AN old soldier with a remarkable story about his role in arresting war crimes suspect Anton Gecas is to be honoured with the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest distinction.
Hugh Maguire, 95, is one of nine former servicemen who will receive the insignia on board a French Navy destroyer moored at Leith Harbour for their part in securing France’s liberation during the Second World War.
Mr Maguire, of Armadale, West Lothian, captured the Lithuanian-born Gecas in Normandy in 1944 after a deadly firefight with Nazi troops.
The next time they saw each other, he says, was 16 years later - when both worked at Bilston Glen colliery in Midlothian.
Gecas died in an Edinburgh hospital in September 2001, aged 85, before justice could catch up with him.
Under his wartime name of Antanas Gecevicius he had commanded a platoon of the 2nd company of the notorious 12th Lithuanian Police Auxiliary Battalion. It was responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews, partisans and others in Lithuania and Belarus in 1941.
Reports claimed that Gecevicius’ unit had been responsible for up to 46,000 deaths.
He was, however, never brought to trial for his alleged crimes. In 1992 he lost a defamation action against Scottish Television, which alleged that he had been involved in atrocities in Lithuania and Belarus.
Mr Maguire, who was a trained rifleman, said that on July 8, 1944, his Royal Ulster Rifles regiment had reached Hill 60 overlooking Caen in northern France.
A fellow corporal was killed by German fire. “He was blown to pieces and I was blown out of the trench and took shrapnel to the back of my neck and shoulders,” he recalled.
Despite his injuries he persuaded his commanding officer to let him take on a German machine-gun post. Receiving the go-ahead, he crawled behind the Germans’ position. He shot two of its occupants but the other two threw down their guns and put their hands up.
“I got them back to my own lines and handed them over. I noticed that one of them was an SS officer - his revolver was one that was given to officers. I noticed that he was also wearing a collar decoration and medals.”
He believes that Gecevicius was subsequently taken to a PoW camp near Dalkeith. In 1947, the war over, the Lithuanian went to work for the National Coal Board as an engineer and also did a management course at Heriot Watt University.
Mr Maguire, unaware of this, himself joined the NCB, and rose through the ranks. In time he was assigned to Bilston Glen colliery and one day was told to report to the senior oversman, a man named Tony. To his shock he found himself confronted with Gecas.
“I said, ‘Tony, we meet again’. He said, ‘Me never saw you before’. I said, ‘Yes you did,’ and I refreshed his memory. He replied, ‘Ja, ja, ja!’
“I told him, ‘Tony, you’ll never see you again - not if I see you first.’
“I told the manager that I wasn’t working under Gecas. He gave me a job in another part of the pit. Three weeks later I got a job in a smaller colliery and was promoted to senior overman on the night shift’. I never saw Gecas again.
“I reported him to the police but they told me he had immunity. What could I do? I couldn’t take a case up against him.
“But it was an occasion I’ll never forget. To see him after 16 years was just amazing.”
On Friday, Mr Maguire, watched by members of his family - including a daughter, Maria, who is flying from her home in Canberra - will proudly take his place on board the vessel Aquitaine to receive his medal from Emmanuel Cocher, the French Consul General in Scotland, and Rear Admiral Patrick Chevallereau, the French Embassy’s Defence Attaché. “It’s going to be a real occasion,” he said, “and I am looking forward to it.”
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