Late on the morning of July 14, 1943, 33-year-old U.S. Sergeant Horace West was escorting a long, shuffling column of Italian prisoners towards the rear areas in Sicily.
Suddenly ordering them to halt on the roadside, West borrowed a tommy gun from a comrade and began emptying magazine after magazine into his charges.
Some fell on their knees, pleading for mercy — in vain. By the time West had finished shooting, 37 unarmed men lay dead. At his later court-martial, West, an Oklahoman, explained himself by saying: ‘It was something sitting on me — just to kill and destroy and watch them bleed to death'.
Read Full Article »
