The Vengeance of Private Pooley

London: William Heinemann, 1956. Book. Good. Red Cloth. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. x, 237 pages, b/w photos. Wear on spine, dust wrapper is lacking pieces on the spine. This book is set around the Le Paradis massacre. The Le Paradis massacre was a war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command of Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein. It took place on 27 May 1940, during the Battle of France, at a time when troops of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were attempting to retreat through the Pas-de-Calais region during the Battle of Dunkirk. Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Norfolk Regiment, had become isolated from their unit. They occupied and defended a farmhouse against an attack by Waffen-SS forces in the village of Le Paradis. After running out of ammunition, the defenders surrendered to the German troops. The Germans led them across the road to a wall where they were murdered by machine gun fire. Ninety-seven British troops were killed. Two survived, with injuries, and hid until they were captured by German forces several days later. After the war, Knöchlein was convicted by a war crimes court, with the two survivors acting as witnesses against him. For his part in the massacre, Knöchlein received the death penalty and was executed in 1949..