| I hope this item adds a bit to the story.
On Tuesday 28 May 1940, Private Thomas John Hanna from Bushmills was reported missing in action. He was a member of A Company 2nd Battalion, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. His company were tasked to fight the rearguard in the village of Wormhout and allow the evacuation at Dunkirk to proceed.
That day A Company had fought valiantly against the 2nd Bn. Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). In retribution for all the casualties they sustained, the LSSAH shot the injured Warwick’s dead and escorted the 200 survivors 3km away to a barn in Esquelbecq.
The LSSAH tried to kill the Warwick’s by throwing hand grenades into the barn. That was not efficient enough so they escorted the survivors out, five at a time and shot them in the head. The process was too slow so they entered the barn and machine-gunned the remainder.
That evening a local farmer filled a churn with milk and went out to comfort the fifteen survivors and the dying. The milk churn remains at the scene of the massacre as a poignant memorial to the brave Warwick’s. (Rodgers, p21)
For the LSSAH this was not an isolated incident. Their war record is peppered with atrocities. Their last actions included the torture and murder of eleven African-American soldiers from the 333rd Field Bn. US Army and the massacre of 130 Belgian civilians in December, 1944.
Present-day wars are still throwing up people of this ilk. |