This Date in History: June 6

Hellmuth Stieff, Army Brigadier General, born on June 6, 1901 in Deutsche Eylau, chief of the Army organizational section of the General Staff, winner of the German Cross in Gold, conspirator in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, condemned to death by the People’s Court, executed by hanging at Plötzensee Prison August 8, 1944 in Berlin, said in 1942 on German responsibility: “We have so laden ourselves with guilt – for we are responsible – that I believe the punishment we are beginning to suffer is justified atonement for all the disgraceful things that we Germans have done or tolerated in the last few years.” (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)

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Private John C. Woods landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944.  As a member of the 5th Engineer Special Brigades he and the other combat engineers were to support the landings of the First U.S. Infantry Division, the “Big Red One,” on Omaha Beach.  The 37th Engineer Battalion Beach Group (the battalion to which Private John Woods was assigned) had the mission to support the division’s 16th Regimental Combat Team in the first wave against the Easy Red sector of Omaha.  But Easy Red sector wasn’t easy; the battalion suffered twenty-four killed in action, including the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lionel F. Smith, killed by an enemy mortar shell along with two staff officers.  First Lieutenant Charles Peckham, commander of Company B survived, winning the Bronze Star.  At 7:30 a.m., on June 6, a Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) put Company B, 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, ashore safely at Exit E-1, leading to St. Laurent; its mission was to open the exit for the 2nd Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment.  (American Hangman: MSgt. John C. Woods, The United States Army’s Notorious Executioner in World War II and Nürnberg)