The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Malmedy Massacre (12/17/1944) - Sep. 2nd, 2003

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[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

God Bless America
...................................................................................... ...........................................

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The Malmedy Massacre

The incident which became known as "the Malmedy Massacre" happened at the Baugnez Crossroads in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium on December 17, 1944, the second day of fighting in the famous Battle of the Bulge, where American troops suffered 81,000 casualties, including 19,000 deaths, in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The German army suffered 70,000 casualties with 20,000 dead in the month-long battle, which didn't stop even for Christmas Day. It was during this decisive battle that a number of American soldiers were taken prisoner by Waffen-SS soldiers who were fighting in the battle group named Kampfgrüppe Peiper, which was spearheading the German attack.



The photograph above shows some of the 72 bodies which were recovered after they were left lying in the snow until January 13, 1945, four weeks after they were killed. The reason given by the US Army QM unit which eventually retrieved the bodies was that there was still heavy fighting in the area, which was not true, according to American soldiers who participated in the fighting in the vicinity of the Massacre. According to one veteran of the battle, an American Infantry Captain who is now deceased, the alleged massacre was a cover-up to explain why the US Army waited four weeks to collect combat fatalities after they had been notified about the bodies by local Belgian citizens. Another 12 bodies were recovered four months later after all the snow had melted, making a total of 84 victims.

On the day of the incident, Peiper's assignment had been to capture the bridge over the Muese in the Belgian town of Huy, and hold it to the last man until General Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army could cross over it, then rush across the northern Belgian plain to take the great supply port of Antwerp, which was the main objective of Hitler's Ardennes Offensive. Hitler had personally picked the route that Peiper was to take, but heavy artillery fire from the 2nd US Infantry Division had forced him to take an alternative route through the tiny village of Malmedy, close to the Baugnez Crossroads.



Peiper's Battle Group never reached its objective, which was the bridge over the Muese. Many of Peiper's tanks were destroyed by the Allies, and after Peiper ordered his men to destroy the remaining tanks and vehicles, the survivors escaped by wading and swimming across the river. Peiper's men were forced to retreat on foot, at a killing pace, on Christmas Eve 1944. Out of the 5,000 men in Peiper's unit, only 800 survived the Battle of the Bulge. Almost one out of ten of the survivors was indicted as a war criminal by the victorious Allies.

The Baugnez Crossroads was known to the Americans as Five Points because it was the intersection of 5 roads. There is considerable disagreement about what actually happened at Five Points on that Sunday afternoon in 1944 when the blood of American soldiers was spilled in the snow. The victims were members of Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. The function of this lightly-armed technical unit was to locate enemy artillery and then transmit their position to other units. No two accounts of the tragedy agree, not even on the number that were killed. The official report said 86 were shot and there are 86 names on the Memorial Wall that has been erected at the site, but the Malmedy Massacre trial was based on the murder of the 72 soldiers whose bodies were autopsied after they were recovered on January 13, 1945, buried under two feet of snow.

According to the story that was pieced together by the American survivors, Peiper's assault unit had destroyed around a dozen American army spotter planes that day and had captured a group of American soldiers, who had been forced to ride along as Peiper's men continued down the road on their tanks. At the crossroads, the German tanks caught up with the American soldiers of Battery B, 285th Battalion which had just left the village of Malmedy and were traveling the same road, bound for the same destination. At the crossroads, a US Military Policeman, Homer Ford, was directing traffic as a column of artillery vehicles, led by Lt. Virgil Lary, passed through the intersection, headed for the nearby village of St. Vith.



A five-minute battle ensued in which approximately 50 Americans were killed. Some of the Americans tried to escape by hiding in the Cafe Bodarme at the crossroads, but Peiper's SS soldiers set the cafe on fire and then heartlessly gunned down those who tried to run out of the building. Survivors of the massacre said that the SS soldiers then assembled those who had surrendered after the battle in a field beside the Cafe. There were three eye-witnesses to the event: the owner of the Cafe, Madame Bodarme, a 15-year-old boy and a German-born farmer, Henri Le Joly. None of these witnesses were called to testify at the military tribunal in Dachau.

According to Charles Whiting in his book entitled The Traveler's Guide to The Battle for the German Frontier, "The Americans huddled in a field to the right of the pub, some of them with their hands on their helmets in token of surrender; others smoking and simply watching the SS armor pull away, leaving their POWs virtually unguarded. It was so quiet that Mme Bodarme and Le Joly came out of hiding to watch what was going on."

Peiper's tank unit continued down the road, after leaving behind a few SS men to guard the prisoners. Legend has it that Lt. Col. Peiper, who had an excellent command of the English language, passed the scene and called out to the American prisoners, "It's a long way to Tipperary." According to Whiting's book, Peiper had heard that an American General was in the next village and he was on his way to capture him. General Dwight D. Eisenhower mentioned in his autobiography, "Crusade in Europe," that there was some concern among the American generals about being captured, although he didn't mention Peiper by name.


Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper

At the Dachau proceedings, Lt. Virgil Lary was able to identify Pvt. 1st Class Georg Fleps, a Waffen-SS soldier from Rumania, who allegedly fired the first two shots with his pistol. Some versions of the story say that he fired a warning shot in the air when several prisoners tried to make a run for it. Other versions say that he deliberately took aim and shot one of the Americans. Panic ensued and the SS soldiers then began firing upon the prisoners with their machine guns. The survivors testified that they had heard the order given to kill all the prisoners: "Macht alle kaputt." According to the testimony of three survivors who played dead, the SS murderers were laughing as they walked among the fallen American soldiers and shot those who still showed signs of life. The autopsies showed that 41 of the Americans had been shot in the head and 10 had head injuries consistent with being bashed with a rifle butt. Curiously, most of the victims were not wearing their dog tags, although all of them were identified by their personal effects, since there were no wallets or watches taken by the Germans.


1st. Lt. Virgil Lary points out Sturmmann Georg Fleps

Private Georg Fleps, who is shown in the photograph above, was sentenced to death by hanging, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Forty-two of the accused were sentenced to death, but all the sentences were commuted to life after a Congressional investigation determined that there had been misconduct by members of the prosecution team.

The photograph below shows one of the survivors, an American soldier named Kenneth Ahrens, on the witness stand as he demonstrates how he held up his hands to surrender. Seated beside him is the interpreter who was responsible for translating his words into German for the benefit of the accused.


Kenneth Ahrens demonstrates how he surrendered

The exact number of soldiers who surrendered to the Germans is unknown, but according to various accounts, it was somewhere between 85 and 120. After the captured Americans were herded into the field at the crossroads, they were allegedly shot down by Waffen-SS men from Peiper's Battle Group in what an American TV documentary characterized as an orgy motivated by German "joy of killing." Forty-three of the Americans taken prisoner that day managed to escape and lived to tell about it. Seventeen of the survivors ran across the snow-covered field, and made their way to the village of Malmedy where they joined the 291st Engineer Battalion.

The massacre occurred at approximately 1 p.m. on December 17th and the first survivors were picked up at 2:30 p.m. on the same day by a patrol of the 291st Engineer Battalion. Their story of the unprovoked massacre was immediately sent to General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the war in Europe, who made it a point to disseminate the story to the reporters covering the battle. One of the news reporters at the Battle of the Bulge was America's most famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was covering the war for Collier's magazine. When the gory details of the Malmedy Massacre reached the American people, there was a great outcry for justice to be done. To this day, the Malmedy Massacre is spoken of as the single worst atrocity perpetrated by the hated Waffen-SS soldiers.

The Inspector General of the American First Army learned about the massacre three or four hours after the first survivors were rescued. By late afternoon that day, the news had reached the forward American divisions. In his book , entitled "The Ardennes, The Battle of the Bulge," Hugh Cole wrote the following:

Thus Fragmentary Order 27 issued by Headquarters, 328th Infantry on 21 December for the attack scheduled for the following day says: "No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoners but will be shot on sight."



In his book called "The Other Price of Hitler's War: German Military & Civilian Losses Resulting from WW 2," author Martin Sorge wrote the following regarding the events that took place after the massacre:

"It was in the wake of the Malmedy incident at Chegnogne that on New Year's Day 1945 some 60 German POWs were shot in cold blood by their American guards. The guilt went unpunished. It was felt that the basis for their action was orders that no prisoners were to be taken."

Today, there are also "deniers" such as disgraced historian, David Irving, who claim that there was no massacre at all, and that these American soldiers were killed in a battle with the Germans which took place at the crossroads.

Some of the SS men, who were convicted by the American Military Tribunal at Dachau, are still alive, but they tend to keep a low profile because even now, 58 years after the incident at the crossroads, they are afraid of losing their pensions or suffering reprisals if they speak out. The following description was given recently by a member of the 2nd SS Panzer Division of the Leibstandarte Hitler Jugend, who was convicted and sentenced to prison, together with a number of his comrades, for his involvement in the Malmedy Massacre. For obvious reasons, he wishes to remain anonymous. The following is his account:



"Our tanks were coming under American fire; the leading Tank was hit and its crew bailed out; the following tanks pushed it off the road and we kept going; a few kilometers on, a small group of (approximately 14) American infantrymen surrendered to us and they laid down their weapons. We radioed back to tell the troops behind us to gather up the American POWs and one of our soldiers was left behind to guard them.

A short while later we got a call from our Infantry to say they had arrived at the scene to pick up the American POWs and had come under heavy fire; apparently the Americans who had previously surrendered had jumped and killed the soldier left to guard them and, together with more Americans that had arrived in the meantime, had laid an ambush for the SS that came to pick them up. Colonel Peiper sent some Tanks and ground troops back to assist.

A heavy battle ensued, with hand-to-hand combat, whereby heavy casualties were taken on both sides. The Germans won the battle and gathered up their dead and wounded leaving the bodies of the Americans. It was later claimed the Americans killed in hand-to-hand combat were "beaten to death" by the SS, which is true, except it occurred in battle and not after they were captured.

When the war ended, I was arrested along with the remaining members of my regiment and put on trial by the Americans. All of us were kept in cells with no lights and when we were taken out of the cells they put sacks over our heads and we were beaten almost daily. The men in my regiment who had taken part in the battle at the crossroads were tortured very badly; they had their noses broken and their testicles were crushed and they were beaten until they signed confessions that they had massacred the Americans. These men were sentenced to death.

Because I had not been at the crossroads battle, but at the front a few kilometers away, I was given 20 years hard labor instead of the death sentence; even the crew of the tank that had been hit first and left kilometers behind were given 20 year sentences.

It wasn't until an American Judge later discovered that the confessions had been tortured out of my comrades that many of the sentences were reduced."


SS Lt. Heinz Tomhardt listens as his death sentence is read

The photograph above show a very young German SS soldier, as the death sentence is read to him while his defense attorney, Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett, stands on the right.

[SAMWolf]

The Battle of the Bulge was no ordinary battle; it was the one of the biggest land battles of World War II and resulted in the highest number of American casualties. There had long been rumors that Hitler was secretly developing a "miracle weapon," and it was at the Battle of the Bulge that the jet airplane was first used by the Germans. The area in Belgium where the battle was fought had been the scene of similar battles in 1870, 1914 and 1940. This was Hitler's last stand, the last counteroffensive of the German army, and the Germans knew that if this battle was lost, the war would most likely be lost. The battle was very intense with the Germans putting everything they had into it. As John Toland wrote, regarding the gallant battle fought by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge: "Boys of fourteen and fifteen died, rifles frozen to their hands; men in their fifties were found in cellars, feet black with putrefaction." Hitler was counting on Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army, whose soldiers had fought heroically against the Soviet Communists on the Eastern front, to save the Fatherland from the Bolsheviks by winning this crucial battle in Belgium.



Dietrich assigned Peiper the great honor of leading the battle group which would spearhead the attack. Peiper was a veteran of the greatest tank battle of all time, fought between the German Tiger tanks and the Russian T-34 tanks at Kursk in July 1943. At almost 30 years of age, Peiper was the youngest combat colonel in the Waffen-SS and he was on track to becoming the youngest General in this elite German army. He had been awarded the Iron Cross first class for bravery in battle, and was regarded as one of Germany's leading experts in tank warfare. Under his command, Peiper's 1 SS Panzer Korps had disabled more than one hundred Russian tanks in combat. Such was Peiper's reputation as a panzer ace that his defense attorney made the suggestion that he should be brought to America as a consultant in America's Cold War with the Soviet Union. In fact, General Heinz Guderian, Germany's leading expert in armored strategy, had been brought to Ft. Knox after the war to advise the American Army on tank warfare. Peiper and his men had already been interviewed extensively in prison by US Army tactical experts.

In the first few days of the battle, there was mass confusion caused by a team of 28 Germans dressed in American uniforms, led by the famous commando Otto Skorzeny. Riding in stolen American jeeps, they created havoc by directing American troops down the wrong road, changing signposts and cutting telephone wires to General Bradley's field headquarters. Four of the team were captured and when they confessed their mission, the American army immediately broadcast the news that there were thousands of Germans operating behind enemy lines. Skorzeny and his men were later brought before the American military tribunal at Dachau in another proceeding.


Otto Skorzeny, famous German commando

John Toland described the opening scene of the battle in the following passage from his book entitled Adolf Hitler:

By midnight the Ardennes battlefield was in turmoil, a scene of indescribable confusion to those involved in the hundreds of struggles. No one - German or American, private or general - knew what was really happening. In the next two days a series of disasters struck the defenders. On the snowy heights of the Schnee Eiffel at least 8000 Americans - perhaps 9000 for the battle was too confused for accuracy - were bagged by Hitler's troops. Next to Bataan, it was the greatest mass surrender of Americans in history.

The enlisted men among the Malmedy Massacre defendants averaged less than 22 years in age. There were only 30 men who were original members of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, including Lt. Col. Peiper and General Sepp Dietrich. Many of the accused SS soldiers were baby-faced, uneducated 18 and 19-year-olds with little combat experience, but a few others were some of the toughest and most battle-hardened men in the German armed forces, who had been in combat for six years. They had fought some fierce battles on the Eastern front and seen unbelievable atrocities committed by our Russian allies, including mutilated bodies on the battlefield, sodomy on German POWs and cannibalism in which parts of the bodies of German POWs had been sliced off and eaten. The photograph below, taken in the fall of 1941 on the eastern front, was published in a book by Professor Franz W. Seidler who found it in the files of the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, Case 304, after the war.


Body of German soldier in Russian POW Camp 2, Stalag 305, 1941

Because the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention of 1929, the Germans were not required to observe the international rules of warfare with regard to our Russian allies who were committing the most sickening atrocities on the battlefield with no regard for the unwritten rules of civilized warfare. During the proceedings, the prosecution contended that Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper had instructed his men to fight as they had fought against the Russians, disregarding international law about the treatment of prisoners of war. The defendants testified that they had been instructed to take no prisoners, but they understood this to mean that because they were fighting in a tank unit, they were supposed to send POWs to the rear to picked up by infantry units.


Gen. Sepp Dietrich is No. 11, Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper is No. 42

In the photograph above, General Sepp Dietrich is No. 11; he was sentenced to death by hanging. Next to him is Prisoners No. 33, General Fritz Krämer, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Prisoner No. 45 is General Hermann Priess who was sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was commuted to 20 years. No. 42 is Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper who was sentenced to death by hanging.

Besides the killing of 72 American soldiers at the Baugnez Crossroads, near the village of Malmedy, there were many other charges against the 73 accused. The charge sheet specifically stated that the 73 accused men

"did....at, or in the vicinity of Malmedy, Honsfeld, Büllingen, Lignauville, Stoumont, La Gleize, Cheneux, Petit Thier, Trois Ponts, Stavelot, Wanne and Lutre-Bois, all in Belgium, at sundry times between 16 December 1944 and 13 January 1945, willfully, deliberately, and wrongfully permit, encourage, aid, abet, and participate in the killings, shooting, ill treatment, abuse and torture of members of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, then at war with the then German Reich, who were then and there surrendered and unarmed prisoners of war in the custody of the then German Reich, the exact names and numbers of such persons being unknown aggregating several hundred, and of unarmed civilian nationals, the exact names and numbers of such persons being unknown."

In all, the accused were charged with murdering between 538 to 749 nameless Prisoners of War and over 90 unidentified Belgian civilians in the locations mentioned on the charge sheet, which is quoted above. The accused SS men claimed that the civilians, who were killed, had been actively aiding the Americans during the fighting. According to the rules of the Geneva Convention, shooting partisans was allowed.

The prosecution claimed that General Sepp Dietrich, on direct orders from Hitler himself, had urged the SS men to remember the German civilians killed by the Allied bombing, and to disregard the rules of warfare that were mandated by the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva convention. This meant that all of the accused were charged with participating in a conspiracy of evil that came from the highest level, the moral equivalent of the Nazi conspiracy to exterminate all the Jews in Europe, which was one of the charges against the major German war criminals at Nuremberg.

[SAMWolf]

The Malmedy Massacre proceedings were conducted like a US Army court martial, except that only a two-thirds majority vote by the panel of 8 judges was needed for conviction. Each of the accused was assigned a number because it was hard to keep the names of the 73 men straight. They all wore their field uniforms, which had been stripped of the double lighting bolt SS insignia and all other military emblems and medals. The proceedings lasted for only two months, during which time both the prosecution and the defense presented their cases. Fearful that they might incriminate themselves on the witness stand, their defense attorney, Lt. Col. Everett, who believed that they were guilty, persuaded most of the SS soldiers not to testify on their own behalf. Col. Joaquim Peiper, volunteered to take all the blame if his men could go free, but this offer was declined by the court.

The courtroom was in the Dachau complex where the former concentration camp was located. The blackened chimney of the Dachau crematorium loomed in the distance, only a quarter of a mile away from where the Jewish "law member" of the court sat under a huge American flag pinned to the wall. It had been only a little more than a year since soldiers in the American Seventh Army had discovered the horror of the gas chamber at Dachau and dead bodies piled up in the morgue of the crematorium building.

After only 2 hours and 20 minutes of deliberation by the panel of judges, all 73 of the accused SS soldiers, who were on trial, were convicted. Each of the accused was required to stand before the judges with his defense attorney, Lt. Col. Everett, by his side, as the sentence was read aloud.


Waiting for the Malmedy Massacre verdict outside the courtroom

Forty-two of the accused were sentenced to death by hanging, including Col. Peiper. Peiper made a request through his defense attorney that he and his men be shot by a firing squad, the traditional soldier's execution. His request was denied. General Sepp Dietrich was sentenced to life in prison along with 21 others. The rest of the accused were sentenced to prison terms of 10, 15 or 20 years.

None of the convicted SS soldiers were ever executed and by 1956, all of them had been released from prison. All of the death sentences had been commuted to life in prison. As it turned out, the Malmedy Massacre proceedings at Dachau, which were intended to show the world that the Waffen-SS soldiers were a bunch of heartless killers, became instead a controversial case which dragged on for over ten years and resulted in criticism of the American Occupation, the war crimes military tribunals, the Jewish prosecutors at Dachau and the whole American system of justice. Before the last man convicted in the Dachau proceedings walked out of Landsberg prison as a free man, the aftermath of the case had involved the US Supreme Court, the International Court at the Hague, the US Congress, Dr. Johann Neuhäusler who was a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp and a Bishop in Munich, and the government of the new Federal Republic of Germany. All of this was due to the efforts of the defense attorney, Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett.

James J. Weingartner, the author of "A Peculiar Crusade: Willis M. Everett and the Malmedy Massacre," wrote the story of the Dachau proceedings from information provided by Everett's family and gleaned from his letters and diary. According to Weingartner, shortly before the proceedings were to begin, defense attorney Lt. Col. Everett interviewed a few of the 73 accused with the help of an interpreter. Although the accused were being held in solitary confinement and had not had the opportunity to consult with each other, most of them told identical stories of misconduct by their Jewish interrogators. The accused claimed that they had already had a trial, which was conducted in a room with black curtains, lit only by two candles. The judge was a Lt. Col. who sat at a table draped in black with a white cross on it. After these mock trials in which witnesses testified against the accused, each one was told that he had been sentenced to death, but nevertheless he would have to write out his confession. When all of them refused to write a confession, the prosecution dictated statements which they were forced to sign under threats of violence. There was no question that these mock trials had actually taken place, since the prosecution admitted it during the investigation after the Dachau proceedings ended.


Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper on the witness stand, June 17, 1946

According to Weingartner, Lt. Col. Peiper presented to Everett a summary of allegations of abuse made to him by his soldiers. They claimed that they were beaten by the interrogators and that one of the original 75 accused men, 18-year-old Arvid Freimuth, had hanged himself in his cell after being repeatedly beaten. A statement, supposedly written by Freimuth, although portions of it were not signed by him, was introduced during the proceedings as evidence against the other accused. As in the Nuremberg IMT and the other Dachau proceedings, the accused were charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, as well as with specific incidents of murder, so Freimuth's statement was relevant to the case, even after he was no longer among the accused himself.

An important part of the defense case was based on the fact that the accused were classified as Prisoners of War when they were forced to sign statements incriminating themselves even before they were charged with a war crime. As POWs, they were under the protection of the Geneva Convention of 1929 which prohibited the kind of coercive treatment that the accused claimed they had been subjected to in order to force them to sign statements of guilt. Article 45 of the Geneva Convention said that Prisoners of War were "subject to the laws, regulations and orders in force in the armies of the detaining powers." That meant that they were entitled to the same Fifth Amendment rights as American soldiers. After being held in prison for an average of five months, the SS Malmedy veterans were charged as war criminals on April 11, 1946, a little over a month before their case before the American military tribunal was set to begin. By virtue of the charge, they were automatically reduced to the status of "civilian internee" and no longer had the protection of the Geneva Convention.

As quoted by Weingartner, the defense made the following argument at the trial:

"As previously outlined, International Law laid down certain safeguards for treatment of prisoners of war, and any confession or statement extracted in violation thereof is not admissible in a court martial or any subsequent trial under a code set up by Military Government. If a confession from a prisoner of war is born in a surrounding of hope of release or benefit or fear of punishment or injury, inspired by one in authority, it is void in its inception and not admissible in any tribunal of justice.

Could anyone, by artifice, conjure up the theory that the Military Government Rules and Ordinances are superior to the solemn agreements of International Law as stated in the Geneva Convention of 1929? Is this court willing to assume the responsibility of admitting these void confessions?....It is not believed that the Court will put itself in the anomalous position of accepting statements into evidence which were elicited from prisoners of war in contravention of the Geneva Convention and therefore a violation of the Rules of Land Warfare on the one hand and then turn squarely around and meet out punishment for other acts which they deem violations of the same laws. To do so would be highly inconsistent and would subject the Court and all American Military Tribunals to just criticism."


Col. Peiper listens to closing statement with his arms folded

Lt. Col. Rosenfeld ruled against a defense motion to drop the charges, based on the above argument, by proclaiming that the Malmedy Massacre accused had never been Prisoners of War because they became war criminals the moment they committed their alleged acts and were thus not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention of 1929. (Both Rosenfeld and Everett may have been unaware of the fact that on August 4, 1945, an order signed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower reduced the status of all German POWs to that of "disarmed enemy forces," which meant that they were no longer protected under the rules of the Geneva Convention.) Moreover, as the law member of the panel of judges, Lt. Col. Rosenfeld ruled that "to admit a confession of the accused, it need not be shown such confession was voluntarily made...." Contrary to the rules of the American justice system, the German war criminals were presumed guilty and the burden of proof was on them, not the prosecution.

The prosecution case hinged on the accusation that Adolf Hitler himself had given the order that no prisoners were to be taken during the Battle of the Bulge and that General Sepp Dietrich had passed down this order to the commanding officers in his Sixth Panzer Army. This meant that there was a Nazi conspiracy to kill American prisoners of war and thus, all of the accused were guilty because they were participants in a "common plan" to break the rules of the Geneva Convention. Yet General Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army had taken thousands of other prisoners who were not shot. According to US Army figures, there was a total of 23,554 Americans captured during the Battle of the Bulge.


US Army Major Harold D. McCown testified as a witness for Col. Peiper

Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper was not present during the alleged incident that happened at the crossroads near Malmedy. The specific charge against Peiper was that he had ordered the killing of American POWs in the village of La Gleize. Major Harold D. McCown, battalion commander of the 30th Infantry Division's 119th Regiment of the US Third Army, testified for the defense at the trial. McCown had been one by Peiper's prisoners at La Gleize; he claimed that he had talked half the night with the charismatic Peiper, who allegedly didn't sleep for 9 straight nights at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. McCown had heard the story of Peiper's men shooting prisoners at the crossroads near Malmedy and he asked Peiper about the safety of the Americans at La Gleize. By this time, Peiper's tanks were trapped in the hilltop village of La Gleize and he had set up his HQ in the cellar of the little schoolhouse there. McCown testified that Peiper had given him his word that the American POWs at La Gleize would not be shot, and McCown also testified that he had no knowledge that any prisoners were actually shot there.

The main evidence in the prosecution case was the sworn statements signed by the accused even before they were charged with a war crime, statements which defense attorney Everett claimed were obtained by means of mock trials and beatings in violation of the rules of the Geneva Convention of 1929. The war crimes with which they were charged were likewise violations of the Geneva Convention of 1929, a double standard which didn't seem right to defense attorney, Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett.

Another double standard that bothered Everett was that there had been many incidents in which American soldiers were not put on trial for killing German Prisoners of War, but the defense was not allowed to mention this. Any of the accused men who inadvertently said anything about American soldiers breaking the rules of the Geneva Convention were promptly silenced and these comments were stricken from the record.


Peiper poses for his mug shot at Schwabish Hall prison

Eventually all 73 of the convicted German war criminals in the Malmedy Massacre case were released from Landsberg prison, including Col. Peiper who was freed on December 22, 1956, the last of the accused to finally walk out of Landsberg.

Peiper had been born on January 30, 1915, so he was just short of his 30ieth birthday when the Malmedy Massacre happened. He spent 11 of the best years of his life in prison, including 55 months on death row. After he was freed, he could not overcome the stigma of being a convicted war criminal. He took a series of jobs, but was unable to keep any of them. Finally, in 1972, he moved to the French village of Traves. Just as he was starting to write a book on the Malmedy Massacre, Peiper was killed on July 14, 1976 when his house was firebombed. Peiper had been warned to leave, but he refused; he died as he had lived, with a weapon in his hands, refusing to be driven out of his home. His charred body was found in the ruins of his burned home. The date of July 14th was the French Bastille Day, the equivalent of the American 4th of July. A group of Frenchmen, wearing ski masks were photographed as they announced "We got Peiper." This photo was published on November. 7, 1976 in the New York Times Magazine.

The bodies of the Malmedy Massacre victims were buried in temporary graves at Henri-Chappelle, 25 miles north of the village of Malmedy. The temporary cemetery was made into a permanent military cemetery after the war, and 21 of the murdered heroes of the Battle of the Bulge are still buried there. A stone wall has been erected as a memorial in honor of all the victims of the Malmedy Massacre near the site of the tragedy.

Additional Sources:

ardenne44.free.fr
www.xs4all.nl/~hulsmann
http://users.skynet.be/bulgecriba/malmedy.html
www.qmmuseum.lee.army.mil

[SAMWolf]

In the second day of the World War II German Counter Offensive (known as the Battle of the Bulge) elements of the 1st SS Panzer Division moving through Belgium captured and subsequently killed nearly 80 US prisoners of war. Victims of the "Malmedy Massacre" were left unattended under a shroud of new-fallen snow for weeks until mortuary affairs troops could arrive.

During the week of 13-18 January 1945 the 4th Platoon, 3060th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company set up a collection point nearby and carefully combed the killing fields for remains and personal effects.

Although many in the unit were former combat soldiers, and had received little mortuary training, seasoned NCOs led the way -- showing them how to use laundry markings and other items for identification, do fingerprinting, fill out the necessary forms, and so on.

In the end, despite the almost complete absence of dog tags, 100 percent of the victims recovered were positively identified, and buried with all due honor -- as befitted United States soldiers who paid the ultimate price in the name of freedom.

[SAMWolf]

[SAMWolf]

Mash the picture

Dear Foxhole Readers,

I am going to be out of town starting today, Sept. 2nd until late in the evening of Sept. 4th.

I will be working on a "special" thread while I'm gone so it's not really a vacation.

I will be leaving in the next few hours. My daughter, tmprincesa, will be posting the Foxhole on Sept. 3rd and Sept. 4th (At least I hope she will, she has been threatened with dire consequences if the Foxhole does not get posted and she ruins our perfect record). She will be posting the thread before she leaves for class in the mornings, so she will not be around during the day to answer any pings.

I am not sure what the availabilty of on-line access will be for me during this time, but I will attempt to check in whenever I can.

I hope all of you enjoy the Foxhole Threads and will see you again on Sept. 5th.

SAMWolf

P.S. You ROTC guys at U of P better not give Tracy a hard time about having to post the Foxhole! :-)

[snippy_about_it]

.......FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!

.......Good Tuesday Morning Everyone!


If you would like added or removed from our ping list let me know.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning.

LOL!

Beat ya!

[snippy_about_it]

Mash Here

Well I'll be! SAMWolf, if you're taking a vacation I'm going to take one also. So there!

Oh yeah, I'll be "working" on a thread too. LOL.

Dear Foxhole readers, please help yourself to discussion amongst yourselves on the threads while we're away. We really hate to leave but we are on a very special mission and we're planning to tell you all about it on the Foxhole thread this coming Friday.

As SAM said, we are not sure how or when we will be able to access the internet but we will do our best to check in when we can. Otherwise, we will be back in front of the computer by Friday morning to post the "Special Project" thread.



Thank you tmprincesa for posting the Threads for your Dad while we're away. ;)

[RadioAstronomer]

Indeed you did :-) Morning to you as well. :-)

[snippy_about_it]

Ha ha! Trust me, it's only because as we posted, we are about to leave, otherwise I'd be snoozing.

It was fun though!

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning RA!

[SAMWolf]

Hey! Are Snippy's allowed vacations?

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning SAM.

LOL. Yep. Snippy's allowed as many vacations as she chooses, Lord willing. ;)

I'll see you real soon. Woo-hoo!

[snippy_about_it]

Love the tagline today. LOL.

[snippy_about_it]

HENRI-CHAPELLE AMERICAN CEMETERY AND MEMORIAL

[RadioAstronomer]

Hi! :-)

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

Did some lawnmowing, cleaning oout the dog fod and water bowls and some Labor Day joyriding. Hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day holiday.:-D

[SAMWolf]

Heading out the door.

See ya all when I get the chance or Friday when I get back.

You all behave and be nice to tmprincesa!

[aomagrat]

Today's classic warship, HMS Neptune

Neptune class battleship
Displacement: 19,680 tons
Lenght: 546'
Beam: 85'
Draft: 28'6"
Speed: 21 knots
Compliment: 759
Armament: 10 12", 16 4", 4 3pdr, 3 18" tt

Built at Portsmouth navy Dockyard and launched on the 30th September 1909, HMS Neptune was the first British Battleship to be able to fire all ten of her 12-inch guns broadside, by allowing the two wing turrets to fire across deck. But this was found to be of little advantage as it strained the hull. HMS Neptune also failed to reach her contractual speed on trials, but did achieve (using Welsh coal ) a speed of 21.129 knots during her acceptance trials on the 17th November 1910.

In May 1911 HMS Neptune became the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet and in May 1912 she joined the 1st Battle Squadron. She was still serving in this squadron when in April 1916 she collided with a merchant ship but was not seriously damaged. She was at the Battle of Jutland and was reported to have scored several hits on the German Battleship Lutzow. She did not have any casualties during the action.

On the 1st of February 1919 she was put into reserve and eventually scrapped in September 1922.

The 12 inch guns of HMS Neptune in action

Big Guns in action!

[manna]

Present!

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on September 02:
1838 Queen Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani last queen of Hawaii (1891-93)
1839 Henry George land reformer/writer (Progress & Poverty)
1850 Albert Spaulding baseball player/founded Spaulding sports company
1850 Eugene Field author/journalist (Little Boy Blue)
1853 Wilhelm Ostwald Germany, physical chemist (Nobel 1909)
1856 Yang Hsiu-ch'ing commander in chief of the Taiping Rebellion
1866 Hiram Johnson (Gov-Progressive-Cal)
1884 Frank Laubach Benton Pa, educator, taught reading through phonetics
1901 Adolph Rupp, basketball coach at the University of Kentucky who achieved a record 876 victories.
1904 Vera Vague [Barbara Jo Allen], NYC, actress (Follow the Leader)
1916 Dorothy May Bundy-Cheney winner of more than 141 US tennis titles
1916 Penny Santon Greenwich Village NY, actress (Roll Out, Matt Houston)
1917 Cleveland Amory Nahant Mass, conservationist/TV reviewer (TV Guide)
1918 Allen Drury author (Advise & Consent-1960 Pulitzer Prize)
1918 Martha Mitchell wife of Attorney General John Mitchell
1919 Marge Champion LA Calif, dancer (Marge & Gower Champion Show)
1925 Ronnie Stevens London England, actor (Rodney-Dick & the Duchess)
1927 Trudi Jochum-Beiser Austria, downhill skier (Olympic-gold-1952)
1931 Alan K Simpson (Sen-R-Wyo)
1936 Joan Kennedy 1st wife of Mass Senator, Ted
1937 Peter Ueberroth organized 1984 LA Olympics/baseball commissioner
1940 Beverly Sanders Hollywood Calif, actress (Lotsa Luck, CPO Sharkey)
1940 Jimmy Clanton Baton Rogue, La, rock vocalist (Just a Dream)
1943 Glenn Sather NHL coach (Edmonton Oiler)
1944 Claude Nicollier Vevey Switzerland, astronaut (STS 61-K, sk: 46)
1948 Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe teacher/astronaut (Challenger)
1948 Terry Bradshaw NFL QB (Pittsburgh Steelers)
1951 Mark Harmon Burbank Calif, actor (Dr Caldwell-St Elsewhere)
1951 Michael Gray Chicago Ill, actor (Ronnie-Brian Keith Show)
1952 Jimmy Connors tennis brat (US Open-78,82,83 Wimbledon-74,82)
1955 Linda Purl Greenwich Ct, actress (Gloria-Happy Days, Matlock)
1958 Marlene Janssen Rock Island Ill, playmate (Nov, 1982)
1960 Eric Dickerson Texas, NFL halfback (LA Rams, Indianapolis Colts)
1964 Keanu Reeves actor (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)
1969 Mark Brettschneider Cincinnati Oh, actor (Jason-One Life to Live)

---

Deaths which occurred on September 02:
1384 Louis I, duke of Anjou/king of Naples (Battle of Poitiers)
1547 Hernan Cortes Spanish general defeated Aztec Indians
1937 Baron Pierre de Coubertin revivor of Olympics, dies at 74
1969 - President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam dies of a heart attack
1970 Allan Walker actor/writer (Red Buttons Show), dies at 64
1973 John R R Tolkien, British story writer
1982 Jay Novello actor, dies of cancer at 78

---

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1963 CRUZ RAPHAEL STOCKTON CA.
[GROUP BURIAL? REM RET 10/30/96]
1963 MC KINNEY NEIL BERNARD MUNCIE IN.
[LAST RADIO CONTACT VIC ZB061805 REM RET 10/30/96]
1963 PURCELL HOWARD PHILIP LANSDOWNE PA.
[LAST RADIO CONTACT VIC ZB061805 REM RET 10/30/96]
1965 COLLINS JAMES Q. CONCORD NC.
02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1967 BENNETT WILLIAM G. BIRMINGHAM AL.
[SURVIVAL UNLIKELY]
1972 GREENWOOD ROBERT R. JR. PORTSMOUTH VA.
1972 HEROLD RICHARD W. PLATTSBURGH NY.
1972 WOOD WILLIAM C. JR. PARIS TN.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

---

On this day...
490 -BC- Phidippides runs 1st marathon, seeking aid from Sparta vs Persia
31 -BC- Battle of Actium; Octavian defeats Antony, becomes Emp Augustus
0911 Viking monarch Oleg of Kiev, Russia signs treaty with Byzantines
1192 Sultan Saladin & King Richard the Lion Hearted sign cease fire
1620 The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth with 102 Pilgrims.
1666 Great Fire of London starts; destroys St Paul's Church
1752 Last day of Julian calendar in Britain, British colonies
1789 US Treasury Department established by Congress
1806 A side of Rossberg Peak collapses into Goldau Valley Switz, kills 500
1859 Gas lighting introduced to Hawaii
1864 Union General William T Sherman captures Atlanta
1894 Forest fires destroy Hinckley Minnesota: about 600 die
1898 Lord Kitchener retakes Sudan for Britain
1898 Machine gun 1st used in battle
1901 VP Theodore Roosevelt advises, "Speak softly & carry a big stick"
1919 Communist Party of America organized in Chicago
1924 Rudolf Friml's "Rose Marie" opens to rave reviews in NYC
1927 Rumour starts that Yankee Lou Gehrig will be traded to Tigers
1930 1st non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US (37 hrs)
1935 A hurricane slams the Florida Keys killing 423
1936 1st transatlantic round-trip air flight
1944 Anne Frank (Diary of Anne Frank), is sent to Auschwitz
1944 During WW II, George Bush ejects from a burning plane
1945 Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam independence from France (National Day)
1945 V-J Day; formal surrender of Japan aboard USS Missouri (WWII ends)
1946 Johnny Neun replaces Bill Dickey as Yankee manager
1949 Fire in riverfront area kills 1,700 (Chungking China)
1954 Hurricane Edna batters NE US, killing 20
1956 Collapse of a RR bridge under a train kills 120 (India)
1956 Orioles trailing Red Sox 8-0 come back to win 11-10 in 9 innings
1956 Washington-Jackson cable line replaced by bus service
1957 Milwaukee Braves' Frank Torre scores 6 runs in 1 game
1956 Tennessee National Guardsmen halt rioters protesting the admission of 12 African-Americans to schools in Clinton.
1963 Alabama Gov George C Wallace prevents integration of Tuskegee HS
1963 CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes
1964 Norman Manley scores 2-consecutive holes-in-one at Del Valley, Cal
1971 Cesar Cedeno hits an inside-the-park grand slammer
1972 Chicago White Sox Milt Pappas no-hits SD Padres, 1-0
1973 Billy Martin fired as manager of Tigers
1978 George Harrison marries Olivia
1978 Graham Salmon set the worlds record for 100 meters by a blind man
1978 John McClain performs 180 outside loops in an airplane over Houston
1978 Reggie Jackson is 19th player to hit 20 HR in 11 straight years
1983 Yitzhak Shamir (Herut) endorsed by Menachem Begin for Israelli PM
1986 Cathy Evelyn Smith sentenced to 3 years for death of John Belushi
1987 Donald Trump takes out a full page NY Times ad lambasting Japan
1987 Kevin Bass is 1st NLer to switch hit HRs in a game twice in 1 season
1987 West German pilot Mathias Rust, who flew a private plane from Helsinki Finland, to Moscow's Red Square, goes on trial in Russia
1988 Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour begins in Wembley
1989 Rev Al Sharpton leads a civil rights march through Bensonhurst
1991 Jerry Lewis' 26th Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises $45 Million

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Vietnam : Independence Day (1945)
Namibia, South Africa : Settlers' Day ( Monday )
US, Canada, Guam, Virgin Islands : Labor Day (1894) ( Monday )
USA : National Sleepwalking Day.
International Gay Square Dance Month

---

Religious Observances
Luth : Commemoration of Bp Nikolai Grundtvig, renewer of the Church
Old Catholic : Feast of St Stephen, 1st King of Hungary
Christian : Feast of St William, English bishop, apostle to Danes
RC : Commem of Bl Andre Grasset, Canadian Holy Cross brother
Ang : Feast of the martyrs of New Guinea

---

Religious History
1758 The first Anglican service of worship to be held on Canadian soil was led by Rev. Robert Wolfall at Frobisher Bay, on Baffin Island.
1784 English clergyman Thomas Coke, 37, was consecrated, the first "bishop" of the Methodist Episcopal Church, by founder John Wesley. Coke afterward journeyed to America, where he and Francis Asbury oversaw Methodism in the Colonies.
1930 While a missionary in the Philippines, American linguistic pioneer Frank Laubach wrote in a letter: 'God is always awaiting the chance to give us high days. We so seldom are in deep earnest about giving him his chance.'
1949 English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.'
1973 Death of J.R.R. Tolkien, 81, English Christian language scholar and novelist. His 1954-55 "Lord of the Rings" trilogy describes a war between good and evil in which evil is routed through courage and sacrifice.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

Thought for the day :
"Etiquette tip: More people will get out of your way if you say "I'm gonna puke!" than if you say "Excuse me."

---

You might be a Yankee if...
you don't know anyone with two first names (i.e. Joe Bob, Billy Bob, Bubba Kay Bob, Bob Bob)

---

Murphys Law of the day...(Gumperson's Law)
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.

---

Cliff Clavin says, it's a little known fact...
The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds.

[thatdewd]

1973 Death of J.R.R. Tolkien, 81, English Christian language scholar and novelist.

Frodo Lives! (or so my old bumpersticker used to say)

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[HiJinx]

Oh Boy!! I can't wait for Friday!

In the meantime, looks like the rest of us will be having fun. Maybe the ROTC guys at U of P can join in and learn something...hmmmm?

[Prof Engineer]

Frodo Lives! (or so my old bumpersticker used to say)

He still does over at The Hobbit Hole 4

Look for the adventure of Flat FRodo.

[thatdewd]

Morning!

[thatdewd]

He still does over at The Hobbit Hole 4

14,000+ posts! Lawd have mercy! (looks kewl, I'll definitely check it out)

[Prof Engineer]

14,000+ posts! Lawd have mercy! (looks kewl, I'll definitely check it out)

Hobbit Hole 3 maxxed out at 65,535 posts.

The latest Flat FRodo is at post 13,961. Enjoy

[w_over_w]

Morning Glory Snip and Sam~

Bump for later . . . Sam have a great brake. Come back with a good joke!

[Johnny Gage]

Enjoy your time off, while you are "creating a special Foxhole"

Welcome tmprincesa, I'm sure all the regulars (and myself) will conduct ourselves.. *cough cough* will the greatest of politeness. *cough *cough. and that the daily threads will *cough *cough* maintain their usual progress *cough* (gotta swallow the soda, not breathe it... yeah that's the ticket)

Rofl

[HairOfTheDog]

Recieved in email..... in case some haven't seen it, it is neat.

Angel Decoy

Photos of an Air Force C-130 releasing flares to repel heat seeking missiles. The pattern formed by these "decoys" are how they got their name... 'angel decoy'.

It's truly awesome!

Because maneuvers are usually in remote areas and over water, the general public does not get to see these exercises.

[HairOfTheDog]

Hiya here! You are talking 'bout silly ole us over here huh? - Wow.... ~grin~

I hardly ever get over here, but thought they might like the Angel decoy MBY sent me!

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks aomagrat.

[snippy_about_it]

Hello, everyone. SAM and I arrived at our secret base camp and are working diligently. LOL.

Just dropping in to catch up and say we are ok. I'll turn this Cantina computer over to SAM now and we'll see you all when we can. Otherwise, see you all on Friday's thread.

[SAMWolf]

HMS Neptune was the first British Battleship to be able to fire all ten of her 12-inch guns broadside, by allowing the two wing turrets to fire across deck

That had to be an interesting layout of the turrets.

[SAMWolf]

1945 V-J Day; formal surrender of Japan aboard USS Missouri (WWII ends)

Amazing what a couple of nukes can accomplish.

[SAMWolf]

Come back with a good joke!

You mean I have to bring Snippy back?????? OUCH!! OUCH!!! Quit hitting me Snippy!!

[SAMWolf]

Be nice to tmprincesa! I need her to post for two days. don't go scaring her off!!

[SAMWolf]

The only thing Snippy is "working diligently" on is a couple of Coronas at the bar while I'm posting this. :-)

[Soaring Feather]

SamWolf,

You mean I'm not your favouite poet any more???

sniff

[HiJinx]

Quick man, get on over there before she drinks your, too!

Darksheare, Snippy may need some of your coffee before this special project is completed!

[Johnny Gage]

Of course.

Actually I didn't realize she was still on here. Hadn't seen her since way back in the "canteen days".

[Johnny Gage]

Air Power
F-5 "Freedom Fighter"/"Tiger"

The F-5 is a lightweight, easy-to-fly, simple-to-maintain, and (relatively) cheap supersonic fighter. In configuration the F-5 is a low-wing monoplane equipped with an all-moving horizontal tall mounted in the low position; the fuselage is carefully contoured in accordance with the transonic area rule. Small side-mounted inlets supply air for the two General Electric J85 afterburning turbojet engines. The 4.8-percent-thick wing has 24 sweepback at the quarter chord line. The wing trailing edge is nearly straight, giving a trapezoidal shape to the planform. Lateral control is provided by small ailerons located near midsemispan; single-slotted high-lift flaps extend from the inboard end of the ailerons to the sides of the fuselage. Leading-edge flaps are used to improve maneuvering performance. (These flaps are not incorporated in the wings of the T-38.) Speed brakes are mounted on the bottom of the fuselage. Turning performance is enhanced by an aileron-rudder interconnect system, and handling characteristics are improved by artificial damping about the pitch and yaw axes. The F-5 is reported to have good handling characteristics and, in contrast with the F-4, does not have a propensity for entering unintentional spins.

The development of the Northrop F-5 began in 1954 when a Northrop team toured Europe and Asia to examine the defense needs of NATO and SEATO countries. A 1955 company design study for a lightweight supersonic fighter that would be relatively inexpensive, easy to maintain, and capable of operating out of short runways. The Air Force did not initially look favorably upon the proposal, since it did not need for a lightweight fighter. However, it did need a new trainer to replace the Lockheed T-33, and in June of 1956 the Air Force announced that it was going to acquire the trainer version, the T-38 Talon.

First flight of the prototype of the fighter version of the aircraft, designated F-5, occurred in July 1959. On April 25, 1962, the Department of Defense announced that it had chosen the aircraft for its Military Assistance Program (MAP). America's NATO and SEATO allies would now be able to acquire a supersonic warplane of world-class quality at a reasonable cost. On August 9, 1962 the aircraft was given the official designation of F-5A Freedom Fighter. Later known as the Tiger, initial deliveries of the F-5 were made to Iran in January 1965. Attracted by its performance, reliability, and low cost (in 1972, the cost of an F-5 was about one-third that of an F-4), other countries outside MAP soon began buying the F-5.

Optimized for the air-to-ground role, the F-5A had only a very limited air-to-air capability, and was not equipped with a fire-control radar. The F-5B was the two-seat version of the F-5A. It was generally similar to the single-seat F-5A but had two seats in tandem for dual fighter/trainer duties. The F-5 was originally designed as a daytime, air-to-air fighter, but it has also been extensively used as a ground-attack aircraft. Photoreconnaissance versions of the F-5 have also been produced. Armament for the air-to-air combat role consists of two 20-mm cannons and two Sidewinder missiles. Radius of a typical air combat mission with this armament and external fuel tanks is 375 miles, and average mission speed is 541 miles per hour. In the ground-attack mode, about 7000 pounds of external ordnance may be carried.

Although all F-5A production was intended for MAP, in October 1965, the USAF "borrowed" 12 combat-ready F-5As from MAP supplies and sent them to Vietnem with the 4503rd Tactical Fighter Wing for operational service trials. This program was given the code name of *Skoshi Tiger" ("little" Tiger). and it was during this tour of duty that the F-5 picked up its Tiger nickname. Evaluated in Vietnam by the USAF, the F-5 was later used by Vietnamese forces.

On November 20, 1970, the Northrop entry was declared the winner of the IFA (International Fighter Aircraft) to be the F-5A/B's successor. The emphasis was be on the air-superiority role for nations faced with threats from opponents operating late-generation MiG-21s. An order was placed for five development and 325 production aircraft. In January of 1971, it was reclassified as F-5E. The aircraft came to be known as *Tiger II*

The F-5E is a small, light aircraft. Its design gross weight of 15 745 pounds is only about 30 percent of the 53 848-pound design gross weight of the F-4. In performance, the F-5 has a Mach 1.51 capability at about 36000 feet and a sea-level rate of climb of 28 536 feet per minute - a good performance but not comparable with that of the F-4. Certainly, the load-carrying capability of the F-5 is much less than that of the larger aircraft.

Never a part of the USAF tactical forces, it has been used as an aggressor aircraft to represent a hostile fighter in simulated combat with U.S. fighters. Some of the characteristics of the F-5 resemble those of the Soviet-built MIG-21 in certain altitude ranges.

The US Navy Fighter Weapons School (the so-called "Top Gun" school) at NAS Miramar acquired a total of ten F-5Es and three F-5Fs for dissimilar air combat training. Because of the F-5's characteristics, which were similar to the MiG-21, was used as 'agressor' aircraft, equipping the FWS and VF-126 at NAS Miramar, plus VF-43 at NAS Oceana. All three units later disposed of their Tiger IIs in favor of the General Dynamics F-16N. These Tiger IIs were passed on to VF-95 at NAS Key West and VFA-127 at NAS Fallon. During FY 1996, VFC-13 moved from NAS Miramar, CA, to NAS Fallon, NV, and transitioned from 12 F/A-18 to 25 F-5 aircraft. VFC-13's flight hour program increased to offset the scheduled decommissioning of the two remaining Active Component adversary squadrons, VF-45 and VFA-127. This transition to the F-5 adversary aircraft provided Active and Reserve Navy pilots with air-to-air combat training at significant savings to the taxpayer. Recent estimates show that the F-5 can be operated at one third of what it costs to operate an F/A-18.

Specifications:
Primary Function: Fighter
Contractor: Northrop
Crew: One
Unit Cost: $756,000
Powerplant: Two General Electric J85s of 4,080 lbs. thrust each with afterburner

Dimensions:
Length: 47 feet, 2 inches
Wingspan: 25 feet 3 inches
Height: 13 feet 2 inches
Weights: Empty: 8,085 lb / Maximum Takeoff: 20,677 lb

Performance :
Speed: 925 mph (Mach 1.4) at 36,000 feet
Ceiling: 50,500 feet
Range: with maximum fuel -- 1387 miles

Armaments:
two 20-mm cannon in the fuselage nose.
Two AIM-9 Sidewinder at the wingtips
Five pylons carry up to 6200 pounds of ordinance or fuel tanks
loads can include four air-to-air missiles,
Bullpup air-to-surface missiles, bombs, up to 20 unguided rockets, or external fuel tanks.

---

---

---

All photos Copyright of Global Security.Org

[PhilDragoo]

Isn't it special that David Irving denied there was a massacre of U.S. POWs at Malmedy?

David Irving denied many things:

~~~

Irving's tag as 'Holocaust denier' upheld

David Pallister
Saturday July 21, 2001
The Guardian

The discredited historian of the Third Reich, David Irving, may face bankruptcy after the court of appeal yesterday rejected his application to appeal against a libel trial ruling branding him a racist Holocaust denier who deliberately distorted historical facts.

He faces a final legal bill of more than £2m. Yesterday the court agreed that he could be asked immediately for an interim payment of £150,000.

Richard Rampton QC, counsel for Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, whose book, Denying the Holocaust, led to the case, said: "There lurks the real possibility of the need to take bankruptcy proceedings against Mr Irving."

He was not in court when the judgment - a ringing endorsement of the conclusions reached by Mr Justice Gray at the libel trial last year - was handed down by Lord Justice Pill with Lord Justice Mantell and Lord Justice Buxton. Mr Irving was "somewhere in a van on the south coast" trying to sell his latest book, Churchill's War, to bookshops, said his lawyers.

After Mr Justice Gray's devastating judgment that he was an apologist for Hitler, Mr Irving has been unable to find a mainstream distributor for the book, which he has published under his own imprint, Focal Point Press, with finance from American investors.

Mark Bateman, solicitor for Penguin, said: "[Today's ruling] is a very predictable outcome. It is a shame we have been dragged through the court of appeal when there was really no issue in Mr Justice Gray's judgment - his judgment was sound."

Lord Justice Pill said that the trial judge was right to conclude Irving "may be described as a Holocaust denier". He went on: "We acknowledge he has over the years modified, and in some respects, significantly modified, his views upon some of the relevant events.

"However, the respondents were justified in describing him as 'one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial' having regard to the views he has expressed and in some respects persisted in, and the manner and force with which he has expressed them.

"The use of the word 'dangerous' was justified by reason of his historiographical methods considered by the judge and in this judgment."

Last month Irving's counsel, Adrian Davies, had argued before the court that Mr Justice Gray's conclusions were wrong and unjust and that Irving had come to reasonable conclusions in his books based on the available evidence.

Lord Justice Pill said: "Mr Davies has not persuaded us that it is arguable that the judge's general conclusions were unjustified."

On the trial's central question of Auschwitz, said Lord Justice Pill, Mr Irving argued that the evidence for mass gassing at the camp was nowhere near so strong that it was perverse for him to entertain doubts about it. Mr Irving's view was that there were no gassings at Auschwitz 1 and only random gassings at Auschwitz 2, and had submitted there were good grounds for scepticism as to what had happened at Auschwitz.

Lord Justice Pill said that, having considered the evidence, they considered Mr Justice Gray "fully entitled" to reach his conclusion that "no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, and that they were operated on a substantial scale to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews".

Professor Lipstadt said she was gratified by the ruling: "I hope Mr Irving's six year battle against my attempt to tell the truth about him will end. I do not delude myself that, though my battle with Mr Irving may be over, the fight against those who will pervert the historical record for their own political and ideological goals has ended. That battle will continue for as long as history is written. Those of us writing history and those of us who care about truth and memory will have to be ever ready to stand against them."

~~~

Imagine, you merely try to conquer the world, crush smaller countries, exterminate Jews, gypsies, and other undesirables, and when you fail--they want to hang you for a few dozen Americans shot in the head.

Sorry, I cannot muster the bleeding heart sympathy of the defense attorney, Lt. Col. Everett.

The glorious Geneva Accords were trod under the boots of the mobilized Third Reich. Beginning in 1933, there was no question that Germany's destiny was conquest, legalities to the contrary notwithstanding.

A pity that Peiper died at the hands of french cowards thirty years after the fact--if there's a rub, it's that.

No doubt the forty Americans shot in the head (or the ten butted to death) were depressed in the style of Vince Foster.

To this day, Gerhardt Schroeder cannot speak straight and true. There is more karma to be worked out there.

Dachau

Dachau

Dachau, not Auschwitz

[bandleader]

The Massacre of American Prisoners Who Had Honorably Surrendered By Joachim Peiper's Soldaten Was Nothing Short Of MURDER!The Geneva Conventions Might Have Seemed Archaich At That Time In History(1944).One Wonders What They Have To Do With Today With TERRORISTS!!!!!!!!I Say,(In The Words Of General George S.Patton Jr.),"ATTACK,ATTACK,ATTACK,And If We Are Not Victorious,Let No One Come Back ALIVE"!!!!!!!!

[snippy_about_it]

I woke up without a headache!!!! W00-Hoo.

[snippy_about_it]

Thank you Phil.

[snippy_about_it]

Yep. Thanks bandleader.

[SAMWolf]

Finally playing catchup on the threads I missed while I was out of town. Thanks for the great pics of the Angel Decoys. There's a vidoe of that sequence floating around the net.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Johnny.