Do you know the Wormhout Massacre ?
The Wormhout Massacre – Afternoon of Tuesday, May 28, 1940 (Operation Dynamo)
The Wormhout Massacre, also known as the Plaine au Bois Massacre, was a war crime committed by the Waffen-SS against approximately 80 French and British prisoners of war during the Battle of France in May 1940. Although commonly referred to as the Wormhout Massacre, it actually took place within the territory of Esquelbecq.
During the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force toward Dunkirk, the British 48th Division held the road linking Bergues to Hazebrouck via Wormhout and Cassel in an effort to delay the German advance. Lacking ammunition and armored support, the British units defending Wormhout were eventually overwhelmed by troops of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regiment, supported by tanks of the 3rd Panzer Regiment.
After exhausting all their ammunition, the British troops surrendered, believing they would be taken prisoner in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
Following their surrender on May 28, 1940, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the Cheshire Regiment, and the Royal Artillery, together with a French soldier responsible for a military supply depot, were marched to a barn at La Plaine au Bois near Wormhout, in the municipality of Esquelbecq.
During the march, the Allied prisoners became increasingly alarmed by the brutal conduct of the SS guards, who shot several wounded stragglers along the way. Upon arriving at the barn, a British officer, Captain J. F. Lynn Allen, protested the treatment of the prisoners but was immediately struck by an SS soldier. The officer was subsequently killed.
Once roughly one hundred men had been crowded into the barn, soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regiment threw hand grenades into the building, killing and wounding many of the prisoners. The number of casualties would have been even greater had it not been for the extraordinary courage of Sergeant Moore and Company Sergeant Major Jennings, who threw themselves onto the grenades, shielding their comrades from the blast and shrapnel with their own bodies.
When the grenades failed to kill everyone inside, the SS ordered two groups of five prisoners to leave the barn. As each group emerged, the men were machine-gunned. Gunner Brian Fahey survived the shooting, although the SS believed him to be dead.
When a third group was ordered to come out for execution, the remaining British prisoners refused. The SS then opened fire directly into the barn with their weapons.
A small number of British soldiers managed to escape, while others, including Fahey, were left for dead. Approximately 80 men were murdered in the massacre.
Several days later, Fahey and other survivors were discovered by Wehrmacht soldiers searching the area for dead and wounded personnel. The survivors were taken to a hospital, treated for their injuries, and later transferred to prisoner-of-war camps in occupied Europe. Some of the most severely wounded were eventually repatriated before the end of the war.
The SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Regiment was commanded by SS-Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich. After the war, Dietrich claimed that he and Joachim Peiper's adjutant, Max Wünsche, had been sheltering for several hours in a roadside ditch between Esquelbecq and Wormhout and that he therefore could not have issued the execution order.
Postwar testimony indicated that the soldiers responsible for the massacre belonged to the regiment’s 2nd Battalion, commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke. However, Mohnke, who remained a Soviet prisoner until 1955, was never brought to trial for his alleged role in the killings. He consistently denied the accusations, telling historian Thomas Fischer:
“I ordered neither the taking of British prisoners nor the execution of prisoners.”
Mohnke died in August 2001.
In 1947, several survivors returned to the site accompanied by investigators from the War Crimes Interrogation Unit. The inquiry was directed by the office of the Judge Advocate General. However, it proved impossible to build a sufficiently strong case to bring charges. Several potential eyewitnesses had been killed on the Eastern Front, while others invoked their SS oath and refused to testify.
As a result, no member of the SS involved in the massacre was convicted for the crime.
In 1988, following a campaign led by British Member of Parliament Jeff Rooker, the case was reopened. Nevertheless, a German prosecutor concluded that there was insufficient evidence to initiate criminal proceedings.
Documents from German wartime archives later revealed that Sepp Dietrich had already been freed from the ditch before the massacre took place and that, as commander of the unit, ultimate responsibility for the killings rested with him.
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
gummygunk
2087
janainaart