British airborne dropped in Sicily in Operation Fustion, which was designed to take the Primosole Bridge. The action was one of two in Sicily which saw the oddity of Allied paratroopers fighting German paratroopers who initially thought the British were reinforcements. The German paratroopers had come in on the 9th as reinforcements.
While the bridge was ultimately taken, the action itself had mixed results.
Following a meeting with Stalin, Gen. Panteleimon Ponomarendo leader of the Belarusian pro Soviet partisans, issued Order No. 42 directing 123 partisan units to destroy the rail lines that had been used by the invading Germans, thus making their retreat from Russia, particularly with heavy weapons, difficult.
Ponomarendo was an ethnic Ukrainian who had been either in the Red Army or a Communist politician/functionary since the early days of the Russian Civil War. Destruction of the railways was something he'd urged. During the war, his troops killed around 300,000 Germans, a massive number.
They also killed some members of the Polish underground, executing some of its officers. It's claimed that his forces provided information on Polish underground members to the Germans. His views on western Poland may be summed up by this statement:
The western oblasts of Soviet Belarus are an integral part of the Republic of Belarus. The nationalist divisions and groups formed by Polish reactionary circles should be isolated from the population by creating Soviet troops and groups consisting of working people of Polish nationality. Nationalist units and groups should be fought by all means.
Ponomarendo died at age 81 in 1984.
Belorussia lost 25% of its pre-war population during World War Two. Young men were typically faced with no options other than joining the partisans or joining Nazi collaborationist elements.
The Battle of Mubo in New Guinea ended in an Allied victory. The battle, between Australian troops and the Japanese, had been going on since April.
The Biscari Massacre occured when troops of the 180th Infantry Regiment, which had been performing so poorly that thought had been given to relieving its commander, killed 71 Italian and 2 German POWs in two separate incidents.
In the first incident, Maj. Roger Denman ordered Sgt. Horace T. West to take a group of POWs to the rear and hold them in an inconspicuous place for questioning. He separated eight of them to be taken to S-2 for questioning, borrowed a Thompson submachine gun, and killed them. The bodies were found the next day and the chaplain, Lt. Col. William E. King, took the matter up.
In the second incident, Cpt. John T. Compton, who was extremely sleep-deprived, ordered 35 Italian POWs shot on the belief that they had been snipers who had been firing at his command. They were executed by firing squad. Compton later told the following to investigators about the incident:
Q. How did you select the men to do the firing?
A. I wished to get it done fast and very thoroughly, so I told them to get automatic weapons, the BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle] and Tommy Gun.
Q. How did you get the men? Did you ask for volunteers?
A. No, sir. I told the [SGT] to get the men.
Q. Do you remember exactly what you told him?
A. I don't remember exactly.
Q. What formation did you get them in before they were shot?
A. Single file on the edge of a ridge.
Q. Were they facing the weapons or the other side?
A. They were in single file, in a column, rifle fire from the right.
Q. Were the prisoners facing the weapons or the other side?
A. They were facing right angle of fire.
Q. What formation did you have the firing squad (sic)?
A. Lined 6 foot away, about 2 yards apart, on a line.
Q. Did you give any kind of a firing order?
A. I gave a firing order.
Q. What was your firing order?
A. Men, I am going to give ready fire and you will commence firing on the order of fire.
While first passing off on it, Gen. Patton ordered that the participating soldiers be court-martialed. West was convicted of pre meditated murder, stripped of his rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was remitted in 1944, and he served the rest of the war, ironically gaining a semi heroic status as a sniper.
He died in Oklahoma in 1974.
Compton was court-martialed and acquitted, but a Judge Advocate review declared that the action had been unlawful. Compton was transferred and then killed in Italy in 1943.
Both West and Compton sited a speech by Patton as the partial basis of their action. Compton specifically stated:
During the Camberwell operation in North Africa, George S.Patton, in a speech to assembled officers, stated that in the case where the enemy was shooting to kill our troops and then that we came close enough on him to get him, decided to quit fighting, he must die. Those men had been shooting at us to kill and had not marched up to us to surrender. They had been surprised and routed, putting them, in my belief, in the category of the General's statement.
Patton was cleared of wrongdoing by investigators, and this was likely at least in part a defense crafted by their lawyers.
While not really knowing the story of either men, West was 32 years old at the time of the incident and seems to have likely been a fairly tough Texan/Oklahoman. He may really not have seen anything wrong with his actions. Compton seems to have been extremely fatigues, although that offers a poor excuse.
Beyond that, this event offers a rare glimpse into a well documented US war crime during the war. Allied war crimes are not much discussed, and were not discussed at all until relatively recently, but they did occur. Executions of POWs such as the West example, while certainly never sanctioned, were more common in the ETO than we might like to imagine, and taking Japanese POWs was something that was only rarely done, for a variety of reasons, after the fairly early stages of the war, one of those reasons being that the Japanese weren't inclined to surrender. The strafing of farmers was also much more common in the ETO than recognized for the most part.
For this same day, on Sarah Sundin's blog, the following is noted:
Today in World War II History—July 14, 1943: On Sicily, British Eighth Army takes Vizzini, Lentini, and Simeto. In Krasnodor, Russia, Soviets try 11 Germans in the first war crimes trial of the war.
