This Date in History: May 4

 

On Friday, May 4, 1945, official executioner Major W.G. Neiswender hanged U.S. Army Private Shelton McGhee Sr. at the Peninsular Base Section Stockade Number 1 at Aversa, Italy for the crime of murder.  McGhee is buried at the Oise-Aisne American Military Cemetery in France.  (The Fifth Field: The Story of the 96 American Soldiers Sentenced to Death and Executed in Europe and North Africa in World War II)

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Fedor von Bock, Army Field Marshal, born December 3, 1880 in Küstrin, Commander Army Group North and Army Group Center, relieved of command in 1942, winner of the Pour le mérite in World War I, winner of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, died of wounds in a naval hospital following a British low-level air attack on May 4, 1945 near Lensahn (Holstein), on Josef Goebbels: [Couldn’t someone just] “String up that swine Goebbels.”  (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)