WORLD WAR II - AN UNTOLD STORY

WORLD WAR II – AN UNTOLD STORY

Another of the great untold stories has to do with the countless heroic Jews who served in the U.S., British and Russian militaries during the  War. These soldiers’ vital contributions to the Allied war effort remain buried, partly due to a generally accepted myth that Jews were overwhelmingly victims during the Holocaust.  It was believed that only in Israel were there tough, strong, fighting Jews. But there are other, perhaps biased, reasons that these stories have not yet come to light.

The tale of an extraordinary, little-known unit, known as X Troop, is a case in point.

In 1942,the Germans seemed to be unstoppable in Europe. Desperate to change the course of the war, Winston Churchill and his Chief of Combined Operations decided to create a commando unit of Jewish refugees. Many of them were in concentration camps before their escape to the U.K., and most had lost their families to the Nazis. They came from Germany and Austria as teenagers, and when the war broke out were interred as enemy aliens - often in horrific conditions - in Australia and Canada. For them, the war was personal, and they would stop at nothing to defeat the Nazi menace.

They took the fight to the enemy with both counterintelligence and advanced fighting skills - a rare combination for modern warriors. They were the X Troop - genuine “Inglorious Bastards.”

The name X Troop was bestowed by Churchill himself, who noted: “Because they will be unknown warriors… they must perforce be considered an unknown quantity. Since the algebraic symbol for the unknown is X, let us call them X Troop.”

After the men were selected, or volunteered, for this new duty, they were brought to London and interviewed by MI5. They were told that they will be taking the fight directly to the Nazis, and that the work will be extremely dangerous. They understood the risks but felt they had nothing more to lose. Hitler had to be stopped at all costs.

The men of X Troop carried out some of the most daring missions of the war, landing on D-Day and fighting all the way into the heart of Germany. They were all on a personal mission - to overthrow the Nazis who had killed their families and wrecked Europe. Frequently wounded, they often simply walked out of field hospitals, returning to their units to continue the struggle. Even when the war was over, the X Troopers would be crucial in hunting down and convicting Nazis for war crimes.

                                                                    

In order to operate behind enemy lines, all the X Troopers had to undergo an extraordinary transformation that, in part, explains why their story has gone largely untold. They had to shed their previous lives as Jewish refugees, and pretend that they were British through and through. This was necessary because, as Jews, they would be killed instantly if captured.

Once accepted into X Troop, each man was given a few minutes to pick a new, British-sounding name. Next, they had to destroy any connection to their old selves:  burn every letter from home; throw out anything with their name on it; and create a cover story of their British origins. For those killed in battle, this change would often remain permanent. They  had fake British names, with dog tags that specified their affiliation to the Church of England.  Several would be buried beneath crosses.

Once they had their new names and identities, the X Troopers had to undergo a brutal training in Wales and Scotland. Days and nights hiking over mountains in the highlands with full packs and weapons; live ammo training; cliff scaling; demolition work; parachuting.

These men who, until recently, had been despised and stateless refugees, emerged as hardened commandos - and they would go on to play a crucial role in the Nazis’ defeat.