WEGARD PHOTO GALLERY

Thanksgiving Day dinner at Nürnberg at the headquarters of the War Crimes investigating team, November 1945. As the Thanksgiving Day dinner was being prepared for the officers and their guests, the aroma of the cooking was too much for one of the German prisoners located in the cell beneath the dining room and he began pounding on the roof . The prisoner was Col. Joachim Piper, the German officer accused of conducting the massacre at Malmedy, Belgium, of U.S. troops captured at the Battle of the Bulge. Vic Wegard was dispatched to see what Piper wanted and was told that Piper would work for a meal or for any scraps of food left over, since he claimed he hadn't eaten in 3 days. One of the officers present at the dinner agreed to give Piper food in return for him acting as the waiter at the dinner.

Top