Submitted by MetaSatakOz t3_10hyd66 in todayilearned
Reply to comment by ppross53 in TIL Bob Hoover, an American Spitfire pilot in WW2, was shot down over occupied France and captured but was able to escape from the POW camp 16 months later, steal a German fighter, and fly it from northern Germany to friendly territory in Holland. by MetaSatakOz
The irony is this was very late in the war and the POW camp he was in was liberated by the Russians like a week later.
He says it was one of the stupidest things he's ever done.
To be fair, being liberated by the Soviets was far from a guarantee of salvation. They sent tens of thousands of Allied POWs to the gulags to use as bargaining chips against the West.
My British grandfather was in a German POW camp and he escaped west a few days before the camp was liberated by the Soviets in order to avoid being subjected to their hospitality!
Probably not that stupid in hindsight
It's entirely likely that the Germans could have killed as many as they could before the liberation if a few different orders were given, like has happened at other locations.
Or the Russians just completely neglect the POWs once liberated. Soviet mindset wasn't really forgiving to anyone in the war....
The notorious rape of Poland and east Germany agrees with you.
Still incredibly shameful how they refuse to admit to any atrocities their troops committed, even after 79 years.
Considering that the US housed literal nazis to gain gain an advantage over the Soviets and never paid for it, it was par for the course at that time
I am American and upvoting you for truth. I despise a lot of the atrocities committed by the Soviets and of course the Nazis, but we did bad stuff too. Like use Wernher von Braun to go to the moon after he shot rockets at London (the V-2s namely) that were built by concentration camp labor. And bomb Dresden to pieces. And firebomb Tokyo to pieces.
Yep. Pretty much. The victors tell their own version of history. And repeated enough times, it becomes the truth
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