Liberation of POW camps

[phylo_roadking]

Were there any case in WWII of escaped POWS of any Allied nation being among any personnel specifically assigned to liberating their old camps, or are there even any instances of it happening accidently?

I know MI9 organised two armed parties under Jimmy Langley and Airey Neave that operated on the Continent in the summer of 1944, rounding up the parties of evading airmen that were living in the forests of the France/Belgium/Luxembourg frontiers. These several hundred evaders had had to be diverted into makeshift camps when the Allied bombing and interdiction of railways in France leading up to and after D-Day made rail transport down to the Pyrennees almost impossible...AND British Military Intelligence had officers with the forces either liberating or very soon after the liberation of concentration camps - Dirk Bogarde was one - but did the regular forces do the same level of organisation for POW camps?

[lwd]

I seam to recall a force being put together to liberate the camp that had Patton's son in it. Since this was well behind the lines at the time it was an organized effort to liberate a camp and may well have included former inmates. It's probably worth following up on.

[phylo_roadking]

I think I've heard of that. Wasn't that more famous because a local area acommander put the force together contrary to general orders and in the event it was pretty badly mauled???

[redcoat]

I think I've heard of that. Wasn't that more famous because a local area acommander put the force together contrary to general orders and in the event it was pretty badly mauled???

It was General Patton who organised the raid. If the US president FDR hadn't died at the time of the units destruction, diverting attention from it, its possible that Patton might have lost his job sooner than he did.

Here's an account of the raid
http://www.milmag.com/newsite/features/ ... ammelburg/

ps, post war, when the letters he sent to his wife Beatrice came into the hands of historians, it was found that Patton's claim he didn't know his son-in-law was in the camp at the time the raid was launched......was a lie.

He wrote this to her on the day of the raid
"last night I sent an armoured column to a place 40 miles east of Frankfurt where John and some 900 PW are said to be. I have been as nervous as a cat all day as everyone but me thought it was too great a risk; I hope it works. Al Stiller went along. If I lose the column it will possibly be a new incident but I won't"