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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles and the occasional radio broadcast delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Southern Okinawa, 1945: Tenth Army Operation (Operation Iceberg) 1-8 April 1945
Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands, 1945: Japanese Thirty Second Army Defensive Dispositions, 1 April 1945
Luzon, P.I., 1941: Final Operations on Luzon, 3 February-20 July 1945
Southeast Asia, 1941: Final Allied Offensives in the Southwest Pacific Area 19 February-1 July 1945
Germany, 1944: Encirclement of the Ruhr – Operations 29 March-4 April 1945
Northern Italy, 1944: Allied Plan of Attack, 1 April 1945, and situation 20 April, Showing Gains Since 2 April
China, 1941: Operation Ichigo, 1945 and Final Operations in the War
Southern Asia, 1941: Third Burma Campaign-Allied Victory, April-May 1945

April 4, 1944:

"The U.S. 4th Armored Division liberates the concentration camp at Ohrdruf, Germany, the site of more than 4,000 deaths during the previous three months.
Victims were Jews, Poles, and Soviet POWs.
Hundreds shot just before liberation had been working to build an enormous underground radio and telephone communications center.
Very few inmates remain alive at liberation."

"The Allied High Command was interested in what had occurred in the camps, and officers regularly toured them to gain information regarding Nazi crimes.
Here, Generals George Patton, Omar Bradley, and Dwight Eisenhower (left to right) visit the Ohrdruf, Germany, camp--the first camp liberated by the Americans--on April 4, 1945.
A former prisoner demonstrates SS torture techniques for them."
"The SS shot these Polish inmates in a mass execution at Ohrdruf, Germany.
As so often happened, the Germans killed their prisoners rather than see them fall into the hands of the Allies.
American General Omar Bradley said of the atrocities at Ohrdruf: 'The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade.
More than 3,200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves.
Others lay in the streets where they had fallen.
Lice crawled over the yellowed skin of their sharp, bony frames.' "

Liberation of Ohrdruf

"The labor camp Ohrdruf, near Gotha, Germany, occupies a distinct place in history.
The first camp liberated by the Western Allies, Ohrdruf provided American troops with proof of Nazi barbarity.

"At Ohrdruf, thousands of slave laborers had worked frantically under brutal conditions to prepare an underground communications center for the German Army.
On April 4, 1945, American soldiers entering Ohrdruf (pictured) found mass graves containing thousands of corpses.
Some prisoners had been executed and hastily buried only four days before the Americans entered the camp.
The troops also encountered a few living witnesses, men who had escaped from the camp shortly before the Nazis began shooting the remaining prisoners.

"Eight days after the camp was liberated, U.S. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George Patton, men deeply familiar with the mayhem of war, visited the camp.
An angered Eisenhower encouraged the press to tour the camp and inform the world of the atrocities committed there."

GI OFFERS $20,000 REWARD

On 5 March 1945, Roatta escaped from the Virgilio Army Hospital in Rome.[37] An award of one million lire ($10,000) was offered for his capture.[38] The following day a “mild mass meeting” took place at the Italian royal palace in protest of his escape and escalated into a riot ending with one person dead.[39] On 4 April Sergeant Stuart W. Mathes put up a personal reward of $20,000 for Roatta’s capture.[40]

Beginning in 1964, he wrote a number of books that were published and he lived in Rome until his death on 7 January 1968.[41][42]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Roatta