Biscari Massacre
Following the capture of Biscari Airfield in Scilly on July 14th 1943, seventy three German and Italian Prisoners of war were shot by American troops of the 180th Regimental Combat Team, 45th Division during the Allied invasion Operation Husky.
After this Captain John T. Compton was court martialed for killing 36 POWs in his charge. He claimed to be following orders. The investigating officer and the Judge Advocate declared that Compton's actions were unlawful but he was acquitted. Sergeant Horace T. West was also charged in a separate incident with killing 37 POWs under his charge. He was found guilty, stripped of rank and sentenced to life in prison, though he was later released as a private. Compton was merely transferred to another regiment and died a year later fighting in Italy. This was seen at the time as a clear case of injustice and differing treatment for officers and NCOs.
Those involved claimed in their defence they were following orders. They quoted General George Patton’s speech to them earlier in the campaign:
"When we land against the enemy, don't forget to hit him and hit him hard. When we meet the enemy we will kill him. We will show him no mercy. He has killed thousands of your comrades and he must die. If you company officers in leading your men against the enemy find him shooting at you and when you get within two hundred yards of him he wishes to surrender- oh no! That bastard will die! You will kill him. Stick him between the third and fourth ribs. You will tell your men that. They must have the killer instinct. Tell them to stick him. Stick him in the liver. We will get the name of killers and killers are immortal. When word reaches him that he is being faced by a killer battalion he will fight less. We must build up that name as killers". (Botting 355)
After the massacre Patton was said to have stated the prisoners had been shot in ordered rows was "'an even greater error.' This it has been claimed was because Patton realised that leaving such evidence clearly indicated the POWs were obviously shot in cold blood, and not in battle, which would obviously have allowed the killings to escape detection. Neither Patton or the unit commanding officer, Colonel E Cookson, was held officially responsible in any way. In comparison German commanding officers were sentenced at Nuremberg Trials for similar war crimes to life imprisonment.
References
- James Weingartner, `Massacre at Biscari: Patton and An American War Crime, The Historian LII, no. 1, (November 1989), 24-39.
- Botting, Douglas & Sayer, Ian: Hitler's Last General: The case against Wilhelm Mohnke. Bantam Books, London, 1989, 354-9
