Download February 1996 - Dr. Harold C. Deutsch WWII History Roundtable

March 2002
Volume 10 Number 7
Published by The WW II History Roundtable
Edited by Jim and Jon Gerber
Welcome to the March meeting of the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World War Two History Roundtable.
Tonight’s program is about escape and evasion behind enemy lines. What must it have been like,
fleeing for your life and not knowing who you could trust, if anyone.
There was a story that was told by one of the POW’s who was at the air show booth for POW’s
sponsored by the Roundtable. This gentleman was captured in Italy and after some time, he and
a buddy managed to escape and were on the run for two months. Unfortunately, they were
recaptured but released at the end of the war. When he went to collect his back pay, he found
that the Army had docked him two month’s pay. When he questioned this, he was told that for
those two months that he was on the run, he was neither a POW nor fighting in the Army,
therefore, he lost two months pay. This same veteran told another story which may have to be
taken with a grain of salt, but is yet worthy of telling. It seems that he and his buddy heard that
Rome was an open city, so they headed for Rome hoping to have a little more freedom. When
they got there they found the city to be full of Germans. As they were walking down a street, they
saw some Germans coming toward them and they split up. The vet that I spoke with ran down a
small street and as he passed a group of nuns, a rather large nun said, “Here son, get under my
habit.” He did so and heard the boots of the soldiers going by. After a few minutes the nun told
him that he could come out as it was now safe. He thanked the sister and said, “By the way
sister, you’ve got pretty hairy legs for a woman.” Whereupon she told him that she was not a nun
but another escaped prisoner.
Prisoners of War
On September 21, 1945, Georg Gaetner, a German POW, escaped from Deming Army Air Force
Base in New Mexico, apparently to avoid being sent back to Germany after the War. Although the
FBI stopped looking for him in 1963, he remained at large until the late 1980’s, when, having
quietly lived and raised a family, he voluntarily surrendered. Gaetner received an instant pardon
and afterward wrote a moderately successful book about his adventures and even visited
Germany again.
Gaetner was one of millions who found themselves to be unwilling guests of the enemy. It
appears that at least 8 million men were captured during the war exclusive of hordes of Japanese
and German troops that surrendered at the end of the war. The treatment of the prisoners varied
greatly. The United States and Great Britain accorded the prisoners their rights under the Geneva
Convention, but this was not a common practice.
The records of Axis treatment ranged from poor to criminal. While, with some exceptions,
Germany respected the rights of US and British POW’s, they treated the Russians and other
prisoners brutally, causing millions to die from starvation, exposure and deliberate murder. The
Soviets reciprocated in kind. Japanese treatment of prisoners was deplorable and the death rate
among US and British prisoners ran abut 30%, more than three times than those who were in
German hands. This was still better than the treatment generally accorded Asian troops captured
by the Japanese. As the word spread of the Japanese attitude toward prisoners of war, it became
rather difficult for Japanese troops to surrender in the unlikely event that they wanted to
surrender. As a result, only a handful of Japanese troops became prisoners although the number
increased as their morale worsened toward the end of the war. German troops, especially SS
men, faced a similar problem after the Malmedy massacre, where on December 17, 1944, on the
second day of the Battle of the Bulge, many American prisoners of war were slaughtered by
troops of the 1st SS Panzer Division. The SS troops also had similar problems with Canadian
units because of Malmedy-like atrocities months earlier in Norway.
About 425,000 German and 53,000 Italian prisoners of war were transported to the US for
incarceration during the war. Most of these men were housed in camps only a little more heavily
guarded than regular army posts. In general, they were well treated. Many of the German POW’s
came back to the United States and settled here and became citizens.
Why?
In her old age Erika Waag Canaris, widow of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, wartime chief of German
military intelligence and a prime mover in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler in July 1944, was
supported by an American pension apparently arranged by Allen Dulles, who for many years was
the head of the CIA.
First Things First
On the eve of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the OSS and SOE stepped up their infiltration of
agents into occupied France. Many of these men and women had exciting experiences. But few
must have been as unusual as that of a French agent who parachuted into Brittany shortly before
the invasion to help the Resistance. The fellow came down in a field at night and quickly began to
dig a hole to bury his parachute. As he did so, he saw a figure approaching and gave the
indicated call sign. Upon getting the correct countersign, he resumed burying his chute. Suddenly
a rather attractive woman knelt by his side and began digging up the parachute.
“What are you doing? Orders are to bury parachutes!”
Without looking up, the young woman replied, “Who cares, I haven’t seen silk this good since
before the war.”
Surprise!
Adolf Hitler’s elation upon receiving word of the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor soon
turned to anger when he discovered that not one of his senior military advisors knew where the
place was.
Psychological Warfare
One of the many secret projects undertaken by the US during WW II was a psychological warfare
proposal to strike a blow at Japanese morale by painting Mount Fuji red. This project was
abandoned only after someone calculated how much paint and how many aircraft would be
required for the project.
More Reading On Tonight’s Topic:
Rosa’s Miracle Mouse
by Agnes Willard Daluge
Author’s Direct Books
Chanhassen, MN 1999
For sale tonight.
Mission Failure and Survival
by Charles C. McBride
Sunflower University Press
Manhatten, Kansas 1989
In the Shadow of the Rising Sun
by Judy Hyland
Augsburg Publishing House
Minneapolis, MN 1984
For sale tonight.
Silent Heroes: Downed Airmen and the French Underground
by Sherri Greene Ottis
University Press of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 2001
Courage and Air Warfare
by Mark Wells
F. Cass
Portland, Oregon 1995
Home From Siberia: The Secret Odysseys of Interned American Airmen in WW II
by Otis Hayes
Texas A & M Press
College Station, TX 1990
Agents for Escape: Inside the French Resistance
by Andre Rougeyron
Louisiana State University Press
Baton Rouge, LA 1996
Zemke’s Stalag: the Final Days of WW II
by Hubert Zemke and Roger Freeman
Smithsonian Institution Press
Washington, D.C. 1991
See you next month