Free Republic

Sixty years ago, on April 15, 1945, Lieutenant John Randall, then a 24-year-old SAS officer, was on a reconnaissance mission in northern Germany. He and his driver were heading down the road to Lüneberg when he noticed a large, imposing iron gate in front of a track leading off into the woods to their left. Curious, Randall decided to investigate, and so discovered one of the most horrifying aspects of Hitler's Germany. "We were totally unprepared for what we had stumbled across,'' says Randall, now 85, sitting opposite me in the Special Forces Club in London. ''I just drove through...

I witnessed the dead of Belsen: we must always confront tyranny By James Molyneaux (Filed: 27/01/2004) My first encounter with Belsen was the sight of dead bodies hanging from the electric fences. These victims had thrown themselves on the fences to end their own unimaginable suffering. The camp authorities had left them where they died. It was May 1945. The Allied and Russian armies were battling to link up in central Germany; Field Marshal Montgomery led his 21st Army Group to Lüneburg, with our RAF Regiment Wing in close support. On arrival at Tactical Headquarters, we had been briefed on...