As my readers may
begin to wonder – why all this detail – why this meticulous attempt to reconstruct
the jigsaw puzzle that should be best entitled “Multiple Machinations
Surrounding the Facts of the Katyn Massacre” – and as they wonder about the
specifics of the coded letters, it behooves me to clarify why I write in
detail.
It is true that the
English-speaking POW witnesses to the 1943 German investigation of the Katyn
Massacre appear to be but a miniscule footnote to the entire history of the
bloody murders (and bloody they were, with one of the non-Katyn site Soviet executioners
wearing a floor-length leather apron and gloves, while other executioners
pleaded that they could not kill at such a rate as they had been held to during
the first days), yet it is necessary to study the details.
In her generous
critique of my book, Professor Cienciala wrote that there is an assumption that these witnesses do not add
anything to our knowledge of the history.
Yet I would dare to attempt to amplify the Professor’s words. It is only by studying these detailed facts,
even those seemingly totally unrelated to the English-speaking witnesses, that
our knowledge of how quickly and what information was held by the Western
Allies can be documented and placed in a clear timeline. Too often, reference is made to the fact that
these Allies did not have hard proof of the facts about Katyn, as it was clear
that the Soviets would not allow for an open investigation by the Western
Allies, or perhaps more precisely, as a result that the Western Allies did not
have proof from their own men, from sources that they could consider to be
unpolluted and untainted.
Yet research over
the period of over three years has not only moved the date for US and British possession
of “hard and untainted data” from the general United States (if not world)
perception of Colonel Van Vliet’s May 1945 report, as being the first, if not
only, report, to the discovery of Lt. Colonel Stevenson’s report of February
1945 in the South African Military Archives as preceding that report. Since Stevenson had served as the Senior
Officer of the group, his report should have either served as the major
documenter of facts and as such, should have been shared with the US, yet there
is no reference in any currently known US documents, of the existence of this
report. Similarly, the British National
Archives deny possession of such a report.
Yet two things are
clear from the report,
- firstly
that Stevenson had undergone questioning by senior British officers and
presumably been oriented to avoid a clear statement of Soviet guilt, and
- Secondly,
that despite having been the SO – he constantly referred to making
decisions in conjunction with Van Vliet.
Both the Van Vliet
and Stevenson reports were preceded by Captain Gilder’s report of November
1944. It should be here noted that
Captain Gilder’s report was shared by the British with their US counterparts,
which leads one of two unpleasant suspicions. Since officially the US and
Britain had agreed to share all relevant intelligence detail, and the US had officers
imbedded in the military intelligence offices in Britain, that
- either
Van Vliet’s and Stewarts’ summer of 1943 correspondence had been shared
with the British, and that they also, have never released information on
this matter,
- Or
that the US did not, in fact, share all the information it possessed with
the British.
Further to this,
confirmation of the fact that all the officers submitted letters of protest not
only to the German Oflag Commandant, but also to the Swiss Protecting Powers,
and that both the British and the United States received and thereby were aware
of the fact that their soldiers were sent to Katyn moves the date of initial
knowledge of the officer’s presence to the summer of 1943.
However, once research
made it clear that the US Army officers were Registered Code Users, contacting
their superiors on a regular and quite rapid basis, even planning a mass escape
from Oflag 64, more questions developed.
This is how a supposition arose that letters concerning the Katyn truth
would have been sent by the officers – and that is what led to the discovery of
one of the Coded Letters in last days of August, 2012 in the US National
Archives.
These letters were
initially sent by the two US POWs as early as June and July of 1943, most
probably from Oflag 64, where the US Army officers had been transferred by mid-June. They were sent as late as April of 1944,
after the Soviet-orchestrated Burdenko Commission had presented its report in
January of 1944, and stateside MIS-X officers had written to the US POWs asking
them to confirm their opinions on the matter. (US citizens’ participation in the Burdenko
scenario will be discussed later.)
It is this
aerogramme (POWs were allowed to send correspondence in specifically proscribed
formats – postcards or aerogrammes, which were a lined sheet of lightweight
paper which folded in upon itself to form an envelope) from April of 1944 with
its coded but unequivocal statement that the Russians were responsible, as well
Captain Stewart’s response to written queries in 1950, when the search for the
‘missing Van Vliet report” was on, that confirms that the US knew from its own
officers in the summer of 1943, that the Soviets committed the slaughter.
