Hair-raising plunge

The feelings of the Austrian people about the National Socialist party and its expansionist aims were deeply mixed.

The Nazis had annexed their nation under the threat of force in 1938. For many, they were hostile occupiers.

But by drafting more than a million Austrians into their army, they wedded many to their cause.

It was onto this ambivalent landscape that Moore parachuted on March 4, 1945. The plunge alone was hair-raising. His ripcord failed twice on the way down.

It opened only when he was 300 feet above the ground.

He landed in a shell crater on the outskirts of Graz.

It scared him, of course, when a crowd appeared as if out of nowhere, surrounding him.

One visibly angry man pointed a gun at him.

Others in the crowd subdued the wouldbe assailant and dragged him off.

By the time a local police officer arrested Moore and led him to a makeshift jail, he didn’t know what to think. That night was even more confusing.

Moore listened as men who appeared to be SS officers argued with others in what seemed to be Austrian military uniforms. A man Moore believed was a Graz policeman slipped him a note. it read. “Verstehen Sie?” the man whispered. Moore nodded that he did understand. After the Nazis left, the police officer and a man who seemed to be an Austrian lieutenant marched the prisoner out of his cell to a crossroads.

They handed him his belongings and pointed in the direction of what they said