Fortune Belongs To the Brave!

You’ve heard the slogan! And it’s true, You can’t accomplish the impossible if you don’t at least try. But you and I both know that the trail is littered with the bodies, the dashed hopes and dreams of multitudes, who tried and failed. Even those who tried and tried and tried again. But the numbers of those who didn’t even try are much, much greater.

My story is about Barry Davis, a Master Sergeant in the American Army. It is a story within a story. This story goes back to World War II, toward its end, when Allied troops were assaulting Germany itself, on what was called the Siegfried line in 1944. It was thought that the war was drawing to a close, when a surprise attack in the Ardennes Region of Belgium pushed Allied forces back about 60 miles. Some 250,000 German troops battered the 80,000 men facing them. The Allies lost 19,000 dead, and suffered 47,000 wounded. There were some 23,000 reported missing. The Germans suffered 100,000 killed, wounded and captured. The battle lasted from December 16^th, 1944 to January 25^th 1945, when the German troops withdrew to avoid encirclement.

Some 9,000 Allied troops were captured.

Americans in the battle were organized into the 117^th Infantry Regiment. Some of them were among the Allied prisoners encircled and captured. The German tactic was to separate the officers from the enlisted men. The rules of war required that prisoners be dealt with through their officers. With this tactic the bulk of prisoners were leaderless. Among the enlisted men, Jewish prisoners were identified, and sent off to a concentration camp where most of them perished. This occurred among all the Allied troops.

Among the officers, the same tactic was employed, successfully among the other Allied forces. But among this group of Americans, the ranking officer, Master Sergeant Barry Davis, insisted that all the 1200 troops under his command were Jewish. He would not allow the some 200 Jewish officers in the troop to be identified. The Germans knew this could not be true. The German officer in charge placed his loaded pistol at the Sergeant’s forehead, and commanded him to order his Jewish officers to step forward from the ranks. “We are all Jews!”, insisted the Sergeant. He also said that the war was almost over and that there would be a reckoning for “war crimes”. The German officer withdrew.

Later, as the Allied forces approached the encampment, the German officer insisted that Davis order his subordinates to prepare to march with the retreating Germans. Davis refused, saying his men did not have the strength. Despite repeated attempts to get Davis to order the Americans to join the retreat, as had the other Allied prisoners, Davis was adamant that he would not order his officers on the march. The Nazi officer gave up and left the American prisoners behind. Two days later they were liberated by American forces.

What Davis did was beyond courageous. Yet he never told anyone of his story, returning to civilian life and obscurity. When his son later asked him to relate his experiences during the war, he declined to talk about it. This story only came to light after his death when one of the Jews whose life had been saved told the story to a New York Times reporter. The only recognition he has received was when the Government of Israel invited his son to Israel and recognized his courageous actions by inscribing his name among the Righteous Gentiles of the World, honoring those who risked their own lives to salvage Jewish lives.