Deliver Us From Darkness

by Ian Gardner

  At 1333hrs, ten minutes after 2/506 had landed, the 502nd PIR flew in from Greenham Common and Welford to begin their drop onto DZ “C.” The three main serials, totalling 144 aircraft, dropped another 2,000 paratroopers, including Gen Taylor, Divisional HQ, and SOE team Daniel II.

  Maj Horton was so impressed with the 3rd Bn drop that two weeks later he was compelled to send an official note of thanks to Mike Smith:

  Though I write this letter personally, I am expressing the feelings of each man in my battalion, thanking you for the manner in which we were set down. Our men fell in a pattern on the proper DZ, allowing sufficient immediate reorganization that small units were on the offensive before all men were clear of their ’chutes. This situation has never before been attained, not even during maneuvers. We had no men unaccounted for and our jump casualties were extremely light. I fully understand that such situations do not just happen but are the result of your own planning and the excellent training and sense of duty of each member of your command, our sincere thanks to you and your men for a difficult and dangerous job commendably done.

  Every aspect of the jump was superior to what the men had experienced in Normandy. Approaching the DZ, Hank DiCarlo’s aircraft was hit by flak:

  Shortly after we stood up at the red light, a burst of 20mm antiaircraft fire came through the seats and out through the top of the fuselage! I heard someone shout “Good God Almighty,” it was a damn close call but thankfully nobody was hit. Second Lieutenant David Forney panicked and jumped moments before the green light came on. By then the rest of us were so worked up that when the light did change to green we emptied the plane in a matter of seconds. I was amazed by the size of the landing area, with almost no trees to speak of and very few obstacles. My head was too far down and snapped backwards when my camouflage-pattern parachute opened. Somehow my aviator kit bag with my TSMG, ammo clips, grenades, and two 60mm mortar rounds tore loose. Later, as I was heading toward the assembly area, I spotted what was left of my kit bag. The grenades and mortar rounds had survived along with my TSMG but the spare magazines had burst open like a jack-in-a-box. I was not happy but we were safely on the ground as the second wave came in.

  Despite missing the DZ by several hundred yards, Dave Forney later managed to hook up with his stick, all of whom landed safely. It seemed to Hank DiCarlo that there were virtually no Germans around to oppose the drop. “A Dutch farmer’s wife told us there had been a squad at her house on the DZ requisitioning breakfast but they had run away as we began jumping.”

  Jim Melhus (MG Ptn) jumped with corporals Audrey Lewallen and Nathan Bullock. “Although it was difficult to believe, this was the first time that I’d ever parachuted with a machine gun. To make matters worse the gun was also loaded and made ready with a belt of 50 rounds. The aircraft was undulating so violently on the flight over that I became airsick. Being stuck at the back of the stick, I threw up all over the floor beside the crew compartment. The stench was miserable and the soles of my boots got soaked with vomit. When the green light came on, I slipped in the doorway and because of the weight of the gun, I had to crawl on all fours out the door like a donkey.”

  3rd Bn 506 PIR overview of Operation Market Garden, September 17–November 27, 1944

  Alex Andros had never experienced so much pressure as he stood in the door waiting to jump. “When the green light came on, I leapt out like a lunatic.” A piece of shrapnel punctured Bob Webb’s canteen, sending water cascading down his legs. “There was little or no wind and much to my surprise I landed standing up. I was tasked with transporting equipment bundles from the drop zone to the bridge at the Wilhelmina Canal. Opposite the jump field was a farm with stables. At first the owner, who must have been in his seventies, refused to let me take any horses. His daughter spoke English and intervened and he agreed, but only on the condition that he accompanied my team to the bridge. In the end the old man supplied us with four horse-drawn wagons that we loaded full of equipment.”

  Several local farmers drove onto the drop zone in their horse-drawn carts helping to collect the bundles. One farmer in particular stuck in Bill Galbraith’s memory because of his beautiful white horse. Bobbie Rommel was almost killed getting out of his parachute when a couple of steel helmets smashed into the ground beside him. “I remember looking up and seeing a C-47 beginning to break up and one of its wings falling to the ground like it was made from tissue paper.”

  The paratroops immediately began to orientate themselves and hastened to their respective assembly areas. Raymond Skully had an important job to do once he was on the ground: “I went over to Major Horton and proceeded to blow ‘assembly’ over and over again on my bugle, until the battalion rallied around. About one hour later, a jeep arrived and I jumped in the back, behind the boss and headed for Son.” The battalion quickly secured the drop zone by encircling it with riflemen and machine guns. The defense of the DZ was only held for a short period before it was taken over by units of the 502nd PIR. After being relieved, Horton’s men reverted to regimental reserve and moved into a holding area a few hundred yards southeast of the drop zone. The reorganization of the regiment was almost completed within 60 minutes, with virtually no enemy resistance except for occasional incoming mortar fire.

  Initially, 1st Bn failed to fully reorganize but headed off as soon as they had enough people. Col Sink recovered his jeep and drove over to 2nd Bn’s assembly point to inquire why they had not yet moved out. Sink was perplexed to discover that they were waiting for LtCol Robert Strayer to arrive. Thirty minutes later, there was still no sign of Strayer. Eager to get things moving, Sink ordered 1st Lt Fred Heyliger to take command and lead 2/506, plus the remainder of the regiment, to Son.

  Although the ground had been recently ploughed, it did not stop Pvt Harold Stedman (I Co 3 Ptn) from injuring himself. “The base plate from the 60mm mortar got forced up into my groin, damaging my spine and hip.” Despite having difficulty walking, Stedman refused medical aid and asked his ammunition carrier Pvt Wayman Womack for assistance. Womack, a replacement from Freeport, Texas, ran across to a nearby farm and returned with a wheelbarrow. With Womack at the helm, the old wheelbarrow became Stedman’s primary method of transportation for the next three days.

  Lt Bob Stroud (H Co 3 Ptn) spotted three German soldiers walking towards him waving white flags. “As I nervously pulled my folding stock carbine from its holster, the gun went off, narrowly missing my foot.” Pvt Ralph King (H Co 3 Ptn) recalls, “By the time we got to the assembly area, the second echelon was coming in, some of those guys were being dropped incredibly low and several planes went down in flames.”

  Ed Shames was in the third wave flown by the 436th TCG: “I didn’t realize that our plane had been hit until the guy in front of me was wounded in the buttocks. After that we began to lose altitude and were flying very low when the time came to exit. After landing, drained by all the excitement, I reached for my canteen to take a mouthful of water. In the heat of the moment, I’d completely forgotten that it was full of ‘GI Alky’ given to me earlier by Dr Jackson Neavles, but that is altogether a whole different story!”

  Collection points for ammunition and supplies were located in woods adjacent to a wide track on the southern edge of the drop zone. After arriving, Ralph Bennett saw a couple of officers talking to a group of Dutch civilians whom he assumed were from the resistance. One of the BS leaders, John van Kooijk, was directed towards Ed Shames. “When I first met ‘John the Dutchman,’ he was living in Helmond, seven miles away to the east. John was around 32-years-old at the time and was deputy underground chief for the southern part of Holland. As Van Kooijk seemed exceptionally well informed, I decided to leap-frog Strayer [who was still nowhere to be seen] and introduce him to the Regimental Intelligence Officer, Captain Bill Leach.” Van Kooijk, along with two Belgian colleagues, was able to report that both bridges along the canal to the east and west of Son had been destroyed by the Germans.

  Sacrifices

  In total four of t
he C-47s assigned to the 506th PIR (all from the 436th TCG based at Membury) either crashed or made crash landings on, or near, the drop zone. After dropping his first battalion stick, pilot Lt Glenn Toothman achieved a textbook belly landing before hooking up with members of H Co. For the first time in 22 jumps, Pfc Jim McCann, from H Co 3 Ptn, achieved a dreadful exit. “Subsequently I lost everything, including the barrel of a 60mm mortar, and the only thing I had left to defend myself [with] on landing was my trench knife.” McCann ended up sharing a ditch with Toothman, who was armed with a .45 semi-automatic pistol. McCann asked jokingly, “How on earth are you going to fight the war with that thing?” Laughing, Toothman replied incredulously, “Jeeze, get out of here, at least I’ve got a darn sight more to fight with at this moment than you, private!”

  The other three aircraft were carrying soldiers from 506th Regimental HQ. Seconds after successfully delivering his paratroopers on target, 1st Lt Robert Stoddart’s aircraft crashed in flames a few hundred yards east of LZ “W” (the glider landing zone overlapping DZ B and C), killing both Stoddart and his crew chief T/Sgt Ivan Thade. This was followed by another C-47, flown by Ross Hanna, which crashed on the edge of the DZ without any fatalities. First Lieutenant John Gurecki was transporting another stick, which included Maj Clarence Hester (Regt S-3), Capt Gene Brown (CO Regt HQ Co), Capt Logan B. Hull (Asst Regt Surgeon), and Capt Thomas Mulvey, when he got hit. While Gurecki continued to fly the plane, everyone on board including the crew, bailed out just before reaching DZ B. Radio operator Cpl Robert Ritter was tragically killed when his parachute malfunctioned. With great skill and bravery Gurecki managed to pilot his low-flying aircraft over the buildings at the junction of Sonniuswijk–Brouwerskampweg (weg means road) before crash-landing near Paulushoef farm. Escaping from the wreckage, Gurecki saw the C-47 catch fire and moments later explode in flames.

  Pfc Lawrence Davidson (H Co 3 Ptn) came in backwards and was just getting out of his parachute when he was alerted to the fact that Gurecki’s plane was now coming towards him. Davidson had only seconds to get out of the way and felt the full force of the blast as the aircraft exploded. Johnny Gibson crawled behind a water-filled cattle trough in an attempt to protect himself from the intense heat.

  The initial glider lift arrived about 25 minutes after the main drop. Around 70 gliders were expected, carrying command, recon, signal, and medical personnel, along with the first batch of jeeps for the regiment. Using the ten guilders that had been issued to him in the marshaling area, Johnny Gibson was attempting to purchase a smart-looking Belgian pistol from a resistance worker, when two gliders from the 437th TCG crashed onto the DZ. “I went over to offer my assistance but the medics and members of RHQ were still trying to cut the soldiers out, who were all from the 501.” The pilot of the second glider, Flight Officer Lloyd Shuffelberger (84th Squadron), was blinded after colliding with the rear of FO Thornton Shofield’s craft during the final approach. Luckily Shofield was able to stabilize his ship before hitting the ground. Later Johnny Gibson discovered that two of his friends from RHQ, sergeants Phil Campisi and Don Doxted, had been badly injured in a separate glider crash on LZ “W.” “Like me, both Don and Phil were into bodybuilding and hand balancing, and before the war Don was well known for having walked up and down the Empire State Building, in New York City on his hands!”

  Communications Sergeant Gordon Yates, H Co, was walking towards the collection point with four other men when they noticed what seemed to be bottles of spirits in one of the farms. “After a quick slug we all decided that it was far too strong even for us,” recalls Gordon. “As we were leaving, the owner of the house, Mr Boss, appeared and informed us that it was actually the fuel he used in his lamps! After I got over the initial shock of drinking lamp oil, we fell about laughing and exchanged addresses.” When 1st Sgt Gordon Bolles (H Co) hit the road after the jump, he spotted a wounded man near one of the farmhouses and called out for a medic – “milk” sounds almost identical to “medic” in Dutch – “A farmer misunderstood what I was saying and came over and tried to hand me a pitcher full of milk!”

  Local boy Wan van Overweld was five-years-old at the time of the invasion and lived at Paulushoef farm on the southeastern corner of the drop zone. “Although we were excited to see the Americans, my older brother Paul had been injured during the earlier air raids. When the first paratroopers reached the farm they spotted our water pump and motioned to my father to drink from the well, fearing it might be poisoned! To prove that the water was uncontaminated, my dad asked me to share a cup with him. As soon as the soldiers were satisfied, they smiled, shook our hands, and proceeded to drink the well completely dry!”

  On clearing the jump field, each aircraft banked 180 degrees to the northwest (left), opened its throttles and climbed sharply to 3,000 feet for the journey home. It was at this point that two planes from the 306th Squadron, flown by 1st Lt John Corsetti and 1st Lt Tom Mills, were hit and brought down. Copilot Judson Wright Pittam, 306th, was on board A/C No: 42-93681, piloted by 2nd Lt Tom Ezzell, when he witnessed Corsetti’s demise: “Tom and I were in the middle of the serial, when we saw Corsetti’s plane hit by flak. We both watched anxiously as John’s crew began to bail out. Seconds later the aircraft rolled over and went into a vertical dive before exploding into the ground.”

  Corsetti’s copilot, 2nd Lt Ed Hunter, reveals the last few terrifying moments of their mission: “Climbing to 3,200 feet just north of Bladel, we were hit by multiple bursts of flak that knocked out our elevator controls and damaged the right engine along with the fuel tanks. Shortly afterwards, the engine caught fire and flames appeared from underneath the floor in the center section of the fuselage. The aircraft became uncontrollable and began climbing to a stall. As the rest of us had our ’chutes on, Lt Corsetti gave the order to abandon ship. Navigator 2nd Lt Rene Zumhagen, Crew Chief T/Sgt James Swanson, and Radio Operator S/Sgt John Duffy all immediately jumped through the main cargo door. As I pushed towards the rear of the plane, John was still clipping on his chest rig outside of the navigator’s compartment. The plane suddenly stalled, throwing me violently against the tail section. Corsetti was still inside as I grabbed onto the edge of the cargo door and pulled myself out. Small-arms and machine-gun fire peppered all around during my descent”

  At around 1330hrs, Hunter found shelter in a nearby drainage ditch, between two fields. Later, under cover of darkness, he attempted to make his way towards friendly forces. After walking across country for about three miles, the airman found himself in the middle of a German supply dump. “I hid in a haystack for a couple of days until Wednesday afternoon, when a Dutch boy arrived and started spreading the wet hay to dry in the sun. Not long afterwards he saw me and although clearly frightened, the lad motioned for me to stay hidden. About an hour later the boy returned with food and a note, written in poor English, explaining that he would come back at 9pm and take me to a more suitable hiding place. The boy appeared at the specified time and gave me a pair of overalls to put on. After being taken to Bladel, I was handed over to the Dutch underground and hidden beneath a woodpile in the rear garden of a house.”

  On Friday September 22, a British unit arrived and took Hunter to their Company HQ, and the following morning he was reunited with Zumhagen and Duffy and taken to XXX Corps HQ in Eindhoven. Shortly afterwards the three men were driven to Brussels before being flown back to the UK. After routine interrogation by MI5 at RAF Northolt, the crew returned to the 442nd TCG on September 25. It was later confirmed that 1st Lt Corsetti had been killed in the plane crash and T/Sgt James Swanson captured and sent to a prisonerof-war camp.

  Tom Mills’ experience could have been plucked straight from a Hollywood film: “I arrived over the DZ at 1316hrs, flying at an altitude of 610 feet. Just after we dropped our stick [from C/326 Airborne Engineers], the port [left] engine was hit by flak. I feathered the prop and started turning away from the jump field. Twelve minutes later, my crew chief, S/Sgt Jesse Beal, discovered a fire in the cabin. Str
uggling to maintain altitude, I instructed the crew to abandon ship.” As copliot FO John Barber and Jessie Beal were about to jump, the starboard engine was hit:

  Barber and Beal leapt out at around 600 feet, but I managed to stop my radio operator, S/Sgt Rollin Bailey, and navigator, 1st Lt Olin Jennings, from jumping. As we were rapidly losing altitude, I told the guys to prepare for a crash landing. The aircraft was now on fire and to make matters worse, as I approached the ground, an abandoned German Jagdpanther tank destroyer was directly in my flight path! Kicking the left rudder as hard as possible, we just missed hitting the tank, but tore off the right wing. Bailey escaped through the back door and in doing so was badly burned about the face and hands. Heading for the companionway, Jennings and I tripped over the cabin fuel valves. As we fell, a sheet of flame spurted up inside the plane towards the rear. We immediately turned around and headed for the escape hatch at the front of the ship. Thirty seconds later, there was a series of explosions and the entire plane went up in flames. Barber and Beal joined us at the scene where a British ambulance took us to a dressing station. Afterwards we were taken to the British GHQ at Gheel.

  The entire episode happened to be filmed by a British newsreel cameraman and was shown in movie theaters around the world.

  Serial A8 did not escape unscathed: one C-47 piloted by Lt Herbert Schulman was hit two minutes before reaching DZ “A” and burst into flames, but continued on course to drop its paratroopers. Two members of the crew, T/Sgt Ralph Zipf (Crew Chief) and S/Sgt Roger Gullixson (Radio Operator), bailed out before the plane crashed into the Zuid–Willems–Vaart Canal, west of Veghel, instantly killing Schulman and his copilot, 2nd Lt Omar Kempshmidt.