17-3-30 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

A German staff element surrenders to troops of the US 10th Armored Division, March 20, 1945.

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[Flying10uk]

It does make you wonder what the prisoners with raised hands had previously been told by their superiors as to what would happen to them if they were ever to surrender to American or British soldiers.

[Paul S.]

Most of those blokes look like they'd been recycled from 1914-18, so they probably weren't unfamiliar with what to expect having been there done that once before.

Now the young and impressionable new conscript; that would have been a different story.

[browningautorifle]

Most of those blokes look like they'd been recycled from 1914-18

And, they'd been through worse. That of course doesn't preclude the fear that grips you when under foreign guns.

[Flying10uk]

There use to be a German living just down the road, less than half a mile away from where I am now, who came to the U.K. as a P.O.W. and never did go back to Germany because he liked living here. Or, as he use to say "I was treated so badly by the British as a P.O.W. I decided to stay". I believe that quite a few ex German P.O.W.s stayed on in the U.K. after the war, arriving with absolutely nothing, but ending up making a life for themselves.

[browningautorifle]

a few ex German P.O.W.s stayed on

A man I still know is second generation Canadian as his dad was Fallschirmjäger ... I ran parallel with him in service time... His dad was captured and sent to internment camp at Lethbridge Alberta to finish out the war. He worked on farms and such, learning English and what the farmland here was like. When he was force repatriated, as they all were, he grabbed his girl and returned to Canada on the same ship as it sailed back. He built a life and lived so close to the same place he could stand on his roof and point out the old POW camp. His son was second gen Para as well...I think his dad is still living. I have a similar story about a Tiger tank commander...and his son.

[Paul S.]

There were quite a few Italian and German POWs who were held in Australia after being captured during the desert campaign who either didn't go home or came back to Oz as quickly as possible after the war.

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As for the old blokes in the photo, they would have known to keep their hands up, do what they were told, not to make any sudden moves or give anybody hard looks and all should be sweet.

[BEAR]

Not being a TR collector, but those uniforms look simiiar to Reichsbahn (Railroad) uniforms. That would account for the elderly men in uniform but not fighters.

[Flying10uk]

It's interesting that the P.O.W.s held in Canada were "forced repatriated" at the end of the war because I believe that I'm correct in stating that the ones held in the U.K. had the option to simply stay on here.

There is a very interesting preserved German P.O.W. camp here in the U.K. not far from York which is now open as a WW2/military museum and it is well worth a visit for anyone interested. The name of the place is Eden Camp. Award Winning Visitor Attraction, Malton, North Yorkshire - Eden Camp

[13Echo]

Our electron microscope tech at William Beaumont Army Medical center was a German glider pilot in WW II. Our head of pharmacy at Med School had been a U boat commander in WW II. I met another man that was a German fighter pilot in WW II that was interned in the US and stayed after to go to school. They put him in with the rest of the vets in the dorm. He said they asked him if he was a veteran when he registered and he said yes. They didn't ask him which side. All very fine men.

Jerry Liles