99 men from C Company and HQ Company of the 2nd Royal Norfolks surrendered, after holding up the German advance through the Pas-de-Calais region for nearly six hours in a farmhouse and then a barn, when their ammunition ran out. They surrendered to the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command of Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein.
Private Albert Pooley was one of only two survivors:
[INDENT]…we turned off the dusty French road, through a gateway and into a meadow beside the buildings of a farm. I saw with one of the nastiest feelings I have ever had in my life two heavy machine guns inside the meadow … pointing at the head of our column. The guns began to spit fire … for a few seconds the cries and shrieks of our stricken men drowned the crackling of the guns. Men fell like grass before a scythe … I felt a searing pain and pitched forward … my scream of pain mingled with the cries of my mates, but even before I fell into the heap of dying men, the thought stabbed my brain ‘If I ever get out of here, the swine that did this will pay for it.’…[/INDENT]
Private William O’Callaghan also survived, pulling Private Pooley out from the dead bodies in the field and hiding them both in a pig sty for the next three days.
A Waffen SS journalist witnessed the scene the following day, photographing the farm and bodies and making a report with the conclusion that there must have been trial of some sort with a summery execution. Later German troops forced villagers to bury the bodies. O’Callaghan and Pooley were captured by a regular army unit mopping up stragglers.
General Erich Hoepner, commander of the German forces in France, eventually heard about the massacre and, being no lover of the SS or their methods, tried to have the incident investigated – but without success. In fact other SS officers were also appalled at the massacre and some even challenged Hauptsturmführer Knöchlein to a duel, which never took place.
Private Pooley was medically repatriated in 1943, due to his injuries; his report on his capture was not taken seriously since it was felt that the Germans would never do such things to British soldiers. When O’Callaghan was released in 1945 he was able to verify the tale Pooley had told and an investigation was instigated.
Knöchlein was identified as being the units commander and detained in 1947. At his trial he pleaded not guilty to the killing of 97 prisoners of war, his defence being that he had not been present on the day when the massacre took place, claiming that the British troops had used dumdum bullets and misused a white truce flag. In addition he made accusations that he was physically and mentally tortured whilst detained in the London Cage, before the trial. It became clear that Knöchlein’s unit had not, in fact, fought the 2nd Norfolks in 1940 but the Royal Scots who had been the other side of the road through the farm, an apparent natural barrier which divided both friend and foe.
Knöchlein was found guilty of war crimes and hung in Hamburg, 28th January 1949. No other German officer or soldier was prosecuted for the massacre.
Sign In
May 27, 2016 at 10:32 pm