Lost Airmen of Buchenwald

[ErrolC]

Mar 18, 2012 19:45:23 GMT 12 lostairmendirector said:

Thank you, flyjoe. I'm going to "stay up late" tonight to do a little interacting, as this is the televised world premiere of the film.

I'll finish a couple of chores then, and watch it a little delayed.

[ErrolC]

That was pretty good. I was aware that some Allied airmen had been in Concentration Camps, but couldn't remember the details. A good balance of lead-up, in the camp, and post-camp experiences I thought. Mainly told in the survivors' own voice, which is often a good approach.

I would have liked a couple of minutes on the legalities from an outside expert, rather than just the opinions of the survivors.

Hope the story can get wider coverage.

[nuuumannn]

A rather moving, but nevertheless unsentimental telling of the story; very effectively done. I enjoyed it very much. My commendations to you, lostairmendirector, you handled a very tricky subject extremely well. KZ documentaries can be depressing and sad, but this wasn't; it was very informative, as I knew little about these guys.

Good luck with the screening in Weimar. I imagine it will be a somewhat emotional event.

[Dave Homewood]

I thought this was an excellent documentary. It told a little known story of WWII, and in such a great way. All the veterans who appeared seemed to have vivid and consistent memories of their treatment and collective experience. Each and every one of them are heroes.

But for me the stand out in this was the telling of Phil Lamason's story. It is awesome that someone has highlighted this man's efforts, determination, true grit and bravery. He is clearly a real kiwi hero, and it is great that this is an American documentary that gives him the same spotlight. So often the many kiwis who were involved in big stories of WWII are completely overlooked by US, British and other historians, authors and film makers. So many thanks to this crew of documentary makers who have shown us the story of one of our own.

Also thanks must go to Prime Television for screening this. i hope that the film gets many more screenings on networks around the world.

I could not help thinking how this story would make a super dramatised feature film, if it retained the same fair and balanced portrayal that this doco has.

Well done lostairmendirector and thanks for making this superb film. Weren't those veterans all great storytellers!! Even if the US audience required subtitles to understand the kiwi and the Scot!

[littlegreyrabbit]

Here is the relevant passage from Eugen Kogon's The Theory and Practice of Hell
The section on the airmen goes from page 191 to 199 - but the overwhelming bulk concerns the SOE agents.

Here are the sections that refer to the airmen.

For about half a year, until late in 1944, 167 English pilots were at Buchenwald. They had a well-disciplined military organizatin and maintained close liaison with leading non-Communist personalities among the prisoners. They observed an attitude of loyalty toward the German Communist leadership and also had useful contact with the Russian prisoners of war. Like the Danes they were rather reserved, which may have been a matter not only of their national temperament but of their calling. During the later period at Buchenwald, many excellent plans of action were based on the assurance of their aid.
The regional Gestapo office in Paris sent a number of Allied secret agents from the west to the concentration camps in 1944. Forty-three of them, English and French, arrived at Buchenwald on August 17 and were quartered in the admission barracks No. 43.

[snip 8 pages on SOE agents]

For several months in 1944, 167 British Commonwelath pilots were in Buchenwald concentration camp. Shortly before Christmas they were shipped out to an unknown destination. Their leader was Squadron Leader Lamason, an Australin who always maintained close liaison with Dodkin. No one knew why fliers should have been sent to a concentration camp, certainly not the fliers themselves. They lived the hard life of the Little Camp.

No account of impending execution nor any account of intricate negotiations with Luftwaffe. This is powerful negative evidence. Eugen Kogon was one of the leaders of the German resistance in Buchenwald and the main custodian of its memory. Moreover the Theory and Practice of Hell was closely modelled on the Buchenwald Report of 1945, compiled by a committee of the camp resistance under the aegis of the Americans. It seems peculiar that such a range of the leading figures in the camp should not be aware of the accounts that began to mutate after 1980s.

For those who are interested, this is the version the spinmeisters in the Allies were peddling in 1945

National Archives: Kew: WO 171/1676
SHAEF
Psychological Warfare Division
"Guidance for Output in German for the Week 23 -30 April 1945"
.....
Of the 14 survivors of concentration camp Ohrdruf, three had been at the concentration camp at Buchenwald. There, they claim 14 British and American aviators were gassed to death by the Nazis.
[......September 1944, no room at regular POW camps.....]
The 14 airmen, however were treated as regular inmates of the concentration camp, were beaten and fed starvation rations. They lived in Block 32 with a number of Russians who were later transferred to Ohrdruf.
The 14 airmen went to the camp commandant and demanded their rights under the Geneva Convention. They were told by the commandant that since they refused to work they were considered as saboteurs.
The commandant then ordered that they be placed in Block 19, and it was in that Block that they were gassed and later cremated. A delegation of Russian fellow prisoners protested to the commandant. They were told that if they did not keep quiet they would suffer the same fate. Most of them did.

[littlegreyrabbit]

I would have liked a couple of minutes on the legalities from an outside expert, rather than just the opinions of the survivors.

The legalities were muddied by the practice of the British of using downed pilots as a cover for SOE agents - agents who were definitely illegal combatants.

All the airmen were captured in ambiguous circumstances - at least as far as the Germans were concerned - generally out of uniform and with resistance movements. I am not sure there is a requirement for a downed fighter to remain in uniform to retain POW status, but it would be easy to see how the Germans might have difficulty in determining their bona fides.

At least some of the airmen had done things that would have meant that they lost their protection under the Geneva convention.
For example, Flying Officer Thomas Blackham, who had lived and fought with the Maquis for some months before being moved to Paris for a covert return to England.

It says something for the Germans that all the 30 odd SOE men who were possibly executed at Buchenwald were genuine illegal combatants, similar in type to those Germans who were being executed in Britain. Whereas after a modest period in Buchenwald all the genuine airmen were moved to a POW camp.

In the contexts of the times - when some of the airmen had taken part in area bombing of cities - thats not a bad outcome

[lostairmendirector]

Thank you everyone for watching our film last night - glad you enjoyed it.

Errol - It would have been nice to have had a legal expert, but we wanted to focus the film as much as possible on the first-hand accounts of the people who were there. And the original version of the film clocks-in at just under 2-hours, so quite a bit of cutting had to be done just to get it to where it is now, at 90-minutes. But I appreciate the constructive feedback!

The airmen discussed in the film how some of them had their dog-tags on them when they were arrested by the Gestapo. At least one of them, Joe Moser, was arrested in full flight gear, with his dog tags, just a few hundred yards away from the burning wreck of his aircraft. So the charge that he was a commando helping the French Resistance was ludicrous.

I believe the reasons given for sending them to Buchenwald were a combination of the charge that some were commandos, and the charge that the rest were "terror flyers" who committed war crimes with their bombing and strafing runs. Although it seems incredibly random the way these 168 airmen were singled-out. Joe Moser, for example, was shot down while strafing a German military truck convoy, which was a legitimate target.

Once Allied air-power completely overwhelmed the German military, I think some of the party fanatics started looking for ways to get the revenge that they couldn't get in the air. And once the German regular military found out about it, they got most of these guys out of Buchenwald before they could be either worked to death, starved to death, or executed.

Dave - After we made the film, a family friend who is a New Zealander heard about it and was thrilled for the same reason. She told us that the kiwis' contributions to the war have been disregarded over the years, especially by the Brits. So it was a happy bonus for us that you guys could get some extra recognition out of this.

Thanks again for welcoming me to your board!

[flyjoe180]

I watched The Lost Airmen of Buchenwald in its entirety and was thoroughly engrossed. The treatment of these airmen was shocking. Their records were adjusted so their nationalities were crossed out and a statement making them prisoners of the police was written at the top of their forms. Mistake or not, that act then paved the way towards a concentration camp.

To see and hear what these airmen had endured, it all seems unnecessarily brutal and pathetic on the part of the Germans. But it also highlights the resilience and courage of this group of airmen.

My family had two members who experienced concentration camps first hand. My Great Uncle ended up a prisoner in one for espionage on a railway line in Italy whilst under forced labour as a POW. My Grandfather was in one of the British Pioneer (Engineer) units involved in the initial clean up of bodies at Belsen.

I thought the documentary was very well put together, was of high quality and definitely worth watching. I enjoyed the mix of colour and black and white footage, and the retrospective scenes. One aviation gripe from one of the early scenes: whilst describing how the airmen became prisoners, escape from a Lancaster is being explained, however a B17 is shown spinning.

Overall The Lost Airmen of Buchenwald was enjoyable and informative, and an important story has been told to the public. Thank you for making it.

[lostairmendirector]

Thank you, flyjoe. Regarding the B17 - you are correct! We were as accurate with the historical footage as possible, but we could not find any footage of a Lancaster going down, so we used what we could find to show the terror of what it must have been like to fall from the sky in these large aircraft.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes that last point about the B-17 is understandable, the footage I have seen of Lancasters going down the same way is usually just flames in a pitch black sky as most of their raids were made at night (though not all as many believe). The shot of the uncontrolled flat spin did however demonstrate to a non-aviation minded viewer quite accurately the sensation that Phil Lamason was describing in the interview.

It was amazing to see the coloured footage of the Moosberg POW camp at the end of the war. I have met a number of POW's who ended up there and have one great friend who was there and was later President and Secretary of the NZ POW Association. Seeing the place in vivid colour really brought it home to me the place they have described to me.

A question I have, I may have missed this sorry, was the veteran with the North American accent who was pushed out the door of a Halifax bomber in the RCAF? Or was he from the USA?

[Naki]

I saw this last night (only by fluke as my favourite programme was on before)...was very engrossing and a part of the war I knew nothing about before.

[errolmartyn]

I’ve not yet had a chance to view the Buchenwald film but I have a few observations to make about some of the correspondence that has appeared on the forum about the subject:

littlegreyrabbit places a lot of faith in the works of one Eugen Kogon and quotes him thus:

“For about half a year, until late in 1944, 167 English pilots were at Buchenwald. . . . 167 British Commonwelath [sic] pilots were in Buchenwald concentration camp. . . . Their leader was Squadron Leader Lamason, an Australin [sic] . . .”

Sadly, Mr Kogon doesn’t seem to even know the difference between the terms English and British Commonwealth. Lamason of course was not ‘Australin’ but a born and bred New Zealander. The service number on his ID tags were prefixed NZ (not AUS) and he wore ‘New Zealand’ shoulder flashes on his uniform. A simple check of the London Gazette entries for Lamason by the author would also have confirmed his New Zealand status.

I’m afraid elementary shortcomings such as these, not to mention the sloppy spelling, mean one can have little faith in the works of Mr Kogon, nor therefore the rabbit’s touching reliance on them as a source.

The rabbit also goes on to state:

“All the airmen were captured in ambiguous circumstances - at least as far as the Germans were concerned – generally out of uniform”

Anyone who has made even the lightest study (and I have done somewhat more than that) of airman PoWs can only dismiss the ‘All’ and ‘generally out of uniform’ claims as simply ludicrous.

Finally, our rabbit friend states that “It sounds like one of the authors of 168 Jump into Hell is not particularly honest . . . verballed by this less than honest author.”

I’ve no idea whether either of the authors [rabbit seems confused as to whether there were one or two – there were two] may have been correct, remembered wrongly or even dishonest. However, if you are going to question a man’s honesty, as the rabbit has done, then you should have the courage to do so under your own name and not hide behind a nickname, albeit one of an appropriately timid nature, when making such serious accusations.

Errol

[jonesy]

Just watched the doco this morning, thankyou so much for telling their story!
At one stage (about 15min into the story) Lamason was described by the US guys as either "Colonel"or "Lieutenant Colonel". Was this as they interpreted to be their equivalent rank? He appears to be S/L or W/C? Perhaps someone can expand on this?

On a side note-when we toured Europe in the early 90's I visited Mauthausen camp in Austria, there was a very moving memorial to the allied guys slaughtered by the camp guards. I'd forgotted about that visit until I watched the doco today, and it came back to me about the horrors they must have endured.

Again, thankyou for your work!

[Dave Homewood]

Phil Lamason was a Squadron Leader.

[ErrolC]

Mar 19, 2012 10:56:55 GMT 12 errolmartyn said:

...
littlegreyrabbit places a lot of faith in the works of one Eugen Kogon and quotes him thus:

“For about half a year, until late in 1944, 167 English pilots were at Buchenwald. . . . 167 British Commonwelath [sic] pilots were in Buchenwald concentration camp. . . . Their leader was Squadron Leader Lamason, an Australin [sic] . . .”

Sadly, Mr Kogon doesn’t seem to even know the difference between the terms English and British Commonwealth. ...

To be fair to Eugen Kogon, there is a good chance that the mis-spellings are down to lgr's transcription.
Also, isn't it common for Germans to struggle with English vs British? I seem to remember German WWI official reports saying things like 'The English troops were Australian'.

[Dave Homewood]

Errol Martyn, very well said mate.

[flyjoe180]

Yes, very well said, Errol.

[lostairmendirector]

Dave - I too was amazed to come across that color footage of Moosburg. I was equally surprised to get my hands on that footage of Patton touring Moosburg, just as the airmen had described it. I never thought I would locate that when we were conducting the interviews.

We were also happy to find those photos of the snow march out of Stalag Luft III. We got those because one of the senior POWs in SLIII, Albert P. Clark, was eventually promoted to Lieutenant General and became the superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, where he later oversaw their archives and ensured that the POW photos from SLIII were located and protected.

Regarding the airman who was pushed out of the Halifax - he was a Canadian RCAF airman named Ed Carter-Edwards (I say "was," but he is still living).

jonesy - Lamason was a Squadron Leader. I believe the use of Col and Lt Col by some of the US airmen was simply a casual way to refer to him with a rank that was somewhat equivalent in their service. I believe after he was liberated, they were going to promote him (to Wing Commander, maybe?) and send him back into combat against the Japanese, but either the war against Japan ended before that could happen, or they reconsidered after what he had already been through.

Errolmartyn - If our friend rabbit is who I think he is, he is not worth your time. Kogon helped write the authoritative "The Buchenwald Report" after the camp's liberation, and testified at the Buchenwald Trials, so he is a reliable person, but of course minute details of every single person and event inside a place like Buchenwald would be impossible for a single person to recall with 100% accuracy. And rabbit's insinuation that Kogon not saying something happened is proof that it didn't happen is ludicrous. What's more, rabbit uses Kogon as a trusted source, but a few sentences later still questions whether the SOE agents were ever executed at Buchenwald... even though The Buchenwald Report, which Kogon helped write, confirms that 16 of them were "hanged in the crematorium" and 20 others were "shot." So rabbit both trusts and distrusts the same source. There are many other ways to shoot down his various argument here, but I know from experience that there is no convincing some people. It's just a shame that he chose to use this board to publicly call these heroes liars, based on hollow evidence, while hiding behind an anonymous screenname.

[jonesy]

Given also that these guys were separated when leaving the camp, and sent to different POW camps, how did they get back in touch with each other? Was it instigated by one person in particular or by a group?
Pre-internet days must have made this a difficult task tracking down all those concerned. Any idea how many alive today?

[lostairmendirector]

jonesy - We estimate that there are about a dozen left today. The last Australian member of the group passed away last month (of which there were originally 9). A few months ago I read about a British member of the group who is still living. I believe there is at least one other American and at least one other Canadian who are still living, but who weren't interviewed for our film. Arthur Kennis, who was the driving force behind the book 168 Jump Into Hell, passed away while we were in production and we never got an opportunity to interview him. He kind of became the group's "historian" so we regret not getting to talk to him.

During the 1980's, the WWII generation started to retire, which freed them up to travel more. It seems that around that time, there became an increased interest in military reunions - both with their old units, and for former POWs, reunions with others from the camps they were in. Some of these continue to this day - next month the Americans are doing what I believe will be the last reunion of the Stalag Luft III POWs in Dayton, Ohio where the US Air Force Museum is located. It was at these reunions in the 1980s that the KLB airmen began to reconnect, and then they held a few of their own reunions, the most prominent of which was in Canada in the late 80s (I think), which Phil Lamason attended. From there, it was the old-fashioned means of staying in touch - letters and phone calls.