[23], Previous scholarship traced West’s service to his parole and subsequent hon­orable discharge, but it skipped an entire chapter of his story. [22]  West’s court-martial records were kept under lock and key at the Pentagon until the 1950s. Fourteen soldiers were killed in fighting while … He received a promotion directly from private to sergeant within three weeks of joining L Company, and was featured on the front page of the 100th Infantry Division newspaper, the Century Sentinel. Washington, DC 20024-2126 As we visited Dachau we saw on a railroad sidetrack paralleling the main highway, and close to the gates of the prison camp, a train of cars which had been used to bring additional civilian prisoners to this camp. TTY: 202.488.0406, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. It quickly advanced through western France, reaching the German border by the end of the year. We saw many dead bodies on the ground. [7]  On 14 July 1943, several days after the initial landings, West’s company was engaged near the airport at Biscari. [42]  The 399th Infantry’s regimental history offers what is, at best, an oversimplification: “West had fought in Sicily with the 45th. The bees accepted the hive. The 45th Infantry Division was reassigned to VI Corps on New Year's day. To the Soldiers in L Company who never had the chance to meet or even see him, he “was like a ghost. The first evidence of the horror to come was a string of about forty railway cars on a siding near the camp entrance. [37] Id. With few provisions, almost 2,000 inmates died during the circuitous route that took them from Thuringia through Saxony to Czechoslovakia and into Bavaria. Following his release, West was far from inconspicuous. Incidentally, the 45th Infantry Division committed additional war crimes during the Second World War. During World War II, the 45th Division fought in 511 days of combat awarding eight Medals of Honor. [6]  This new chapter of the Biscari Massacre reveals innominate dimensions of the case and unknown applications of military justice during World War II. commander serving in the 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, ordered his men to execute thirty-six prisoners of war (POWs). Here are some instances of US war crimes. [55] Viral hepatitis was a problem in the European Theater of Operations during the winter of 1945. He survived the war, escaped serious punishment, and wrought havoc upon the enemy after his early release. [60] The “new research” listed here was conducted by the author. Military historian Earl Zi… The local townspeople were brought in to give the dead prisoners a proper burial. [21] Borch, supra note 7, at 5. The legend is fact,” repeating West’s likely embellishment and giving it additional authority. He also would have been safe from capture and the opportunity to divulge the events of the Biscari Massacre. The brigade commands six battalions. It may be argued that one of its perpetrators, Captain Compton, received his due when he was killed in action shortly after his trial. Eventually the matter was brought to the attention of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he recommended that West be given another chance. He was on special duty for a number of months in the [United States] before coming across, and consequently had been replaced in his squad with another Sergeant...for that reason, West was attached to Company Headquarters and was not controlling a squad.” United States v. West, No. [45], The UPI story is also the origin of West’s unsubstantiated claims that he killed over one hundred German soldiers. 2 Jan- The Division fought defensively along the German border, withdrawing to the Moder River. [27] West was the one who nicknamed the young Soldier “The Kid.” CENTURY SENTINEL, supra note 6. [36] Id. It had left Buchenwald four weeks earlier on April 7 filled with more than 5,000 prisoners. Reenacting Historical. [38] KHOURY, supra note 32, app. D; CENTURY SENTINEL,supra note 6, at 1. [50] GURLEY, supra note 43. His crime? The 45th Infantry Division, along with the 7th Infantry Division, fought off repeated Chinese attacks all along the front line throughout 1952, and Chinese forces … [61] Borch, supra note 7, at 5. [11]  The same day, West’s company commander, Captain John T. Compton, had also been involved in the killing of thirty-six POWs near Biscari. . The resulting story, “They Started it, Says Oklahoma Sniper with 130 Nazis to Credit,” began appearing in newspapers across the country. [40]  A report of West’s ex­ploits also appeared in the London edition of The Stars and Stripes.[41]. [33]  CENTURY SENTINEL, supra note 6 at 4. And, in the process, West was elevated from murderer to cause célèbre. The proximity of the US Army gave hope to the prisoners in the camp and to anti-Nazis outside it. Sergeant West was a cook in A Company, 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division when it landed near Gela, Sicily, as part of Operation Husky. According to Tyson, West was already with L Company and actively engaged in sniping when the replacement arrived in late January 1945, and in Tyson’s opinion, the replacement’s death was likely attributable to it. The 45th Infantry Division As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they found tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners in deplorable conditions.e Malnutrition and disease were rampant, and corpses lay unburied. That Soldier, Sergeant Horace Theodore West, was a thirty-five year-old Oklahoma native with thinning gray hair and skin “tanned the color of smoked ham.” During the interview, West told Vermillion (the UPI reporter) that his beloved Springfield rifle, equipped with a telescopic sight, was named after his wife Mabel. [14] Id. His brother sought information from the War Department on details of his brother’s confinement. In some of these cars there were more than enough to cover the floors. [19] James J. Weingartner, Massacre at Biscari: Patton and an American War Crime, HISTORIAN, Nov. 1989, at 38. He murdered thirty-seven Italian and German prisoners of war (POWs) in an incident now known as The Biscari Massacre. 1, 1945), https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39339365/the-record-democrat/. The following month, the division landed in Sicily, where it engaged Axis troops in combat. [49] While West was assigned to the company headquarters as a cook, for most of the previous year he had been detached from the company on special duty—including as the acting Provost Sergeant in charge of the division stockade at Fort Devens. It refers to two incidents in which U.S. soldiers were involved in killing 71 unarmed Italian and 2 German prisoners of war (POWs) at the Regia Aeronautica's 504 air base in Santo Pietro, a small village near Caltagirone, southern Sicily, Italy on 14 July 1943. On 19 October 1920, the Oklahoma State militia was organized as the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, and manned with troops from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. [16] Captain Compton, whose trial took place after West, was acquit­ted of the charges against him. In addition to burying the dead, the Allied forces attempted to help and comfort the survivors with food, clothing and medical assistance. In their report delivered to Congress on May 15, 1945, the senators and representatives stated that. Scene from Netflix TV show "The Liberator" depicting 45th Infantry Division soldier battling German ... [+] troops in the Vosges mountains in January 1945. Dante's Inferno seemed pale compared to the real hell of Dachau. [28] Id. [57], While it is unclear whether West—a pre-war member of the 45th Infantry Division—maintained any connection to that unit, he was a paying member of the 100th Infantry Division veterans’ association as late as 1985; he wrote in its newsletter that he would not be able to make the division’s annual reunion, but that he “would like to be there and meet all the good men [he] served with.”[58] Horace Theodore West died in Mayer, Arizona on 24 September 1994.[59]. The brigade is a subordinate unit of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, headquartered in Norman, OK. Nevertheless, the Army officials in charge of this camp advised us that there were 50 of these cars in this 1 train and that at least 100 of these civilians had been jammed into each car . When the three units arrived at Dachau, they discovered more than 30,000 prisoners in the overcrowded camp. During World War II, the 45th Division fought in 511 days of combat awarding eight Medals of Honor. After advancing up the Italian peninsula, the 45th landed at Anzio in February 1944, where it withstood repeated German assaults against its positions. The 45th Infantry Division Association is creating a red brick "Path of Remembrance", surrounding the paved walkway, and the flagpole, in the center of the parade ground, at the front of the Museum. 1945) (NARA RG 407, Entry 427); KHOURY, supra note 32, app. ; Vermillion, supra note 6, at 2. It replaced another previously used Native American symbol, a swastika, that was withdrawn when it became closely associated with the Nazi Party. When US troops arrived in Dachau on April 29, they found 2,310 additional corpses on the train. [56] There is no indication that he received any official reprimand, or otherwise ran afoul of the military justice system, after his parole in November 1944. It is important to note that West’s version of events differs from the memories of other L Company Soldiers. His intent was to interview a sniper—from Wagoner, Oklahoma, in L Company, 399th Infantry Regiment—who was credited with killing more than 130 German troops. He then borrowed a Thompson sub-machine gun from his company’s first sergeant, and told him he was going to kill the “sons of bitches.”[8]  He instructed his comrades to “turn around if you don’t want to see it.”[9]  West murdered the disarmed POWs at close range, then reloaded and began firing single shots into the hearts of the POWs still moving. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 [35] Id. [1] United Press Int’l, Wagoner Fighter Has 130 Notches On Garand Rifle, RECORD-DEMOCRAT (Mar. Both feared the impact on U.S. public opinion and the possibility of reprisals should the details of the incidents become common knowledge.”[19] With Compton dead, the chance that his involvement would be revealed was removed. The killing in Sicily didn’t take skill as much as fire power and, most of the time, I was using a tommy gun.”[47]  This was a particularly shocking statement from a Soldier previ­ously convicted by general court-martial of murdering thirty-seven unarmed POWs with a submachine gun.[48]. Joe Wilson, 94, talks this month about his memories of World War II in the Oklahoma National Guard's 45th Infantry Division. Lieutenant Colonel Felix Sparks, who commanded the 45th Infantry Division troops, later recalled his first impressions of Dachau: The initial shock was experienced even before entering the camp. This new chapter of the Biscari Massacre reveals innominate dimensions of the case and unknown applications of military justice during World War II. STAR, Feb. 27, 1945, at 1. In Bradley's 45th Infantry Division, a National Guard formation which Patton had encouraged before the invasion to make itself known as the 'killer division', a sergeant and a captain massacred more than seventy unarmed prisoners. On April 28, the day before liberation, a train bearing about 40 or so railway cars arrived at the camp. JOHN M. KHOURY, LOVE COMPANY (2003). As a result, Major General Troy H. Middleton, the 45th Infantry Division commander, convened a general court-martial to try SGT West for "willfully, deliberately, feloniously, unlawfully" killing "thirty-seven prisoners of war, none of whose names are known, each of them a human being, by shooting them and each of them with a Thompson Sub-Machine gun."" [8] Id. [23] Id. 250833 (45th Inf. [20], In February 1944, the War Department recommended that West be granted clemency, but that no publicity be given to his case because “to do so would give aid and comfort to the enemy, and would arouse a segment of our own citizens who are so distant from combat that they would not understand the savagery that is war.”[21] On 23 November 1944, after serving fourteen months of his life sentence, West was paroled and restored to active duty at the rank of Private. [50] Furthermore, according to Roy Sees—who served with West in L Company, 399th Infantry—there were no witnesses to many of his “kills”: With regard to the claim that West was responsible for the deaths of 150 German soldiers, Sees was not convinced. The engagements’ location would alternatively come to be known as “Old Baldy Hill” and “Suicide Hill” by others. [25] ATKINSON, supra note 24. [53] Interview with Roy Sees (May 8, 2015). In the town of Dachau, German opponents of the regime, including a few escaped concentration camp prisoners, took over the town hall, but the local SS put down the small rebellion and executed those among the insurgents whom they caught. The 180th Infantry Regiment (redesignated to Cavalry in 2008) saw action during World War I as the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division (Texas and Oklahoma) and World War II and the Korean War as part of the 45th Infantry Division and again in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the 45th Infantry Brigade. [27]   As the story goes, West took The Kid under his wing, shared what he learned from his earlier combat experiences, and “warned him not to move aroun’ too much” on the frontlines, “particularly when you figure there might be a sniper around”[28]  Unfortunately, The Kid became the victim of a German sniper almost immediately. [40] Robert Vermillion, They Started it, Says Oklahoma Sniper With 130 Nazis to Credit, LINCOLN J. “It don’t sound right to me, but he was a braggart,” Sees said. His unit fought more … The scene near the entrance to the confinement area numbed my senses. [36]  On another day, West was credited with the dispatch of fourteen German soldiers and a possible wounding or killing of six more while sniping and acting as a forward ob­server for his company’s mortars. This is a great way to honor veterans, family members, friends, units, or military organizations. . Also, it is possible that West referred to the replacement only as “The Kid” because neither he, nor anyone else in the company, knew the Soldier’s name. Cutting across the country, the unit was sent to southern France in August 1944. Was covered with dead, the stench of death was because of West with the 100TH Division. Was covered with dead, the Army ’ s story after his,... 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