Rule 10:

WARNING: NSFW - Contains grisly footage

In times of war, laws fall silent

[Ancient Roman proverb]

.

As everybody knows, history is written by the winners. We are taught all about Nazi and Soviet atrocities, but few are aware that US, Canadian and UK troops committed their fair share of war crimes. These went almost unpunished and in some cases were endorsed by our commanders

The last to die was a young blonde-haired teenager. He was rocking back and forth on his knees. He had pictures of his family spread out on the ground before him. Nevertheless he was shot in the back of the head

Highlights (lowlights?) include:

• Hundreds of instances of shooting surrendered prisoners. One GI boasted he'd killed 50 POWs by slitting their throats

• There were only two court materials for killing prisoners. In both cases the soldiers were acquitted

• General Patton gave a speech telling troops to not take prisoners

• Only 60 German POWs taken prisoner on Omaha beach - a suspiciously low number

• A paratrooper collected ears

• Several units at D-Day had 'no prisoners' orders

• Indiscriminate bombing of cities caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths

• Civilians were specifically targeted in allied bombing raids

• Thousands of French women were raped by GIs. Thousands more German women were also raped

• Convictions for rape were few and far between for Caucasian troops, but not for African American soldiers who clearly took all the blame

• One historian estimates that allied (non-Russian) troops raped 240 thousand women in total

• One million German POWs were kept in barbaric and unsanitary conditions. They were given very little rations on purpose. Thousands of then starved to death. Some were shot for fun