Dale H. Maple
Dale H. Maple (September 10, 1920 - May 28, 2001) was a private in the United States Army in World War II who helped two German prisoners of war escape in 1943. They were recaptured, and Maple was sentenced to death by hanging. He was the first American soldier ever convicted of a crime equivalent to treason. However, his sentence was first commuted to life imprisonment and later to ten years.
A FBI agent later described Dale Maple as "one of the most intelligent men I have ever had the opportunity to interview". He was reported to have had an IQ of 152.
Contents
Early life and education
Dale Maple was born in San Diego, California in 1920. His parents were of English and Irish extraction. His father was an ironworks executive.
Maple was an honor student at San Diego High School where he expressed his admiration for National Socialist Germany. He entered Harvard University at age 16 and four years later graduated magna cum laude. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and an accomplished classical pianist. At Harvard Dale Maple earned a bachelors degree in comparative philology (linguistics) and had an intimate knowledge of twenty-six languages.
He was pressured into resigning from the university German Club for singing the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" and other National Socialist songs. He once attended a Harvard costume party dressed as Adolf Hitler. When he told The Crimson student newspaper that "even a bad dictatorship is better than a good democracy", he was dismissed from the campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps program and told he was not officer material.
Army private
On February 27, 1942 Dale Maple enlisted in the US Army as a private where he studied cryptography and was an instructior at radio operators school in Fort Meade, Maryland. The Army knew of his political sympathies with Germany. A year later he was suddenly transferred to the 620th Engineer General Service Company which was largely made-up of around 200 American soldiers of German background who could be considered a security risk. For this reason the company was one of only a handful of units not allowed to bear arms. Mostly their duties involved manual labor such as digging ditches, chopping fire wood, and clearing land.
The 620 Company was originally based near the Black Hills of South Dakota but moved to Leadville, Colorado at Camp Hale where 200 German prisoners of war were held. Fraternization between the two groups became commonplace and a plan was devised to help the German prisoners escape. Maple was in charge of the plan which initially involved ten prisoners escaping but was later scaled down to two. They planed to escape to Mexico, meet with sympathizers there and then, to Argentina, Spain, and finally Germany.
On February 15, 1944 the trio plan their escape having purchased a $255 four-door 1934 Reo sedan. Maple picked up Afrika Korps Sergeants Heinrich Kikillus and Erhard Schwichtenberg from a work detail without attracting attention. After 36 hours of driving, they were within 17 miles (27 km) of the Mexican border when they ran out of gas. The trio walked over the border near Columbus, New Mexico where they were arrested by a Mexican customs official and turned over to American authorities.
Court martial and imprisonment
Maple was originally accused of treason. In April 1944 the treason charge was droped. The Army later convened a court martial at Fort Leavenworth where Maple was charged under the 81st Article of War for "relieving, corresponding with or aiding the enemy", the "closest equivalent to the charge of treason". He pleaded innocent, but was found guilty and secretly sentenced to death by hanging. However, the Army Judge Advocate General recommended to President Franklin Roosevelt that his life be spared. Roosevelt commuted his death sentence to life in prison at hard labor. After the war, in 1946, the sentence was further reduced to ten years.
Maple was held at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. In February 1951 Maple was released from prison and returned to San Diego where he entered the insurance business.
620th Engineer General Service Company
After the escape, the 620th Engineer General Service Company was reorganized as Company A of 1800 Engineer General Service Battalion and based in Tennessee. Company B and Company C would be made-up of Japanese and Italian-Americans respectively. In addition Americans associated with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Christian Front added to the Battalion's ranks.
Works
- A Statistical Investigation of Early Germanic Dialects, with Special Reference to Problems in the Classification of Dialects and Languages, Harvard University, 1941
