Operation Savage Revenge

Remember seeing a documentary about this a while back.
"Two months after he and his men returned from Operation Loyton, a hush-hush mission behind enemy lines, Colonel Brian Franks of the SAS was a worried man.
After two months of bloody guerilla warfare against the Germans in the Vosges mountains of eastern France, 31 soldiers were missing, their fate unknown.
Were they safe in a prisoner-of-war camp, as international law (and common decency) entitled them to be? Or had the Germans exacted a terrible revenge for their undercover activities?
Without official sanction, Franks quietly sent his best intelligence officers back to France to find out. Within days, they knew the worst.
Three bodies identifiable as SAS men were discovered. They’d been the first of the group to go missing, captured in the autumn of 1944 after parachuting into the region to disrupt German supply lines.
Local French witnesses told of seeing them in German hands, and hearing bursts of machine-gun fire. They had clearly been murdered.
So, too, had another group of three, captured hiding out two months later at the end of the mission. They were apparently locked in a barn that was blown up with grenades. A cut-and-dried war crime.
The fate of the other men seemed very likely to have been the same, since it was virtually certain they, too, had fallen into the hands of the Gestapo. In which case, the SAS’s job would be to hunt down their killers and bring them to justice.
A special operation was led by the intrepid Major Bill Barkworth, SAS to the core and a brilliant maverick, with little time for rules. But as he soon discovered, every possible obstacle would be put in his way: from his own side!
With the war against Germany finally over, Stalin’s Soviet Union was seen as the new enemy and the new military priority. Seeking revenge on middle-ranking Nazis behind such atrocities was considered counter-productive, undermining stability in the wreckage of the Third Reich.
Yes, a few dozen casualties of Operation Loyton had been captured and disappeared into the fog of Hitler’s evil empire, but their deaths were a pinprick compared with the extermination of millions at Belsen, Auschwitz and the like.
Officially, there was no more to be said or done. But Colonel Franks was not prepared to let the fate of his missing men drop. He instructed Barkworth to continue his hunt, which the major and his deputy, Sgt Dusty Rhodes, followed doggedly over the next four years.
They made quick headway, identifying through dental records and other clues the remains of four more SAS soldiers in a mass grave of murdered prisoners in a forest."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3268827/Nazi-Hunters-SAS-tracked-SS-monsters-killed-comrades.html#ixzz3oMg12qH6

 

people have been executed since wars began.....what I call a ''necessary'' human trait...was this operation in the book, When the Odds Were Even?? or Who Dares Wins....seems very familiar.....excellent reading for small unit ops........rugged country to operate in....

 

Sounds about the right timescale. The books I'm thinking of were Winged Dagger and These Men Are Dangerous.

 

The status of personnel operating behind enemy lines is iffy, saboteurs and ambushers were often not allowed to surrender, and if captured out of uniform shooting them was legal.

 

good point about behind the lines.....I'm thinking about snipers also, when I say the ''feeling''/idea of behind the lines atttacks are different than your ''standard'' attacks....so as you state, their status was iffy and different....and, just think, you are moving down the road or trail, or like some Germans, driving casually down the road when ambushed.....you're dang right there are a lot of people that would not capture the ambushers, if they could....usually the ambush would be at least somewhat successful....but, I'm sure you also mean, if pursued, they would not be captured....you would be super pissed and angry, hate filled, etc if ambushed

 

If they are out of uniform they can be tried and convicted as spys however they are still suppose to recieve a trial. If they are in uniform under the conventions they are to be treated the same as any other military POWs.

 

in reality, is that what it was like?

 

Not sure what you mean. That's what the conventions call for. Clearly they weren't always honored but not doing so leaves the perpetraitor open to war crime charges. Reprisals were actually legal as well at the time but only with due process

 

I believe that if out of uniform and carrying/using weapons they are automatically bandits, no need to prove they are also doing espionage . And after operating for a while out of supply uniforms are bound to become nearly unrecognizable and will probably be "integrated" by non regulation clothing, creating an ambiguous situation.

Troops getting shot at in areas they believe to be "safe" are more likely to grant no quarter, nothing in the treaties allows that, but it's human nature.

From a treaty perspective snipers are soldiers like all others, I still believe that some ignorant translated the treaty term "franc tireur" that means "irregular soldier" with "sniper" and a whole legend considering snipers illegal came out of that.

 

Well they could be hunting? The conventions do call for due process in almost if not all cases. An enemy national carrying weapons behind lines though is a pretty strong indicator of eithe espionage or sabotage. An escaped POW might be the exception.

I'm not sure I ever saw a case being made for snipers being "illegal" though.

At least according to what I've read possesion of certain weapons (bayonetts with sawteeth for instance) could also result in "harsh" treatment. Theoretically they were legal but I'm not sure how much such activity was conducted and whether or not it was discouraged. I don't think I ever saw evidence that someone was brought up on charges for actions against those carrying such weapons or for that matter for killing snipers in contravention to the conventions (at least not in singling out such individuals).

 

all through time, you have males getting into fights for the most inane reasons .....just think if you have been in battle, hungry, tired, etc for a long time..you don't give a dam for anything......a sniper is killing your comrades...or you are hit with an ambush,....unless, there is a clear cut surrender, sometimes, you will have some sort of execution or coup de gras.....there are no robots or TV heroes...

 

Patton for one was confused by the term sniper, when hearing of the Biscari massacre he apparently asked Bradley to fabricate proof the victims were "snipers".

 

Didn´t Hitler make the "commando order"? All commandos were to be shot straight away. Own uniform or not. That was his law.

 

Indeed see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commandrder

 

IMO both Hitler's order and Patton's "no surrender" speech violated the treaties,
On the other hand the "commandos" were involved in a number of prisoner killing incidents and other treaty violations. I don't know if this behaviour was officially sanctioned or not, but it's unlikely the commanders were not aware of it, the very nature of commando operations made respecting the treaties close to impossible.
Historically units that rely on "hit and run" were less likely be spared than line units if "run" failed.

 

There are a couple of memorials to Op Loyton. One is the memorial garden in the National Memorial Arboretum in Alweras UK, which has a bush for each Frenchmen deported for refusing to disclose the whrereaboutsa of the SAS men and a plaque to the dead. The second is the cluster of graves in the village of Moussey in the Vosges that attract blue SAS wreaths. I have taken people there a couple of times..

One of the dead men was Rudolf Friedman, buried as "Sergeant Lodge DCM." A Jewish communist refugee from Munich who had took part in the Operation after escaping from captivity in North Italy and evading through the lines. Extracts from his diary are quoted in His Majesty's Loyal Aliens.

 

Which speech and what part on the parat of Patton violate the treaties? The only thing I can find is him saying "my men don't surrender" which doesn't look like a violation to me.

 

Look up the Biscari POW massacre, if someone is acquitted of killing prisoners because he was "following orders" the man giving those "orders" is responsible. The exact text of the pre landing speech where Patton apparently stated than if the enemy didn't surrender when US troops arrived within 200 meters no surrender was to be accepted is hard to find.

You can start with the wiki link below (sorry but IE won't let me cut&paste a link) though I believe the article is more than a bit ambiguous, the Italian language version explains better the role Patton's speech (described as "pretty bloody" in his own words on a later interview) probably had in the killings, the role the speech had in the trials is on record.

https:\\en.wikipedia.org\wiki\Biscari_Massacre

 

Without the exact wordding and the context I would be very reluctant to call it a war crime. For one thing there's a difference between a speach and orders.

 

If a military court accepts a speech as evidence to get an acquittal as "obeying orders" then it is orders. They are certainly more qualified to say what is an order and what isn't than you and me. I have looked from time to time but all I found was mention of the speech in different diaries, the exact text is possibly lost but it's irrelevant, it's the results that count.