Apparently there was a generally circulated Allied un-written order NOT to take prisoners on D-Day. Of course, this will NEVER be admitted to. There are several anecdotes by veterans,in documentaries, (US, British, and Canadian) who attest to witnessing the shooting of surrendering Wehrmacht - reason being there was no place to hold prisoners, or personnel to guard them. These incidents were too widespread to be just co-incidental. A lot of those surrendering were just too happy to out of the Nazi army, and out of the war. Unfortunately, for them, they decided to surrender on the wong day!
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Not sure where you got your info from-- but on the other hand there is documented, unrefutable proof of hundreds of German prisoners being taken on D-Day, not only form the prisoners themselves, but in the form of photographs which exist today. Prisoners were taken at Point du Hoc, Behind Omaha and Utah beach, and at Sword and Juno beaches, and have been documented in various books from the Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan to the latest historical tomes. There are photos of prisoner in holding pens and on the beaches. My German landlord was in an 88mm AA unit captured behind Sword beach on D+4, spent a day "at the beach" in a holding pen, and was transferred by LCVP back to England to sit out the war until 1946 in a British POW camp. so I doubt there was ever an "uncirculated directive" stating otherwise. Weber (my landlord) said he was in a camp (one of several) that had about 400 prisoners by D+5 that were captured on D-Day or shortly thereafter. So Prisoners were indeed being taken, and moved to the rear. I have no doubt that some units and individuals did in fact shoot prisoners, but I'd say that was the exception, not the norm on the Day of Days. One other comment Weber told me was that the "Star in the Circle" markings on allied tanks made great aiming points.
VR, Russ[/quote]
Hi Russ.
There was no general order to the Allied troops on D-Day to take no prisoners, as you correctly indicate. The order was issued to the airborne troops only, along with the order to not shoot unless absolutely necessary but rather use knives or grenades to kill any germans encountered until daylight to avoid mass confusion.
The above is pretty well documented.
Of course, there were many German prisoners taken by the Allies and it was not a general practice to kill prisoners but it did happen.
My point is that nobody was squeaky clean.