MASSACRE AT THE CHATEAU DE GRANGUES - D-DAY 6TH JUNE 1944

[CINDERS]

l'll say candidly that; The tentacles of justice know no boundaries such as time and the transgressor of this injustice brought upon those young Paratroopers will if they still live may they face the wrath of the system with the provision there is no premise for a plea that the sentence be meted out to the person the same way that he the perpetrator gave to those poor young lads.

[Brit plumber]

That was a very informative article and of an incident I’d not heard of. It’s now an event in history that I will always remember.

Is it correct that the report stated the rounds were .38 calibre as I would have expected the service personnel to have known they would be 9mm for a P38 unless the confusion was .38 and P38.

[bros]

Good work Gil.....I hope you find that old bastard!!

[Gil Boyd]

Brit Plumber,
Yes correct, a lot of my original work was cut down and a few mistakes made including that one typo error, which to us that know is important.

This is what was actually said at the court of enquiry in 1945 regarding this point:

The weapon used is stated by the pathologist to have have been of approximately .38 calibre, which would suggest either a sub machine gun or an automatic pistol of Luger or Walther type.

The pathologist was an RAMC Capt Rankin. Whether he would or could have told that accurately in field PM conditions is debatable. I would certainly have said it was a pistol from what the witness described and most certainly a 9mm round in each case, as his personal pistol was a P38. As I said in my article, with DNA and forensics today it is a shame the rounds were not kept!

[Paul S.]

Brit Plumber,
Yes correct, a lot of my original work was cut down and a few mistakes made including that one typo error, which to us that know is important.

This is what was actually said at the court of enquiry in 1945 regarding this point:

The weapon used is stated by the pathologist to have have been of approximately .38 calibre, which would suggest either a sub machine gun or an automatic pistol of Luger or Walther type.

The pathologist was an RAMC Capt Rankin. Whether he would or could have told that accurately in field PM conditions is debatable. I would certainly have said it was a pistol from what the witness described and most certainly a 9mm round in each case, as his personal pistol was a P38. As I said in my article, with DNA and forensics today it is a shame the rounds were not kept!

Having the bullets as evidence would be important if only to confirm what weapon fired them. The two questions that cross my mind are; a, whether Capt. Rankin was able to measure the spent bullets accurately (0.357/0.380 versus 0.355 is not that different); and b, whether the murderer might have used one of the prisoner's issue revolver to commit the atrocity with the intention of creating a level of deniability.

[Gil Boyd]

Paul,
Only him present and what he admitted to the Count that he shot them all one at a time in the back and one in the head. This was obviously found when they finally exumed the bodies corroborating his actions. Ranking was a Medical Officer and would probably know a .38 as he was probably issued a revolver, but the untrained eye would'nt probably know or see a difference!