Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Sepia Saturday #240: The Ritchie Boys





During his career in intelligence my husband had many different ID's for various positions he held and for military/intelligence properties he accessed. After searching through my own photos in vain I asked him if he remembered one of his ID's that matched the prompt this week. Here's what he came up with....his Fort Ritchie, MD identification which fits the bill. Did we laugh over his helmet hair! Thank God I can barely see his tie under the sign!

Fort Ritchie is closed now, but at one time it played an important role in our history as a training center for the Ritchie Boys. Who were they?
The Ritchie Boys consisted of approximately 9,000 young Germans and Austrians,[1] who were mostly Jewish, and who had escaped from their countries of birth and immigrated to the US as refugees.[2] Most had been drafted or volunteered into the United States Army. Some had originally arrived in the USA as children, many without their parents so that these were also One Thousand Children. (One such OTC was Ambassador Richard Schifter.)
They were trained at the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, now officially known as Fort Ritchie. They were specially trained in methods of intelligence, counterintelligence, interrogation, investigation and psychological warfare.[3] They were suitable for these tasks because they knew the German language, and importantly the German mentality and life behaviours, better than most American-born soldiers.[4] The role of these soldiers was therefore to work in the front lines (or even behind them), at strategic corps and army levels, at interrogation, analyzing German forces and plans; and also as members of the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps;[5] and also to study the enemy, and demoralize him in order to achieve an unconditional surrender.
After the US declared war on Germany, the Ritchie Boys became a decisive weapon for the Allied powers. Many of them entered Europe on D-Day on June 6, 1944 along with the other Allied troops.[6] Others followed over time. Shortly after reaching land they left their units and pursued their special tasks. They were able to feed the Allies valuable information. Gen. Oscar Koch (Gen. Patton's G-2) acknowledged that the advance warning of the German Bulge offensive was made possible by information gathered by their MIS units. Moreover, the Ritchie Boys helped break German resistance by demoralizing them in both open and covert operations. They interrogated POWs and defectors to obtain information about German force levels, troop movements, and the physical and psychological state of the Germans. By means of targeted disinformation via newspaper announcements, flyers, radio broadcasts, and sound trucks, the German population and military was prompted to cease their resistance against the Allied invasion.

The most interesting part of writing to Sepia Saturday prompts is the information you wander into. I started out howling with laughter over my husband's photo and ended up crying my eyes out after reading of the "One Thousand Children". The story is fascinating and worth reading about but far too long and complicated to tackle in a post. If you're interested, read here:   The One Thousand Children.

For more stories about identity and things true and false, head over to Sepia Saturday!

18 comments:

  1. A funny and interesting post. I knew nothing about the Ritchie Boys & the role they played in the war effort. I wonder if a movie was ever made about them?

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    1. Yes, a documentary called "The Ritchie Boys" made in 2007. The reviews are very good and it was short-listed for an academy award for best documentary. I'm going to order it from NetFlix.

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  2. Very good matching photo.

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  3. What an interesting job (and funny ID) your husband had. (So true about wandering into information. That's what I really enjoy!)
    However, I'm wondering if your husband is going to grow up to look like my great-great-grandfather James Franklin Jollett (Google that name -- all the photos on my blog pop up). Look at the cheekbones, the close-set eyes, those lips.

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  4. Very interesting. I never heard of the Ritchie Boys or One Thousand Children before.

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  5. Anonymous3:38 PM

    I love the photo ID of Richard. What a career he had. I'm still in awe. I'm so glad that he and I were good friends in Taipei.
    Bob M.

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    1. As you can guess, he has many others but this was the only one fit for public consumption. Hopefully we'll get together one of these times so you can remember the good times.

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  6. Oh dear that’s sad, and I don’t mean your husband’s ID card. I have just reminded mine that he has something similar from the same era. Thanks for the Ritchie Boys information too.

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  7. I love Richard's photo. He looks like he could have been a Beatle. What did he do at Fort Richie?
    Inquiring minds want to know more. But oops! i guess it would be secret!
    Such an interesting story and what an interesting life he's had. Isn't he bored with just tending to the secrets of avocados?
    Barbara

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  8. Very interesting, despite the sadness, and your husband's photo ID is a hoot. I thought he was wearing a beanie!

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  9. Great post...brought to the topic then appropriately led into a great story about which I knew nothing. Now to the Thousand Children. I have to get my tissue to be ready I think.

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  10. I had never heard of the Ritchie Boys. Thank you for enlightening us about a little known piece of history.

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  11. Great photo match up, and a new and interesting story as well!

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  12. I have to join the throng and say I had never heard of the Ritchie Boys either. You learn such a lot on Sepia Saturday don't you...both in the research you do and the reading of other's posts. Thanks.

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  13. That was a neat combination of stories. It is what Sepia Saturday does best.

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  14. It is a great match for the photo-prompt and it is a fascinating story about the Richie Boys.

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  15. I had never heard of the ritchie boys either. I'll have to rent the film. I wonder if any of them ever defected back to Germany because of friends and family, etc. That must have been so difficult to become enemies to old friends. Kind of like the No. and So. friends and relatives during the civil war fighting against each other. I guess I'll find out when I rent the film. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
    Nancy

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