29 JANUARY 1954, Page 7

Th .

e rhutchers iLest this chivalrous appreciation should convey a misleading in Pression of our late enemies, it is worth recalling one of the punishments that did come the Englishman's way. On May 27th a hundred men of The Royal Norfolk Regiment, many of them wounded, were captured. They were ordered to march in file past a large barn wall and as they did so were mown down by two machine-guns from a range of 300 yards. Those not killed outright were bayonetted. The officer responsible was captured by our forces later in the war, court martialled and hanged. " It is but fair to the German Army," writes the official historian with admirable objectivity, " to note that these S.S. units " (the one concerned belonged to the Death's Head Division) " were formed by the Nazi Party and were not part of the Regular Army, though many of their officers had been Regular soldiers. But it is also noteworthy that the Army authorities left the crime unpunished, though it was fully reported to.thetn at the time." These italics are mine.