Exclusive: Silenced! WWII vets from the US
and UK tell how they narrowly escaped
death after being sent to Buchenwald
concentration camp and then ordered not
to talk about their harrowing ordeal when
they returned home
Daily Mail (UK),
by
James Desborough
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
6/29/2021 3:20:06 PM
A new documentary tells the harrowing untold story of the 168 airmen who were freed from a Nazi concentration camp during World War II only told by the US, UK and other allied governments that their ordeal never happened.Documentary maker and grandson of one of the airmen, Mike Dorsey, has shared with DailyMailTV footage of his movie about the astonishing story of the American, Canadian, British, Australian, and New Zealand airmen's ordeal.Though all the military men are now dead, Dorsey managed to get many of them to tell their shocking tale on camera over the past ten years,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Catherine 6/29/2021 3:32:27 PM (No. 830601)
My dad would never talk about his experiences in WWII. No man ever would. Maybe this silence code was why, although I'm sure nothing that happened was anything they ever wanted to talk about.
21 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 6/29/2021 4:04:29 PM (No. 830632)
I didn't find out what my Dad really did in The Pacific until 20 years after his death. It was mind blowing for the family. (BTW... it was all amazing, brave, good, patriotic stuff)
20 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
chumley 6/29/2021 4:12:11 PM (No. 830639)
I've noticed that combat vets will generally not talk about their experiences with anyone but other combat vets. Why would they? There is no frame of reference and nothing to be gained. Truthfully, when I hear someone talking about their experiences in combat the red flags pop up and I assume a stolen valor phoney.
19 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
frodo 6/29/2021 4:18:23 PM (No. 830647)
This sounds very much like the Stalag 9 to Berga ordeal. Rescued soldiers from that ordeal were sworn to silence as well. -- short recap: the Jewish US POWs (and trouble makers) were separated from the other POWs and shipped off to Berga which was a death camp. It was only in recent years that this episode of history became known.
15 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 6/29/2021 4:20:35 PM (No. 830650)
One of my uncles landed at Omaha Beach in Normandy at the age of 19. He spent the next year with Patton’s 3rd Army chasing the Nazis across France and Belgium, then Bastogne, then Germany. I’m pretty sure he went through Buchenwald; Patton saw to it that most of his troops did. If anybody mentioned the camps in a conversation, he would either change the subject or walk away. As far as I know, he never talked about it with anyone; he took those memories to his grave.
The Nazis also put Allied airmen into Mauthausen, another concentration camp north of Vienna. One afternoon, they made them all carry big rocks up a hill to a big rockpile. They worked them until they dropped from exhaustion, then they shot them. We know about it because they took pictures of the event..... These days, they have a big monument in Vienna mourning all the victims of Mauthausen. The Austrians now say they were “the first victims” of the Nazis, but they didn’t fool me - I saw the newsreels of the adoring crowds when Hitler entered Vienna in 1938. The Austrians loved Nazis; they ate it up.
17 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Mofongo 6/29/2021 4:36:08 PM (No. 830662)
Never ever believe the Government. Ever. About anything.
24 people like this.
I was a rotary pilot in the first Gulf War -- had a uneventful tour, excepting regular small arms fire.
One moment that sticks out was in Riyad Saudi. All the Jewish soldiers were called together at our base. Probably 120 or so, all in. We were all issued "Protestant B" dog tags because Jews were not allowed in Saudi and ordered to change our tags, but officially because they were afraid what the Iraqis would do to us if captured.
I protested using rather colorful language to my Captain who took a deep breath and said "I'm not going to check for compliance."
Message received, I stuck the Protestant B tags in my ruck.
It's also the moment I decided the Army was not going to be a lifetime career, as intended. Still chaffed.
15 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
nelsonted1 6/29/2021 5:10:59 PM (No. 830675)
Talking about is much harder than thinking about it. Its like any traumatic experience- hearing yourself talking about is much, much worse.
11 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
GO3 6/29/2021 6:31:03 PM (No. 830738)
I won't disable ad blocker so I can only read the first few lines of the article. That being said, I'm fairly knowledgeable about WWII history, but I'll never understand the the info blackout on what was going on in the concentration camps. So what was the big deal about our airmen not allowed to talk about Buchenwald? It was real, and people were tortured and killed. I'm not referring to reluctance of vets to talk about their experiences. I'm referring to official policy on what was going on in the camps. Patton called in Ike and Bradley when his forces liberated Ohrdruf and Buchenwald and had the townspeople take the "tour." Never understand it.
5 people like this.
First, thank everyone and their family members for serving 'this country' Maybe if we still had the draft, there wouldn't be so many whiners and bedwetters.
5 people like this.
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