In the case of Julius Streicher, reporter Howard K. Smith wrote that the initial drop was not fatal, and that "witnesses could hear him groaning", upon which "Woods came down from the platform and disappeared behind the black curtain that concealed the dying man. Abruptly the groans ceased and the rope stopped moving. Smith and the other witnesses were convinced that Woods had grabbed Streicher and pulled down hard, strangling him."
If some German thinks he wants to get me, he better make sure he does it with his first shot, because I was raised with a pistol in my hand.
Woods "announced his retirement from being an executioner six days after his wife found out about it"
However, Woods also told reporters that he might return to Germany in some capacity, stating that there were more than 120 war criminals still waiting to be hanged, including 43 sentenced for their part in the Malmedy Massacre. Claiming that he "had some buddies killed in that massacre", he boasted that he would come back "just to get even for them."
Really hard to fault somebody for being this excited about killing Nazis
Behind the Bastards (the podcast) had a multi-part look into this hangman. The conclusion seemed to be "Who knows if the Army hired him knowing he was incompetent or if he purposefully incompetent... but the result was a lot of Nazis suffering strangulation instead of the quick neck snap"
(And yes I know BtB's lead man is the center of some amount of controversy. Most of their strictly historical output is fine though, in my view.)
Remember kids, whenever a copper dies of a heart attack or similar, that's really Ned Kelly and Chris Dorner getting a few more shots in from the Beautiful Shore!