Friends----here is a request; please respond directly to Bill offline if you can be of some help.....thanks! Rick *************************************************************** ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 From: "Crews, William" <[email protected]> Subject: Help needed Hi- I'm doing a bit of research on the trials of class B/C war criminals and have gotten sidetracked on a point of trivia. The two primary executioners of the 270 or so capital German war criminals are both referred to in papers of the time as having carried out 200 or so executions, each, while civilian hangmen. I find it hard to believe that we created one such prolific hangman, much less two, in the period leading up to WW II. For instance, John C. Woods, the hangman for the Nuremberg defendants, in "Stars and Stripes" states he had been a hangman for 15 years (since 1931), yet he had been in the military since about 1942-43. When one bounces the total list of hangings in the US from 1931 to 1941 it quickly becomes unlikely that he could have 200+ hangings under his belt. I am suspecting a case of resume' inflation. Do you know if anyone has collected information on this bit of arcania or chronicled American hangmen the way Pierrepoint and various British hangmen have been written about? Bill Crews
