Evidently during World War II at least some german prisoners of war were held in a camp here in Utah. After Germany’s surrender a US soldier at the camp went on a shooting spree, killing nine prisoners and wounding twenty others in what was called the worst massacre at a POW camp in US history.
Many of the soldiers were assigned to help the local farmers with their crops and were described as friendly and cooperative.
But Private Clarence V. Bertucci, guard a the camp, was harboring a deep hatred of Germans and decided one night to open fire on the Germans’ tents with a machine gun mounted in a tower. He got off 250 rounds before he was stopped by an officer on duty. Bertucci was court-martialed, declared insane, and sent to a mental hospital. The German dead were buried in the Fort Douglas Cemetery, and the wounded were returned to Germany as soon as they were able. Today there is a German War Memorial at Fort Douglas in remembrance of the incident.
We need to learn the bad with the good … BUT, and this gets skipped by so many with an agenda today, we need to put them both in perspective and context, and learn the good with the bad, too.
Indeed. No such tragedies are acceptable, but this was by no means the only one of its kind among all the combatants involved.