On Friday we took advantage of one of the benefits of being associated with the Osher Institute and attended another of their offerings - a free movie dealing with a historical event, The Ritchie Boys. Filmed as a documentary, it outlined the lives of seven or eight men still living who played a crucial part in World War II as interrogators of German prisoners to learn whatever information they could of a helpful nature to the Allies war effort. All the men were born Jewish in Germany or vicinity and left when they did not like the political atmosphere developing under the Hitler regime. They told quite the stories.
Their name came from the camp where they trained: Fort Ritchie in Maryland. Their training consisted of working in intelligence and psychological warfare. Being they all spoke the language of the German prisoners of war, they had no trouble communicating with them. Two of them were buddies throughout the conflict and they played a sort of good cop, bad cop style of dealing with the POWs. They said the Germans were afraid of the Russians and the potential treatment they would suffer if they were turned over to that army. Of course, that became part of their mode of operation. One of them had procured a Russian army officer's uniform. When a prisoner did not cooperate well with the first interrogator he was taken into a tent where the other Ritchie boy sat at a desk. For decoration they had hung a picture of Joseph Stalin behind the desk and forged Stalin's signature along with a sentiment "To my good friend" on it. Carrying it a bit further, the "Russian" wore many medals on his chest. With that ruse the Ritchie boys gained information from the prisoners, a bit of psychological warfare.
Danger followed the boys around, too. With their German accents, they got into certain situations where soldiers with guns questioned whether or not they were American impersonators, and if they thought they were, they would be shot. One got killed when he went to the latrine in the dark. When the sentry challenged him he did give the correct password, but because of his German accent was presumed to be a German soldier and was shot and killed.
The movie told of a facet of the war I had not known of. It was a complicated effort this country put forward to win the war, and it had many parts. The Navajo code talkers can be included here.
Their name came from the camp where they trained: Fort Ritchie in Maryland. Their training consisted of working in intelligence and psychological warfare. Being they all spoke the language of the German prisoners of war, they had no trouble communicating with them. Two of them were buddies throughout the conflict and they played a sort of good cop, bad cop style of dealing with the POWs. They said the Germans were afraid of the Russians and the potential treatment they would suffer if they were turned over to that army. Of course, that became part of their mode of operation. One of them had procured a Russian army officer's uniform. When a prisoner did not cooperate well with the first interrogator he was taken into a tent where the other Ritchie boy sat at a desk. For decoration they had hung a picture of Joseph Stalin behind the desk and forged Stalin's signature along with a sentiment "To my good friend" on it. Carrying it a bit further, the "Russian" wore many medals on his chest. With that ruse the Ritchie boys gained information from the prisoners, a bit of psychological warfare.
Danger followed the boys around, too. With their German accents, they got into certain situations where soldiers with guns questioned whether or not they were American impersonators, and if they thought they were, they would be shot. One got killed when he went to the latrine in the dark. When the sentry challenged him he did give the correct password, but because of his German accent was presumed to be a German soldier and was shot and killed.
The movie told of a facet of the war I had not known of. It was a complicated effort this country put forward to win the war, and it had many parts. The Navajo code talkers can be included here.
