Page 164 - They Also Served

the prisoners before finishing off any survivors with bayonet and rifle butt. 97 British, including Ryder, were killed but, somehow, Privates William ‘Bill’ O’Callaghan and Albert ‘Bert’ Pooley, both badly wounded, survived. Firstly, hidden by the French and eventually taken prisoner by a German army unit, Pooley was repatriated in 1943. However, the British authorities refused to believe his story, adamant that German troops would not perpetrate such a massacre. Indeed, an investigation was not launched until O’Callaghan was released when his POW camp was liberated in 1945 and corroborated the story.
Knöchlein was tracked down to Hamburg, where he was employed by the British in charge of a labour company. Tried with war crimes, his wife and four children attended every day of the trial as Pooley and O’Callaghan were called as prosecution witnesses. Sentenced to death, Knöchlein was hanged on 29th January 1949. Ryder’s and O’Callaghan’s sons have made it their life’s work to ensure that the sacrifice of 2nd Norfolks at Le Paradis is never forgotten, and Ralston Ryder is pictured proudly wearing his father’s Polar Medal.
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