• I stood outside the door and checked to make sure my dress uniform was still in proper order. The sign on the door read “Captain Johnson Judge Advocate General.” I opened the door, took three steps in, stood at attention, saluted, and said “Sir, Lieutenant Freeman reporting as ordered sir!” “At ease Lieutenant please take a seat.” he said as he pointed to one of the two chairs in front of his oak desk. As I sat down I noticed that Captain Whitley was exactly what you would expect a JAG officer to be like. He had the typical lawyer look about him, his diploma was hanging up on the wall behind his desk, and he looked as though he had never even seen a war film in his life, much less been in combat. He reached over and turned on the recorder laying on his desk and started with “You understand Lieutenant that this is an inquiry to see if your actions deem a court marshal. Please tell me in your own words the events that lead-up to what took place on April eleventh nineteen forty-five.” “Well sir,” I began “I am part of combat team nine of the ninth armored infantry battalion sixth armored division under the direct command of General Patton. We were the first platoon to enter the area around the small town of Hotpelstedt. The German soldiers had mined the roads and set up multiple machinegun nests around the town obviously trying to hinder our advance. I informed Headquarters that we were going to need a lot more men and some heavy armor support if we were going to take the town. HQ told us to scout out the wooded area surrounding the town and to wait until the reinforcements arrived. I decided to send private Jones a stocky little country boy, who was on point, and private Vincalscy who is arguably the best shot in the company to go scout out the woods.
    The rest of us set up defensive positions at the base of hill 273. We dug fox holes and positioned our thirty caliber machine gun on top of the hill where it could command either side of the hill to provide cover fire. We thought we were prepared for anything the Germans could throw at us but, none of us could have even imagined what was about to happen. To my disbelief what appeared to be corpses came out of the forest speaking in what sounded like Russian, their eyes were all sunken in to the point that some of them appeared not to have eyes at all, and none of them could have weighed over fifty pounds. It appeared to the rest of the world as though it was a march of the dead. There were well over a hundred of them but, few could walk on their own most crawled or leaned on each other for support. We had all heard about what the Timber Wolf Division had found but, none of it had prepared us for this encounter. We talked to the few Russians who could understand English and found out that they had run away from Buchenwald a Nazi death camp only a few miles away to the north. We called HQ and told them what had happened and they decided to send all of combat team nine to take the town and they sent six trucks to take the Russians to a safe place in the rear where they could be nourished back to health and provided for until they were sent back home. Our assault on Hotpelstedt was quick and fueled by our hatred for the Germans and their idea of a “pure race” and how far they were willing to go to achieve it. The battle lasted for only forty-five minutes and miraculously my platoon only suffered one casualty and a few minor bruises.
    After taking the town I went to my superior Colonel Nelson and asked him if we were going to push forward and liberate Buchenwald. He informed me that HQ wanted us to stay put until reinforcements arrived. When I asked how long it would take he said that it would be at least a week! I was shocked, I asked him if HQ even cared that by then tens of thousands of people, Jewish and Russian, would be exterminated and he replied that unless we were attacked by the Germans that we were to leave them alone until the reinforcements arrived. I was furious, how could the allied powers not care that tens of thousands of people would be murdered when they have more than enough soldiers to prevent it and instead they were wasting them to protect a small village with absolutely no strategic value except that it is the only way to reach Buchenwald.
    When I reached the check point that my platoon was guarding I told my squad leaders about my talk with Colonel Whitley. They were just as infuriated as I was and they must have told their squads because five minutes later they all walked over to me and voted unanimously to do something about the death camp. I told everyone to leave except for my three squad leaders. I reminded them that if we were caught that we could be court-martialed and they reminded me why we were here in the first place which-” “You mean that your men acted of there own free will knowing that what they were doing was desertion” he said cutting me off. For a second I just looked at him knowing that this was my way out but, I also knew it was a cowards way out so I replied “My men were under my direct command at all times. Therefore, it is I who will take the responsibility for my actions and the actions of my men.” He just shrugged and told me to continue. “Which happens to be fighting to preserve the freedom of Europe. I suddenly had a stroke of genius the orders from HQ said that we were to leave the Germans alone as long as they don’t attack us. So if we somehow caused the Germans to attack us then we could liberate Buchenwald. If our intelligence is correct, which is a big if, then the SS Totenkotf Division was running this death camp and if anything we have heard about them is true then they would definitely attack us if we some how managed to free even a handful of Jews. So all we have to do was follow this road up to the Buchenwald, take over a section of the camp, call for help, and wait for our men to arrive. It was a simple plan their was just one aspect of it that bothered me; it was SUICIDAL. But, then again what are the lives of forty soldiers compared to the lives of thousands of civilians. I ordered my squad leaders to assemble their squads and prepare to move out. Ten minutes later we were on our way to Buchenwald.
    We had been moving cautiously towards Buchenwald for three hours when all of a sudden Jones, who was as always on point, held his hand up and motioned for us to halt. I walked up to him to see what was the matter, when all of a sudden the smell hit me like a physical blow. It was one of those smells you can never really forget, it is burned into your soul. It was like a mixture of disease, rotting corpses, singed hair, burnt flesh, and… Death. I ran over to the ditch and hurled out my insides. When I couldn’t throw-up any more I walked back to the platoon and ordered them to cross the ditch and enter the forest.
    About a half an hour later we reached the death camp. It was a huge compound with cement walls and four smoke stacks that protruded over the buildings. They must have had more Jews their than they could house, and that’s saying something because they even had barns in clusters outside of the main complex. They didn’t have walls or any other form of defenses around the barns except for a few well positioned guard towers. I decided that the only target we cold handle was a group of three barns almost three hundred yards from the edge of the forest. There were two guard towers between our position and that cluster of barns. But we had an advantage, we would be cloaked by the pitch black darkness until we crossed the hundred and fifty yards that separated us from the base of the guard towers. When we reached the first tower I sent two men to position themselves at the base of the second tower and told them to wait on my signal . When both men had started their crawl to the base of the other tower I sent Jones and Vincalscy up the tower we were under and told them to wait for my signal. When everyone was in position I gave the signal. Almost instantly both lights pointed up in the air and then were abruptly cut off. I knew that we at mere minutes before the Germans would be alerted to our presence.
    We made our way towards barns now crawling as fast as we could so we wouldn’t get caught out in the open. When we were about fifty yards away from the barns I signaled for everyone to stop. Twenty yards in front of me a German soldier was waiting beside a water pump as a Jew filled up the man’s canteen. The Jew looked up and stared straight at me and then dropped the canteen and started walking towards us. He got about three steps before the German, who had on the uniform of an SS Totenkotf soldier, stabbed him in the back with his bayonet, as though he didn‘t think the Jew was worth the price of a bullet. I lifted up my Thomson machinegun and unloaded five shots into his chest. Well, I thought no need to be stealthy any more as I got up and ran towards the barns. My soldiers were right behind me and when we reached the cluster of barns I told first squad to check the barn on the left, second to check the one on the right and for third squad to remain here incase the Germans attack. I decided to check and see it there were any Germans in the third barn myself.
    As I opened the barn door I saw a German soldier throw a grenade right in front of me. I dove on the grenade only to land on top of two Jews who had already flung themselves on top of it. When the grenade went off I felt as though my insides were gone and all I could hear was the loud ringing in my head. When I finaly looked up I half expecting to see the mussel of a German gun in my face, but to my surprise the German was nowhere in sight. As I got up I saw that his body had been mutilated beyond recognition save for the torn fabric of what had only moments ago been a uniform. I took my first good look around and gasped. If the Russians looked like corpses than these people were. I can’t even begin to describe it in words but, I can tell you this I am not sure how hell itself can compete with what these people had been through. I walked out of the barn and closed the door.
    My squad leaders were waiting for me. I sent first and second squad to go secure the perimeter and prepare to repel the German forces who were undoubtedly on their way. I told third squad to help the Jews in anyway possible but, to be ready to support our defenses when needed. With that said I grabbed the radio and called Colonel Whitley “Sir, we are being attacked by the Germans and request immediate assistance.” “What is your position.” he replied “we are just south of Buchenwald, Sir.” I answered. “Why you crazy b*****d! We will be there in an hour” he said chuckling and those are the events that lead up to the incident on April 11th 1945.” “I see,” replied the Captain as he shut off the recorder. “Thank you for your time I personally don’t think a court marshal is necessary. You are free to go soldier.” I stood up, threw him a salute, and said “Thank you sir” and with that I executed an about face and left.