Local hero was executed by the Gestapo - on Hitler's order

IT was an a calculated act of cold-blooded murder ordered by Hitler himself.

A crack team of SAS soldiers had disappeared in France in the summer of 1944, but it would be several weeks before the British learned that they were dealing with a war crime.

A 22-year-old from Kemmilhill Park in Randalstown was a member of that unit.

This is the story of William Pearson Young, a daring young soldier prepared to risk all to take the fight to the Nazis as the Allies prepared to unleash D-Day.

As part of ‘Operation Gain’, on July 4th a group of 12 men left RAF Keevil in Wiltshire aboard a Stirling bomber to fly to France.

After splitting into two groups they parachuted behind enemy lines to carry out covert acts of sabotage, disrupting communications and transport ahead of the Normandy landings.

It was a dangerous assignment, but the men were glad to arrive.

The previous night a coded BBC radio message had been received by the French Resistance Fighters telling them of a parachute drop but at the 11th hour the flight was cancelled as there had been insufficient time to rally the French.

And it soon became clear that others had been listening in...

The following night the Resistance went to the rendezvous point having received another coded message - and straight into an ambush.

The first two Frenchmen to arrive were fired on and killed by Germans who had established that the code for the drop was ‘B for Bertie’.

Unaware that the operation had been compromised, the SAS men leapt from the plane at 1.53am over the Fontainebleu area near La Ferte-Alais to the south of Paris.

Seven of the troops - including William - landed on the Drop Zone, which was a field of wheat, whilst the final five to jump landed in a wood.

After scooping up their parachutes, they were approached by a group of men wearing civilian clothes who greeted them with the words ‘Vive la France’.

It was a signal - and instantly the soldiers came under automatic fire.

The team fired back and tried to find cover, but it was clear that they were surrounded, and within an hour all were captured - and four of them had been wounded.

They were taken to Gestapo HQ in Paris. Corporal Howard Lutton, from County Armagh, was taken on to hospital, but died a short time later.

The rest were initially taken to a converted hotel near Champs de Mars in central Paris and then onto a Gestapo headquarters where they were ‘interrogated’ for three days before being returned to the converted hotel.

On August 8th the remaining captives were given civilian clothes and told they were to be taken to Switzerland to be exchanged for German prisoners by the British.

At 1am the following morning they were put on a truck and driven out of Paris.

However, their final destination was not the Swiss border but a wooded area near Beauvais, north of the city.

The puzzled prisoners were ordered off the truck and marched deep into the forest, where they were lined up.

One of the men asked if they were to be shot and he was informed that they were to be executed without trial on Hitler’s orders.

Facing the men were a number of Gestapo officers who were armed with Sten guns at the ready whilst another read out the sentence.

“For having wished to work in collaboration with the French terrorists and thus to endanger the German army, you are condemned to the penalty of death and will be shot,” said a Sergeant.

On hearing the word ‘shot’, SAS captain Patrick Garstin - who hailed from Dublin - shouted to everyone to make a dash for it as the Germans opened fire.

The Germans would have expected no less, and most of the men fell where they stood.

But Lance Corporal Vaculik managed to get away while Corporal Jones tripped and fell.

The Gestapo men ran past him thinking he had been shot and was mortally wounded.

Five men lay dead, including William.

A grave had been dug in a wooded area about two miles from where the atrocity had taken place, near a large chateau approximately one mile to the east of Noailles.

But it would be three days before the Germans returned to bury the dead. Instead they were desperately hunting for Jones and Vacluik, who they assumed were injured and hiding out in the forest.

The Führer would not be amused if he learned that they had left witnesses behind.

A Resistance fighter later confirmed that the Germans had put a two-day curfew in place following the shootings to tidy up the ‘loose ends’.

But the SAS men had slipped through their fingers and were on their way back to England.

In the following weeks the Germans were being pushed back, and the military began to piece together what had happened to the missing men.

This incident was investigated by Captain Sadler and Major Poat of the SAS who visited Noailles around September 20 and on speaking with local Resistance leaders they were shown where the men had been mown down - and where they had been buried.

The grave was opened and a total of five bodies were found. All were dressed in civilian clothing and showed signs of having been handcuffed.

Of the six people lost in the ill-fated operation, five of them were Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

After the war the bodies were re-interred in Marissel French National Cemetery in Beauvais.

The investigation concluded that the Gestapo had tried to conceal their actions.

Billy’s mother learned the full horror of what had happened to her boy when a letter finally arrived from the War Office.

‘Private Young was never officially reported as a prisoner of war by the German authorities, and it was not until two of the men who were with him returned to this country that it was learned the party had been captured on landing, and had been, in fact, prisoners of war for nearly a month’, said a spokesman.

‘Your son was dropped in France on the night of July 4-5 1944 and was captured and held with the majority of his party and interrogated by the Gestapo until August 8 1944 when they were ordered to put on civilian clothes and were taken to a wood near Beauvais.

‘They were there accused of collaboration with French terrorists and lined up to be shot by the Gestapo.

‘The prisoners had been told by their captain to try and break away, and only two of them managed to make their escape, but were unable to state what had happened to the rest of the party, other than that there was shooting, and that four or five bodies were lying on the ground.

‘At a later date when the ground was captured by the Allies a grave was discovered, and although it was not possible to identify all the bodies they were re-interred in the cemetery of Marissel at Beauvais.

‘As Private Young was killed by the enemy while on active service for his country he is, of course, recorded as having been killed in action.

‘The case has been put forward for investigation as a war crime, and you are assured that all that is possible will be done to trace and punish those responsible for the death of Private Young and his comrades’.

He was posthumously awarded the Croix De Guerre, awarded by France to soldiers who distinguish themselves by acts of heroism involving combat with the enemy.

Though he now rests in a ‘foreign field’, his name is still commemorated in his home town where a plaque was erected in his honour. It was a long time ago, but Randalstown Remembers.