After The Battle #190 – The Massacre at Tulle

THE MASSACRE AT TULLE — Jean Paul Pallud tells us how on June 7, FTP Resistance fighters began the assault to clear the city of German and Vichy security forces. At first they managed to defeat part of the German garrison, trapping other men in odd strong points, but then the 2. SS-Panzer-Division arrived late on June 8. On the following day the Waffen-SS rounded up all men between the ages of 16 to 60 and decided to execute 120 of them, of whom they actually hanged 99. In the days that followed, the Germans sent another 154 men to concentration camps where 107 lost their lives. The Pearl Harbor Medals of Honor — Of the 18 Medals of Honor awarded to men serving in the Hawaiian Islands during the Second World War, 16 were awarded for actions during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of December 7, 1941. Of these 16 men, 15 were Navy personnel and one a Marine; 12 were officers and four enlisted men; 11 of the medals were posthumous, and five of these were awarded to men missing in action; of the five men who survived December 7, one went missing later in the war, and only four survived the war. The story is told by Colonel Charles A. Jones, USMC (Ret’d). Revolt at Featherston POW Camp — David Mitchelhill-Green tells us how on February 25, 1943, an unfortunate incident took place at a prisoner of war camp at Featherston in New Zealand, when guards opened fire on a group of around 240 Japanese prisoners who had gone on a sit-down strike. The tragedy occurred when one of the New Zealand officers, in an attempt to break the strike, shot a Japanese officer in the shoulder, whereupon the prisoners began throwing stones at the guards who then replied with rifle and sub-machine gun fire. In a matter of seconds, 48 prisoners had been killed or fatally wounded, with another 78 suffering gunshot wounds. Six camp guards were wounded, one of whom died. The ‘Featherston Incident’, as it came to be known, was triggered by a tragic cultural clash between Japanese POWs, disgraced under a Military Code that forbade surrender, and New Zealand guards largely ill-suited to their role.