Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences by Frederic Martini

Author:Frederic Martini [Martini, Frederic]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Publisher: Frederic H Martini, Inc.
Published: 2017-09-24T22:00:00+00:00

103 The Nazi forces had advanced so rapidly that they outran their limited supply lines. The original plan had been to capture and plunder Allied supply depots, but resistance at those depots was much stronger than anticipated.

104 Officers stashed intelligence documents and other records on their persons or in packages that could be concealed on a sled. Lt. Ewell McCright tied an extra pair of pants around his neck and tucked his POW ledgers within them. These ledgers, which survived the war, are a priceless record of the POW history of South Compound.

105 In North Compound, it was Block 104, where the tunnel for the Great Escape originated, that burned to the ground.

106 It took over eight hours to evacuate all of the compounds. Men started leaving South Compound at 2300; North Compound at 0100; West compound at roughly 0200; Center Compound around 0300, and East Compound at 0600 on 28 January. Of the approximately 12,000 POWs held at Stalag Luft III, roughly 500 POWs were left behind for the Russians to deal with, as they were either too sick or too weak to move.

107 The horse could no longer pull the heavily laden wagon in the bitter cold, so most of the bread was distributed to the POWs. Prisoners unable to continue were loaded into the near empty wagon for brief periods to recover their strength.

108 The guards at the rear collected those unable to continue and loaded them onto empty wagons. There is disagreement over the casualty count during the march, but it was probably very low.

109 This spared him the pain that he otherwise would have experienced from the blisters and raw, chafed areas on his feet.

110 This was in the small town of Gross Selten. The POWs were there only because the German officer at the lead got confused and took the wrong road at Priebus.

111 When evacuating POW camps, the Germans routinely ignored Article 7 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibited forcing prisoners to march more than 12.5 miles per day. Col. Goodrich estimated that 15% of the men (an estimated 300 POWs) from South Compound arriving at Muskau could not walk without assistance. Sixty prisoners were left in Muskau, too sick and weak to continue.

112 The medics in the group were kept busy — 1,500 blisters were dressed. Thus far there had been an average weight loss of 10-20 pounds per POW on the march; Fred’s weight would have been roughly 100 pounds.

113 Each of the camps had taken a slightly different route and some had different destinations. American prisoners from South and Center Compounds were destined to Stalag VIIA, but those from West Compound went to Stalag XIIID, near Nürnberg. British prisoners from North and East Compounds primarily went to Marlag-Milag, a large camp near Tarmstedt, although some from East Compound wound up at Stalag Luft IIIA, near Luckenwalde. The reasons for this distribution are unknown.

114 At the train, the men from South Compound were joined by 200 POWs from West Compound who had taken a different route to Spremberg.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.