Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  When General Middleton’s VIII Army Corps pulled out of Bastogne as the 101st and other defenders arrived on the scene, a large cache of liquor was left behind. Division Headquarters located the one storage site and the second was exposed when an enemy bomb took one wall off its hiding place. Most of the liquor was placed in the hands of the medical personnel who were supervising the emergency medical set-ups in the rifle range and other buildings in the community. Colonel Ned Moore, the Division chief-of-staff stated: “There was enough liquor available that we were able to provide a bottle to every two wounded men. There wasn’t much else with which to overcome pain at that stage of the game.”150

  It is uncertain whether gunner sergeant William D. Gammon got into the supply mentioned by Colonel Moore or the cache which had been located by Sgt. Parker and mentioned by Pvt. Albert Gramme. Gammon’s mission was to scrounge for items which would make living conditions more tolerable for the men in his battery. He wrote:

  Some days later, after the German Luftwaffe had bombed Bastogne a few times, PFC. Martindale and I took a jeep and trailer into town to find stoves, timbers, quilts, etc.—anything to help keep us warm.

  We found a building blown open by the air raids. Lo and behold—it was full of booze. I thought at the time the Belgians had sealed it up to prevent the Germans from finding it. I was surprised to find some of the bottles were American brands—also a lot of Havana cigars. We loaded up and took it back to our unit and it was enjoyed by all.151

  CHAPTER 12

  DECEMBER 27

  Aerial Resupply Continues

  The freezing rain and sleet at the Chateaudun air base where the 439th Troop Carrier Group was stationed on December 26th had caused postponement of additional flights of gliders. As was the case with F/O Case Rafter, another pilot was caught up in the operation officer’s mission to get “volunteers” for the flight. F/O Herbert W. Ballinger has this story of flying to Bastogne with a load of artillery ammunition:

  The first that I learned about the Bastogne mission was when the operations officer came through the glider pilot’s area asking for volunteers to fly supplies into Bastogne. Since I had nothing better to do, I agreed to fly the mission. We were scheduled to take off on the 26th of December but for some reason it was delayed until the morning of the 27th. The glider was loaded with high explosives (artillery shells) with the fuses removed and packed in the back next to the battery box. We were also issued a parachute but were not assigned copilots. I was assigned glider number “35” in the 50 to be flown from the 439th TC Group. The tow pilot was from another squadron in the 439th Group and I did not know him.

  On the home field of the 439th Troop Carrier Group at Chateaudun, Colonel Charles H. Young was on hand checking out the gliders on the morning of the 27th. The 439th would provide the fifty gliders for the mission while 37 of the tow ships would be his and the remaining 13 would be provided by the 440th Group. Colonel Young describes the activities taking place and the last minute problems developing:

  I was out on the runway at Chateaudun checking last minute details of the marshalling and I recall that it was cold and that I was worried about a rather heavy coating of frost on the aircraft, especially on the cockpit windshield of the gliders. Some of the glider pilots had only small holes melted or scraped through the frost layer to see through.

  While I was checking the frost on one of the gliders, an officer in a jeep slid to a stop beside me to tell me that the co-pilot on one of our 91st C-47’s was very sick. I went immediately to the airplane and found that he really was sick and throwing up. I told the first pilot that I would fly as his co-pilot, then sent my driver, Cpl. Collen R. Connell to get my parachute and flight gear.

  I continued with my inspection of the gliders and about that time another jeep stopped abruptly beside me and in it was Captain Pat Maloney, our assistant group intelligence officer (Major John L. Yaple, our Group S-2, was on leave), Captain Maloney said 50th Wing A-2 had just called with this message—and I remember the exact words—it said, ‘You might want to consider changing the route into the LZ,’ and gave some suggested navigational fixes. I asked Captain Maloney, ‘Why would I want to consider a change in route?’ He said, ‘I don’t know—they didn’t say,’ and he repeated the message word for word.

  The crews were already in their airplanes and gliders, it was almost engine start time; there was no time to re-brief the pilots and most important in my estimation was that a delay would make us miss our fighter protection. This was not expected to be a difficult mission, however, as we knew that other groups had previously used the same route we were briefed to fly and they had experienced no enemy action of consequence. We discussed the situation briefly and I said, ‘We’ll go as planned.’ I was expecting to go on the flight myself at the time this decision was made.

  Then it was time for me to go to the airplane, but when I got there a stand-by co-pilot was already in the seat. He had been rushed out to the plane from the 91st Squadron area, so I was not needed.

  Concerning the route our formation was to fly, General McAuliffe’s message about a suggested change was evidently sent to SHAEF Headquarters in Paris the night before our mission. What its original content was, or why it was not received before time for takeoff, I have never learned. What I do know and remember distinctly is what the message contained when it reached me, as noted above. Answering nature’s call when one is occupied with controlling a glider in flight when there isn’t a co-pilot on board becomes a problem. Such was the situation for F/O Herbert Ballinger. He wrote:

  Flight officer Herbert W. Ballinger stands beside his glider shortly before takeoff for Bastogne on the morning of December 27, 1944.

  Early on the morning of the 27th, the resupply mission became airborne. The air was full of ice crystals which rattled against the windshield as we flew. I did not have a watch so could not tell how long we were on tow before reaching the front lines but it seemed like a very long time. The glider would not trim properly and had to be constantly maneuvered to hold position. Besides becoming tired, I also needed to relieve myself from that morning cup of coffee. Since there was no one to hold the wheel, I could not go to the back to use the relief tube. I also had on a lot of clothes as well as a flak suit and I could not go on the floor. I also knew if I went in my pants, I would freeze when I got on the ground. However, about this time we reached the front lines and the flak was so bad that I forgot all about having to go until late in the afternoon. The flak looked like a large black cloud that extended far above our flight formation. I saw some tow ships go down as well as gliders. Two friends, Dick Blake, who lived in our tent, and Charles Brema, next door, were behind me and I kept wondering how they were making out.

  I remember very clearly watching the Germans shooting at my tow ship with flak and I remember praying that they would no hit it. I know that if the tow ship went down I would also go down. They finally hit the tow ship and blew a rather large hole in the left aileron. Shortly thereafter it appeared that they quit shooting at the tow ship but left the gun firing which followed the tow line back to the glider. One round burst in front of the glider with some fragments penetrating and making small holes in the left windshield and a crack in the right. However, I was either not hit by any of the fragments or they were stopped by the flak suit. The next round hit the back in the door area between the fuses and ammunition and the last hit was on the elevators which I felt through the controls. I was not aware that the windshield had been penetrated and cracked and that I had been hit in the door area until we started unloading the glider. I took a lot of small arms fire, especially after I released and the glider slowed down.

  2Lt. John D. Hill piloted the glider which was towed by 2Lt. Joe Fry, also of the 91st Troop Carrier Squadron of the 439th Group. His recollections of the flight are as follows:

  About eight miles from the DZ, we started getting small arms fire and something turned loose underneath us. It sounded like large antiaircraft fire. The tow ship then caug
ht fire under the belly and it blazed up suddenly over the whole back end. We flew for about three or four miles further with the blaze getting larger all the time. It looked as though the tow ship would blow up any minute. It was burning furiously. Flames were leaping back half-way down the tow rope. Just as we got inside the LZ, which would be about four miles from the DZ, two chutes came out through the flames. After about one more mile the third chute came out. About this time, I thought I could make it into the LZ so I released and cut across to the LZ, never seeing the fourth chute open.

  After I landed, I talked with a paratrooper lieutenant who stated he saw only three chutes get out of the ship before it crashed. I later found the pilot, Lt. Fry, at the aid station getting his face burns treated.152

  Tow ship pilot 2Lt. Joe Fry related his story to Milton Dank on January 29, 1976 Dank was a glider pilot in the same squadron and is the author of The Glider Gang.153 Fry’s story is as follows:

  I was flying the last position in the squadron, number 13. The flight was uneventful until just prior to reaching Bastogne. We had six parapacks of ammunition on the belly of the aircraft and were towing a glider piloted by the ‘Abilene Kid,’ John D. Hill.

  Just prior to reaching the drop zone, we sustained a direct hit just aft of the trailing edge of the wing in the belly of the aircraft. Evidently the hit penetrated the wing tanks because we had quite a fire going. Immediately upon realizing the severity of the fire, I ordered the crew to bail out. The radio operator and crew chief immediately bailed out; however, George ‘Weapons’ Weisfeld told me (and I will never forget), ‘Joe, I’ll stay with you until you’re ready to leave.’

  We managed to continue flying until J. D. Hill cut loose his glider. At that point, I jettisoned the para-packs and told George ‘let’s get out of this SOB before it blows up!’ George went out the back hatch and, from what he told me later, darn near didn’t make it. By the time I got the aircraft stabilized and the automatic pilot on, put my chest pack on and opened the cabin door to leave, I realized I had to find another departure route as by that time the cabin section of the aircraft was nothing but a mass of flames. I closed the cabin door, went back to the cockpit, jettisoned the top hatch and climbed out, hoping I wouldn’t fall into the props…

  I landed about fifty yards from a trench occupied by members of the 101st Airborne Division, who immediately came out and dragged me into their rifle pit. I received severe burns about the head and knocked my right leg out of kilter when I hit the ground. The GI’s who picked me up were very generous with their liberated cognac, of which I partook very generously.

  This spectacle was witnessed and recorded by two soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division. Their observations were made after the glider release.

  PFC. Bruce Middough of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion had a good view of the scene through binoculars. He wrote:

  During the resupply mission, one C-47 had been hit by antiaircraft fire and the whole tail assembly was engulfed in flames. The plane was flying on a course from west to east about a half mile south of Hemroulle. I watched the plane as it approached and saw one, then another, and the third crew member bail out. Their chutes all opened near ‘A’ Battery’s gun positions. The plane continued on for a few seconds but was losing altitude rapidly. Then the fourth crew member bailed out. He didn’t wait for the count of four but pulled it (ripcord) immediately upon departing the plane. His chute was just beginning to deploy when the tail assembly of the aircraft broke off and the plane went straight in, exploding upon impact. The crew member’s chute opened okay and he came to ground on the hillside just southeast of Hemroulle.

  I watched him through binoculars and observed that he just lay in the snow without moving. Shortly thereafter, two troopers went down the hillside to where he lay. They stood near him for a few minutes. Then one of the troopers cut his parachute off, bundled it up and both returned to their positions. I continued to watch the crew member who was still lying in the snow, but thought he must be dead. Thinking it odd that the troopers didn’t carry him back toward their positions, several of us in the farmhouse were a little upset at the crew member being left in the snow and as we were talking about it, the crewman got up out of the snow and started walking toward the direction the troopers had come from.

  Viewing the above spectacle from another angle, PFC. Edward Carowick of the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion witnessed the departure of the fourth man. He wrote:

  When the plane was directly over us, we saw movement and then we saw white silk/nylon coming out. The silk flew back and got hung on the tail (left section). The crewman also came out and was being dragged behind the burning plane. The plane continued on its course for five to fifteen seconds more. When the fire burned through the fuselage behind the wings, the wings plunged to the ground. When the wings fell free, the remainder of the fuselage seemed to stop in mid-air, then after a split second the forward end started to drop first. As it dropped the parachute fell from the tail section and opened fully. Then it disappeared completely from our sight due to the surrounding terrain.

  I know the airman landed in friendly territory and was in the hospital near Bastogne because at the time we had someone in the same hospital from our platoon and the airman had been admitted for shock and burn treatment.

  For the first airmen who departed from that burning aircraft, they got instructions from the soldiers waiting on the ground. PFC. William Kummerer wrote:

  During the resupply, a C-47 was forced to come down near our gun emplacement. The crew, sans the pilot and co-pilot, bailed out. As they descended, one would think it was a scene at Fort Benning with instructors issuing directions. The troopers on the ground, mindless of the incoming enemy fire, were standing up shouting as to what position the descending flyers should take—relax, bend your knees as you hit the ground—tumble, get off your god damn feet! I’m pleased to relate three crew members hit the deck with nothing more than a few bruises.

  In the interrogation Check List for Glider Pilots, which was filled out after a completed mission, 2Lt. Albert S. Barton included as part of his summary the following description of his landing site and how the Airborne soldiers got the glider unloaded:

  I was forced to land in a field two miles west of Bastogne. The landing was good; I was within friendly lines. The airborne met me and we pulled the glider three-quarters of a mile nearer Bastogne to an area more protected from gun fire than where I landed. They unloaded and proceeded to the ammo dump.154

  In the meantime, how had 1Lt. Ernie Turner fared at the controls of 2Lt. Albert Barton’s tow ship? As a 94th Squadron power pilot, 1 Lt. Turner has this account of his landing in the Bastogne area:

  As we passed over a wooded area we, and everyone else behind us, got clobbered. It seemed like the whole German army was in this wooded area. We were hit with .50 caliber machine gun fire. They started hitting us in the left wing across and through the cockpit and into the right wing and they wouldn’t let up. The left engine quit and we continued on with the glider until the right engine quit. We then cut the glider loose and I gave orders for everyone to bail out. I told my co-pilot, Casey Narbutas, to leave also.

  We were losing altitude and were down to about 500 feet when the crew chief, who I thought had already left the plane, came back and asked me if I was going to jump. I yelled at him something to the effect that I wouldn’t have time and for him to get the hell out. I then told Casey to get going and he said that he would ride it down with me.

  The terrain was rolling ground and snow covered. I glided as far straight ahead as I could, then made a 90-degree left turn, clipping the tops of a clump of trees and set it down in a field. It was a very smooth wheels-up landing but because of the snow, I couldn’t stop the plane. We ran out of field, came off the edge of a hill and over a road that was down below that soldiers were moving on and came to rest in a creek. We ran out of the aircraft thinking it was going to blow up.

  When I looked around, there was my whole c
rew. When I asked them how come they were there, they told me that when I said that I would have to stay with the aircraft to be sure they got out, they decided to stay with me in the plane.155

  At the time 1Lt. Ernie Turner’s “Ain’t Misbehavin” came in for its belly landing, 2Lt. Everett “Red” Andrews was on the landing zone gathering equipment bundles for the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. He wrote:

  Both engines of this airplane were shot out on the glider re-supply mission to Bastogne, 27 December 1944, and the pilot, Capt. Ernest Turner, 94th TC Sqdn., belly landed it in the LZ. L-R: Capt. Turner, 2nd Lt. Keistutis J. Narbutas, co-pilot, and S/Sgt. Richard G. Whitehurst, radio operator. The crew chief, T/Sgt. John E. Douglas, was hit on a leg, but not badly wounded, and was at the air center when this photo was made. (Photo from John L. Hoskins.)

  I was in Savy watching a drop when ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ was hit over the flake belt. You could see the engine on fire and the plane gradually losing altitude. We all knew it was going to belly in onto the field right behind the 377th and near the 463rd PFA. The plane skidded in without mishap and was moving at a good clip, angling toward a road where a 2-1/2 ton truck was moving toward Savy. The driver had no idea he was about to be hit by the left wing of a C-47 and he skidded around. Ernie Turner was the pilot and he has told me all the weird things of the flight.

  Also observing the belly landing of the aircraft was Captain Victor Tofany, commander of “D” Battery of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. He had a different angle in viewing the close-shave of the airplane with the truck. He wrote:

  When the C-47 landed, it came across the road very close to the ground. As it crossed the road, a truck was passing under it. The tail wheel of the plane caught the back of the truck and spun it around 180 degrees. The truck driver, finding himself suddenly going in the opposite direction, jumped out and ran toward Bastogne—not knowing what had happened.