Events at Dachau and Luzon

Correspondence between A World War II BAR Man-Memoir of Troubling Events at Dachau and Luzon

Gerald Rich (b. 1925)

In this brief memoir, New Jersey poet and retired literature teacher Gerald Rich describes three troubling events during his 1945-1946 service in the U.S. Army during World War II as a "Browning Automatic Rifle" man. Soldiers who opened Dachau before his arrival had executed Nazi Guards. The death of his comrade in a post-Armistice ambush by Japanese holdouts in the Philippines was reported to the family as a noncombat "accident." U.S. soldiers lost their lives to protect the San Miguel Brewery reputedly owned by Gen. Douglas MacArthur or his associates. Although the details differ, Rich's incident at Dachau appears to refer to the massacre authoritatively reported by Col. John H. Linden in Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 April 1945, 1997.

September 2005 Toms River, New Jersey Testimony Collected by Jean Maria Arrigo

Deposited in Hoover Institution Archives Stanford University, Stanford, CA October 6, 2005

Contents

Email introduction to the memoir from Rich, September 19, 2005	i
Memoir
Selection and training as a BAR man for the U.S. Army 86th Blackhawk Infantry Division	1

Pretense in Europe as the 15th Army under Lt. Gen. Leonard Townsend Gerow	1

Told of execution of 150 Nazi guards at Dachau by previous American troops and ordered never to disclose this event	1

Return to the U.S. and transfer to the Philippines	2

Ambush by Japanese holdouts after Armistice and combat death of Rich's comrade; false attribution of death by army to a noncombat accident	3

Unwarranted deaths of American soldiers assigned to protect the San Miquel Brewery owned by Gen. Douglas MacArthur or his associates	4
Documents
Army of the United States Honorable Discharge of Rich, April 25, 1946	6
Photographs of Rich and family	8
Curriculum vitae	9
Collection Notes
J.M. Arrigo's notes from July 8, 2005, conversation with Rich	11