This Date in History: July 27

 

Dr. Werner von Schenk, SS-Untersturmführer, was born in Heilbronn on July 27, 1912.  He served as the camp doctor at the Stutthof concentration camp.  A Protestant, who was married, he had Nazi Party Number 7278391 and SS Number 252382.  He received the Iron Cross Second Class, indicating that he served at the front at some time in the war.  (The Camp Men: The SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System)

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Fritz Biermeier was born on May 19, 1913 in Augsburg in the state of Bavaria.  He attended school through the tenth grade.  An electrician by trade, he stood 5’8.5” tall when he joined the SS on November 1, 1933 with SS number 142869 and proceeded up the enlisted ranks.  In his early enlisted days, 1934-1936, he served in the guard detachment for the Dachau concentration camp.  From April 1, 1937 to January 31, 1938 Biermeier attended the SS-Junkerschule at Braunschweig, and after some additional training was commissioned an SS-Untersturmführer on March 12, 1938.  He returned to the 9th Guard Company at Dachau until September 1, 1939, at which time he joined the 1st SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment and remained until July 27, 1941, when he was seriously wound at Luga on the Eastern Front.  (Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943)

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On July 27, 1943, Colonel Harry Flint assumes command of the 39th Infantry, considered a run-of-the-mill outfit that had just fought in Tunisia and is advancing across Sicily with the IInd Corps. The 39th Infantry reacts as if hit by lightning.  Does Colonel Flint have the soldiers’ touch?   You bet he does.   His first day, as soldiers of First Battalion are returning from the front, they see the 5’5″, 155-pound, bow-legged, old man wearing a black scarf, standing on a large boulder – looking each man in the eye as they pass and personally applauding every soldier.   He posts a sign at the regimental command post (CP) that reads: “Suicide Ranch.”  He coins the regimental motto of AAAO (Anything, Anytime, Anywhere, Bar Nothing) that the soldiers stencil on their helmets.  Down on the line, junior officers add their own interpretation to the motto – that they’ll kick the ass of, “Anybody, anyplace, any time, bar none.”