Behind Hitler's Lines

by Thomas H. Taylor

  A valuable innovation, the leg bag, but one that Joe demonstrated was unworkable after many balloon jumps. The problem was the standard landing method, called the British tumble, which all paratroopers had been taught. With two years' head start on the U.S. Airborne, the British had favored a landing where the jumper tucked his knees, then rolled like a tire bouncing on the ground. Joe could do the tumble in his sleep and in any direction, but with a leg bag ahead, acting as an anchor on the ground, he couldn't tumble at all. Division observers watched him in jump after jump. Wherever he tried to tumble, his leg bag jerked him back. He arose slowly, feeling fortunate, like a test pilot who'd completed something as dangerous and problematic as it was necessary.

  After a particularly violent land-tumble-jerk, an officer from division G-3 went over to Joe, helped him to his feet, and murmured instructions for the final balloon jump of the day.

  “Beyrle, when your feet hit this time, just kind of collapse. Relax and crumple, don't tumble.”

  Joe did, landing as close as he could to his leg bag. They both stuck like darts on a board, the tether slack in between. Consequently the British tumble was discarded in the 101st, to be replaced by what became known as the PLF—parachute landing fall. Joe practiced it day after day till G-3 decided he was ready to demonstrate the PLF for the British, sort of a courtesy, saying thanks for pioneering in this field, but, respectfully, we are bent another way.

  In a demonstration at an RAF airfield, Joe did PLFs forward, backward, and to both sides, with leg bags. He sensed a certain rubber-meets-the-road stardom and for his final jump showboated with a “standing landing,” outlawed in the 101st but admired by the British. With the parachutes of the twenty-first century, a standing landing is easy, but in 1944 the jumper had to judge very accurately how fast the ground rose, chin on his risers, then release them at just the right moment so that his body weight bounced up exactly enough to counteract the rate of descent. It all happened in a moment when Joe landed on his feet with no more impact than stepping off a curb. The Brits loved it. Wolverton heard about it.

  ON A MISTY MORNING in April 1944 Sergeant Kristie looked at him warily and muttered, “Get in that jeep, Beyrle. Report to Wolverton at regimental HQ.” It was a long drive to Sink's headquarters, an ivy-walled manor house in Littlecote, giving Joe time to nervously speculate about the summons. Smoke grenades? No, Joe was never implicated. But the brandy? Civilians, acting like detectives, had been browsing around Ramsbury, and Duber was unusually silent. Joe's orders were to report to the CO himself, not to his first sergeant as an enlisted man normally would. He sensed this would be face-to-face, only his third time with Wolverton.

  The first had been more than a year earlier in North Carolina, at a camp named for PFC John Mackall, the first U.S. paratrooper killed in combat, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, already fighting in the Mediterranean theater. At Camp Mackall, Wolverton had struggled with the perpetual problem of paratroopers: assembling after being scattered in a mass drop. Flares and smoke grenades were one way to guide them, but he needed something audible. Combining a classic instrument of war with the most advanced means of warfare, Wolverton came up with a way to sound the call. It was a bugler named Ross.

  Joe knew him; all the Blues did because of the innumerable mornings Ross had woken them at reveille. He blew loud enough to be heard a half mile away. Wolverton's idea was for him to blow assembly (the traditional bugle call that draws racehorses to the starting line) after a battalion-size drop, then everyone would head for the sound, whether in daylight or darkness.

  But Ross blew a lot better than he jumped. He had been tucked in Wolverton's stick with orders to follow the CO's canopy down to the ground, then start bugling. But he kept his eyes closed till his chute opened, then couldn't find Wolverton's among dozens in the sky, then got caught in a tree a quarter mile away, where he frantically started bugling— and as planned, everyone headed in his direction.

  That was the opposite direction from where Wolverton had landed and the battalion was supposed to assemble. When Joe got there Wolverton was beside himself, but with few others, while a hundred Blues helped Ross out of his tree. When Sink heard how the experiment turned out he sent a memo down suggesting that Wolverton either learn to bugle himself or try a drum.

  Joe's first occasion with Wolverton was at the end of Third Battalion's 142-mile forced march in December 1942. The Currahees were to move from Toccoa to Fort Benning, on the opposite side of Georgia. They had taken a train to Atlanta when news reports—all grim and disheartening in those days—carried a Japanese boast that their army had set a world record for endurance by marching 130 miles in eighty-five hours while whipping the British in Malaya. Those numbers rang Sink's chimes. He ordered Wolverton to break the record and made sure there was plenty of press coverage.

  With full combat loads, including mortars and machine guns, the Blues indeed beat the Japs by several hours, Wolverton leading the whole way, at the end shod in only socks after swollen feet had herniated his boots. Only eleven of the seven hundred Blues who'd set off in the rain from Atlanta failed to complete the march. Blues knew Wolverton was proud of them but also that he was less talker than walker, a foil for Sink whose strong craggy face and Clark Gable mustache seemed designed by Hollywood for a “full bull” colonel's role.

  Wolverton had given Joe a pat on the back for assisting Bray across the finish line, but this summons at Littlecote was unlikely to be a reminiscence. The CO was in the midst of training and planning for the invasion of Hitler's Europe. It was hard for Joe to imagine what possible interest Wolverton would have in him, a lowly tech-5, equivalent of a corporal. The only possibility was chilling: warm, ancient brandy.

  Values clashed traumatically in Joe as he straightened his fatigues in the orderly room. He would not draw in anyone from I Company and was steeled to accept Wolverton's penalty for remaining silent. Unless it meant expulsion from the Airborne. Joe was inveterately stubborn but not sure if he could accept that ultimate punishment. It would be the excruciating test between pride and loyalty. He'd do anything to avoid it, call upon Wolverton's sense of soldierly honor as best he could and if he could find the words.

  Like a criminal about to receive sentence, he knocked on the door, was admitted, and snapped his battalion commander an Airborne salute. Wolverton looked like a lumbar support when seated at his desk. He was short and, despite paratrooper fitness, appeared more fit for logistical staff than leading men into combat. He returned Joe's salute, gestured for him to sit down, then nodded to a civilian seated next to him. Joe suspected he was a local constable, but he spoke American English.

  “I hear you're called Jumpin' Joe,” he said as an icebreaker. “Why do you like to jump?”

  “Fifty bucks, sir.” That was the monthly premium for enlisted paratroopers.

  “What else?”

  That would take a long explanation, and Joe was never long on words. Neither was Wolverton, but he provided an answer. “There's nothing like the blast, is there, Beyrle? The opening shock, the coming down.” He shoved Joe's brief military resume over to the civilian for his next question.

  “I see here you had a classified jump. What was that about?”

  “Sir, I was in a squad-size drop into Panama to test the range of walkie-talkies in the jungle.”

  “Fun?”

  “No, sir. The bugs ate us alive.”

  “Glad you're in the ETO instead of the Pacific?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How many jumps have you had?”

  The official number was right in Joe's file, so the question seemed to lead to his unauthorized proxy jumps. Joe did not try to dissemble. “About forty, sir. Maybe fifty, counting balloon drops.” Among real paratroopers, the latter was considered sissy because there was no opening shock.

  “Quite a few more than average,” the civilian noted. Wolverton nodded. “Would you be interested in another one? Sort of like Panama.”

  “Yes, sir.”
>
  “You'd be going to where brandy comes from. You know where that is?”

  “France, sir.”

  “That's right. And you'd be going solo. Think it over.”

  He didn't need to. “I volunteer, sir.”

  “Currahee,” said Wolverton—high praise from him— “there's a jeep outside. It'll take you to division G-2.” Joe rose to salute. “You know where I remember you from, Beyrle?”

  “At the end of the march, sir?”

  “No, after that, at Camp Mackall. “Assembly—ta-ta-te-da” Joe grinned. “Ever see Ross?”

  “I think he's carrying a mortar in G Company, sir.”

  “I'll see you again, trooper. Don't worry about anything while you're gone.”

  That was reassuring. Whatever Wolverton said, he meant, and he never promised what he couldn't personally deliver. But how could he this time, Joe wondered as he began his second jeep ride of the day. His destination was division headquarters about fifty miles away at Greenham Common, near Newbury. There Joe saw more officers than the total number he'd seen so far in the army. At Greenham Common, captains were like privates, majors like sergeants, and lieutenant colonels like Wolverton scurried around like somewhat important clerks. Joe even got a glimpse of the division artillery commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe.

  In the G-2 (intelligence) office no one knew why Joe had been sent for; eventually a major appeared to ask about his background, as if Joe were being considered for a security clearance. This was the pretense for a sizing-up, a checking-out for general steadiness. Joe had it; he spoke slowly while keeping eye contact. Now, what about his German name? How close were his ties to Germany? The question offended: both sides of his family were devoutly Catholic and American. There had been a Berlin, Michigan, but during World War I German-Americans, like the Beyrles and Schmidts, had changed the name to Marne.

  Joe's interview was interrupted by a phone call, then quickly ended. A lieutenant from G-2 drove him back at top speed to Ramsbury, telling him to pick up just overnight stuff as if for a weekend pass. I Company was out in the field as usual, so Joe didn't have to do any explaining. At even higher speed honking most of the way, the lieutenant drove him to the Hungerford railway station. The jeep sped off, then hit the brakes. The driver had forgotten to give something to Joe, something important. He went into reverse, tossed Joe a bag, and was gone. Inside were new coveralls, called a jumpsuit, dark but otherwise the same as paratrooper fatigues. Joe was elated to have them, as his fatigues were tattered from training.

  In the stationmaster's office he saw three Americans in identical jumpsuits. They gestured and pointed him to the men's room to change. His new comrades weren't like any GIs he'd seen before—one spoke with a European accent— but on the train to Middle Wallop they brought him into their conversation, which he perceived to be that of college guys after mentioning his scholarship to Notre Dame. Like Joe, none of them had seen much of England except its woods and weeds, so they all felt like tourists for the first time. The towns en route were drab and beleaguered by war, but the Americans felt vital, confident that this war's course could be changed to their expectations. Among the passengers they seemed to be the only ones enjoying themselves as the musty coach rocked along.

  It stunned Joe when the man with a foreign accent leaned over and whispered, “You from the 101st?”

  “Can't tell ya.”

  “Hell, we saw the markings on your jeep.”

  “Where you from?”

  There was no answer, but it was the fledgling OSS, predecessor of the CIA, as Joe would learn years later.

  At the Middle Wallop station they were collected by an RAF airman, who drove them to his base. Joe wasn't sure, but it looked like the airfield where he had done his standing landing for the British. The four were received fraternally. “Ah, come in, lads,” a lieutenant greeted, and led them to a secure map room. “I'll take Beyrle first. You other gentlemen can wait in the canteen.” They departed. “Corporal Beyrle— am I pronouncing that right?” he began pleasantly. “I'm sure you've been a good American soldier. Now we'd like you to do some good work for the Allies. We have friends over in France. True friends. They perform indispensable tasks, especially in keeping us informed about what Jerry is up to. These courageous people are called the French Forces of the Interior: FFI for short. Ever heard of them?”

  Joe had not. Papers back home ran apocryphal stories of the brave French resistance but said nothing of how they were cagey polypolitical cobelligerents whose principal value to Eisenhower was real-time, on-the-ground intelligence about German forces—increasingly vital intelligence as time tolled down to invasion. In return for their services, the FFI wanted money as much as demolitions for sabotage. Money to bribe gendarmes, government clerks, truck drivers, and switchmen on the railroads—even money for select Germans whose loyalty to Hitler was tepid and who found the good life of occupying France a bit costly for their military pay.

  That thoroughly interested Joe from his worm's-eye perspective of the war. Speaking to him was this Allied officer, explaining matters Joe imagined were known only to generals. As always there was nothing like being Best Informed.

  “Yes,” the lieutenant continued, “so we must deliver rather large quantities of money to the FFI. Gold, actually. That's what they prefer. How do you suppose we deliver it?”

  “Parachute, sir?”

  “Quite. Now we'd like for you to do that. Be a paymaster, as we call it. Give it a go?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine fellow. Now, it's all very simple. And not much risk, I'd say. We've been doing it for years. Here's this bandolier.” With both hands the lieutenant hefted it. “It contains rather much more than you and I together will likely make in our lifetimes. So please don't lose it, will you? Just strap it on, fly off, jump out, and become an honored guest of the hospitable French. Voila” Before continuing, he handed Joe a receipt for the bandolier, its contents, and a .45-caliber automatic with holster. “Now, we certainly expect those who greet you to be the Frenchmen intended. To verify that, your challenge is ? breezy night'—in English of course. You don't speak French, do you? The appropriate answer will be ‘Yes, let's go sailing.’”

  “Sir, what if that's not the answer?”

  “Well, if he answers in German, you might try bribing him with some of that gold!” The lieutenant managed to make Joe join him in a laugh, then started speaking quickly: “You have your dog tags, so you're entitled to prisoner-of-war status. This hasn't come up at all, Beyrle. Our chaps always come back complaining that they couldn't do any shopping. Beautiful tapestries where you're going.” He tapped the map near Alengon, at the southern border of Normandy. “And don't worry about getting back. The FFI handles that admirably.

  “Now, off to the canteen with you. Ask the next chap to come in, please.”

  THE FLIGHT BRIEFING was also genial, and the drop plan perfectly simple. If the pilot saw a certain pattern of lights below, the first jumper would go; if not, he stayed in the plane, which would fly on to the next jumper's site. This would be repeated three times before the plane dodged back to England, carrying any jumpers whose drop had been aborted.

  Putting on the bandolier was enough to make Joe's knees bend. He was worth several hundred thousand dollars, a million today, and it felt like all pennies. If being rich weighed a man down this much, Joe didn't mind being poor. What he felt most was relief and excitement. The brandy guilt was behind him; instead he was still very much in the Currahees, indeed now representing them as a star parachutist. Sure there was danger, but danger was the elixir of youth.

  An hour after moonset Joe and his perdu comrades climbed into a Lysander, a single-engine British airplane with its machine gun removed to accommodate three jumpers jammed together like a bobsled team. Joe was the only one burdened by a bandolier, and though the plane had been stripped of any unnecessary weight it nevertheless seemed overloaded while taking off.

  The route was southwe
st across the mouth of the English Channel, which was surging with whitecaps. The Welsh pilot hummed as he dove and wove to avoid radar detection. The Luftwaffe had nearly abandoned these skies, yet he zigged zagged, and rose a few times but came right back down to wave-top altitude as if a Messerschmitt were pursuing him. He was good, better than the jumpers' stomachs. One man (Joe suspected he was hungover at takeoff) popped an airsickness pill and managed to slump into sleep.

  For the other two, bladders filled distressingly during the two-hour flight. Only a pee tube, venting into the slipstream, had been provided for relief. In the cramped darkness the small hose was passed around. When it reached the man beside Joe, a kink had formed, causing his urine to backflush. The wet and stench added new discomfort to the longest of Joe's sixty flights, in the noisiest, most rattling airplane he'd ever flown in, and never had he waited so long before jumping.

  Paddling his thighs in anticipation, he thought of people he wished could see him now. Not his parents—they'd worry too much—but the sisters and kids at Saint Joseph's, Jack and Orv back in Wiltshire (probably out on a night exercise themselves), Wolverton, Sink… Currahees, Screaming Eagles… Gee, it occurred to Joe, he might be the first of them all to get into France. That would be hard not to tell Jack and Orv when he got back. And he would get back, of course. He was twenty, indestructible, and besides, the RAF said this would be a piece of cake. He hoped not too easy. He remembered Hollywood movies where Nazi sentries were garroted in the dark. He'd learned how to do that at Toccoa, something daring, something dangerous, what being a man was all about at his age.