Dale Maple

Dale H. Maple (1920–2001) 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.

Early life and education

Maple was born in San Diego, California in 1920. His working class parents were of English and Irish extraction.

Maple graduated first in his class of 585 from San Diego High School at the age of sixteen and won a scholarship to Harvard University. In 1941, he received a bachelor's degree in comparative philology magna cum laude, specializing in German, from Harvard and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. An FBI agent later described him as "one of the most intelligent men I have ever had the opportunity to interview".

However, he was pressured into resigning from the university German Club for singing the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" and other Nazi songs. When he told The Crimson student newspaper that "even a bad dictatorship is better than a good democracy", he was also dismissed from the campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps.