Friesoythe - help!

[TColvin]

I have a problem about how to characterise Friesoythe in an article about the capture of Wilhelmshaven on May 6, 1945.

The events are not in dispute, but whether it was a war crime is a question that AFAIK remains unresolved.

CP Stacey witnessed Friesoythe and said in his autobiography that it was the only incident he was aware of that could be considered a "war crime" associated with Canadian soldiers in the Second World War.

What happened?
The Co of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (10 Brigade, 4 Canadian Armoured Division), Lt Col Frederick Ernest Wigle, DSO, OBE was killed together with four members of Tac HQ in Friesoythe when German paratroopers counterattacked at 0845 on April 14, 1945 during the A&SH's advance to the Kuesten Canal. "The CO had gone upstairs to ascertain the strength of the enemy and was shot through the back by one of the German snipers. He died within two or three minutes" - Fraser.

Within hours (probably around 1300 hours) the inhabitants were ordered to leave and Friesoythe was torched by flamethrower carriers.
The 1907 Convention Respecting the Laws of Customs and War on Land (Hague IV), Article 23, prohibits acts that "destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war." Everybody in 21 Army Group knew this was the law.

The order to destroy Friesoythe was given by Chris Vokes, GOC 4 Canadian Armoured Division. Vokes wrote; "The report I got was that a civilian had shot Freddy. I was enraged...... I summoned my GSO, Lt Col W.G.M. Robinson...... "Mac", I roared at him, "I'm going to raze that goddam town......... Get out some proclamations". I didn't want to kill or injure civilians no matter the provocation. "Tell 'em we're going to level their goddam place. Get the people out of their houses first". ......I confess now to a feeling still of great loss over Wigle, and a feeling of no great remorse over the elimination of Friesoythe. Be that as it may" - My Story, Maj Gen Chris Vokes.

AFAIK there was no investigation, and Vokes was never charged.

21 Army Group did not wantonly destroy property. The destruction of Cleve by the RAF after their futile destruction of Caen, outraged Brian Horrocks (GOC XXX Corps) and many others. Horrocks later banned even medium bombers from his corps front because they were indiscriminate.

So would anybody on MLU object to my characterising Friesoythe as a war crime with the extenuating circumstance that no civilian was killed and it was the hot-headed Chris Vokes wot did it.

Vokes was surely a disaster waiting to happen. He argued during the Kurt Meyer trial that, "It may sound bloody, but one may shoot down an enemy soldier in cold blood, under certain circumstances". I hazard a guess that few in 21 Army Group would have agreed with him. Vokes went on to stress, "most emphatically, that according to the Rules and Usages of war, when a soldier does give quarter, once he grants quarter, once he accepts his enemy as a prisoner, then that enemy's life is sacred". And presumably that would have applied to civilian property once the battle had moved on.

Vokes had broken the taboo on wanton destruction of civilian property a few days earlier by ordering houses destroyed in Sorgel by way of retribution for claims that civilians had attacked the Lincoln and Welland and Lake Superior Regiments; and as "a lesson to the populace to stand aside from direct participation in the war between my soldiers and German soldiers. Apparently they had not learned their lesson". Friesoythe was therefore Vokes' second attempt to teach German civilians a lesson.

Vokes seems to have simply lost the plot.

Tony