A. Heilman, JR.
11 TH Field Artillery 1937-1940
Schofield Barracks
7 TH AAC 11 BGH 42 Sq.1940-45
Hickam Survivor 12/7/1941
USAAC Armorer (P) 911
Presidential Unit Citation 1942