Hey. It doesn’t have to be like this. We weren’t always like this.

Over on Daily Kos on Memorial Day, Kossack KenBee shared the story about his uncle, shot down in a B-24 bomber over Germany in March 1945. He had links to research online and even to a photo of his uncle’s plane going down. I was grieving already with him. And then he wrote:

And especially in honor of my late uncle, shot down and in flames in his parachute, over Germany, over the region that our family was from. The German doctors fixed him up, in wartime, under attack and with limited resources and he recovered and was exchanged and freed later. And that says a lot for the so-called ‘enemy’s humanity.

So I wrote back about my Navy dad in WWII. He was tending boilers on the USS Jenks, a destroyer escort that was part of the task force that captured the German submarine U-505. One German sailor died; the rest were all rescued. This is the full report of the care given to the three German sailors who were taken onboard the Jenks:

U.S.S. JENKS (DE665)

FLEET POST OFFICE

NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

File: DE665 TE/ A16-3.

Serial No. 0001 (cl). 6 June 1944.

From: The Medical Department Representative.

To: The Commanding Officer.

Subject: Treatment of Survivors (prisoners) from German Submarine.

1. At 1154 on 4 June 1944, one survivor was taken aboard over the port side from a small inflated life raft. He stated that he had been the Second in Command of the submarine. He had been wounded. At 1303 two additional prisoners came aboard from our motor whaleboat.

2. The German Officer’s diagnosis is as follows: WOUND, LACERATED, SCALP, SHRAPNEL. 2. WOUNDS, MULTIPLE , SCHRAPNEL, BODY.

(a) Upon being received aboard this officer was attended by McCOMBS, PhM2c, who examined him for possible concussion of head, fractures and possible internal injuries. The laceration of scalp, which was the most predominant wound was bandaged with a Battle Dressing Small. He was then brought to Sick Bay where the following treatment was administered. Wound was cleansed with tincture of green soap, area shaved; jagged edges were trimmed and cleansed with tincture of merthiolate; sulfanilamide powder was then sprinkled into the wound; two (2) sutures taken with good approximation of edges and again sulfanilamide powder was sprinkled onto the wound. The wound was then covered with a sterile 4 x 4 bandage and recurrent bandage of head was applied.

(b) There were numerous small pieces of shrapnel covering the left hand, forearm, shoulder and just above the apex of the left pelvis, (hip bone). At first sitting there were about twenty-five (25) pieces removed from these areas, ranging from 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch in diamerter. After removal all places were painted with tincture of merthiolate.

(c) Patient was also given one-half (1/2) cubic centimeter of alum precipitated tetanus toxiod. This patient was given a hair cut, shave, warm bath, clean survivors clothes (which had been supplied by the American Red Cross) and allowed to lie down. He was also offered food but refused stating that he did not have an appetite. He did drink a cup of coffee. Patient was not suffering from exposure and was in good spirits.

(d) On the morning of 5 June 1944, after spending a rather restful night, patient’s head wound was again dressed. A few additional pieces of shrapnel were removed at this time. Patient was in better spirits and had a rather good appetite.

3. The other two (2) survivors upon examination showed no injuries, externally or internally. They were given warm baths, shaves and hot liquids. They were also given clean survivors clothes which had been supplied by the American Red Cross.

4. On 5 June 1944, all three (3) of these prisoners were transferred to the U.S.S. GUADALCANAL (CVE-60). All were in good spirits upon leaving this vessel.

O. E. HILTZ, PhM1c, U.S.N.

ENCLOSURE (A) to PART I of U.S.S. JENKS (DE-665) report of action of 4 June 1944.

I read that and weep.

The Jenks was a little faster than the other ships of the task force and had more fuel so it went ahead to Bermuda with the code books and enigma machines. The German sailors spent the rest of the war stateside at Camp Ruston in Louisiana. The U-505 was eventually rescued by the people of Chicago, who raised $250,000 to bring it to Chicago. And when asked, the original German manufacturers supplied new parts for it, without charge.

Most included letters that said in effect, “We are sorry that you have our U-boat, but since she’s going to be there for many years, we want her to be a credit to German technology.”

Whatever the U-505 was once, I’d say it’s a treasure and tribute now to both Americans and Germans. Ironically, I think all the American ships are long gone.

Tomorrow is the 67th anniversary of the capture.

Of course, after we got this submarine in tow all of my crew were the cockiest bunch of sailors you’ve ever seen in your life and on June 6th a little incident happened that will indicate just how cocky they were. June 6th, of course, was D-Day in France when the invasion of Normandy began. That morning when communiques from France were posted on the bulletin board, one of my brave young lads read over all the historic communiques coming from headquarters about the invasion and then shoved his hat on back of his head and said, “Boy, oh boy, look what Eisenhower had to do to top us.” — Capt. Gallery

I’m sorry to say my dad isn’t here to see these anniversaries anymore. But my sister’s coming into San Diego tomorrow and I’ve rented Enigma and Summer of My German Soldier and we’re going to remember Daddy, with love, as always. (And popcorn!)

We didn’t have to become and don’t have to be *(spit)* Cheneys. We weren’t Cheneys once. Even all the Germans weren’t Hitlers.

After the CIA and the Brits overthrew the democratic government in Iran in 1953 and installed the vile brutal dictator Shah, the US sent in CIA agents to teach members of SAVAK (sic), the Shah’s secret police, how to torture Iranians.

We are pure imperial evil.

I always wondered about the possible political objectives met by the Catholic Church’s first non-Italian Pope from Poland. Nevertheless, there are still enough Slovaks and folks of Slovak descent in Chicago and Detroit (many of them also speak Russian and German) to really take exception to this black site-loving approach of the Polish government. What secrets (maybe old ones from WW II?) are being used as weapons against Poland?

eCAHN @ 13: That was an amazing synchronicity.

What will be interesting is how the Hague responds to this state secrets game combined with the sacking of the prosecutor. Back in our more Constitutional days, such a sacking became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre”, now it’s ho-hum. The thing about this is that the Conventions on Torture in the various articles (dealing with the person’s status) all have the requirement that ALL signatories MUST prosecute, or extradite for prosecution. It’s why Bushies couldn’t go to Switzerland last year for some award thingy, because warrants had been sworn out. It’s a stain on our world stature that the USA still picks and chooses what treaty obligations they feel like following, with the arrogant dare to the rest of the world to do something about it. The PRC government just might at a time of their choosing, and the world may just applaud the actions taken.

So, I’m not totally surprised that the Polish government caved like this, they were very close to the Bushies, and let’s not forget that that Poland is where the missile shield was supposed to go that’s been the theoretical cause of the issues in “ex”-Soviet relations [note: the Russians are going back to the USSR model, just retrenched a bit], and the $$$ that brings. Therefore the objectivity isn’t really going to be there.