Looking over the comments, I thought Wretchard’s mental experiment re the Americans protecting German prisoners from an angry French mob was worth some thought:

“But here’s a mental experiment, what if the French had decided to kill the Germans? What if they rushed the POWs? Would you have opened fire? And on whom? Or would you have done nothing? An American unit in the middle of nobody’s business.”

Were I in the situation of Wretchard’s lieutenant, I hope I would have fired on the mob (allied mob or no) if I had to to protect the prisoners. The prisoners were unarmed and surrendered, and in the custody of the US Army, and thus entitled to protection. If some were war criminals, that is not a mob’s business.