by Ian Gardner
Ray Skully was wounded during the same shelling, while traveling with Maj Horton in his jeep. “I was hit in the upper left side of my chest by shrapnel. The major stopped the vehicle and helped me to the ground. Fighting for breath, I could hear a rasping sound coming from a small hole. After staggering across the street, somebody placed me on a bed in a nearby house. A chaplain arrived to give me last rites and I remember asking sarcastically, ‘Just how bad do you think this is?’ Not long afterwards a medic turned up and sealed the sucking chest wound with a field dressing.”
The 88mm guns were soon outflanked and silenced by patrols from D and F Company, led by Maj Charles Shettle (now 2nd Bn XO). Earlier, while Ed Shames and John van Kooijk were interrogating a group of German prisoners near Kloosterdreef, Van Kooijk had been approached by Shettle and local man Henk Staals, looking for advice on the best way to access the guns. It was decided that Staals and another local man, Piet Pulles, would guide two squads in an assault. Robert Modracec, an enlisted man from D Company, died on his way into the attack after tripping on a curb outside the Café Monopole, and causing one of his grenades to detonate.
Before being overrun, the breach of the gun outside the grocery store was spiked by the crew using a stick grenade. After capture, the barrel of the “88” was swung through 180 degrees, away from the direction of advance. The crew of the second gun, at Kloosterdreef, fled west into the cornfields but, with help from the locals, they were safely rounded up. While all this was going on, 2nd Bn made a wide sweep around the obstacles to the east and smashed through the German right flank into the city, putting an end to any further organized resistance.
As soon as it was safe, Galbraith and Skully were evacuated by jeep to the hospital at Son, where the previous evening the 326th Medical Company had established a medical facility. Five spacious tents had been erected in the gardens behind the main hospital next to an enormous red cross laid out on the ground, supposedly to protect the patients and staff from air attack.
Bill Galbraith was initially placed in one of the tents. “When bullets started coming through the canvas roof, I thought I was never going to get out of the country alive. German prisoners carried the wounded into the sanitarium and slid us underneath the beds for safety. I couldn’t believe my eyes when Pete Klompmaker turned up. Pete had braved his way through a German counterattack and crossed the canal to see if I was OK. ‘Do you think you could fetch me a drink of milk?’ I asked. ‘Sure’ he replied smiling, ‘Don’t go away.’The intrepid Dutchman soon returned with a large glass of fresh warm milk, which at that moment seemed to me to be the very best thing I’d ever tasted.”
Later the same day a visiting clergyman asked Galbraith about his religion. “I told him that I was Catholic and he wandered off saying that he had something for me. The priest returned with a rosary and as he placed the wooden beads around my neck, I made a promise (which I have kept to this day) never to lose them.”
A short while later Galbraith was transferred to a British field hospital in Belgium.
I was being transported with six other casualties when the British ambulance in which we were travelling drove into what we thought was a huge firefight. The ambulance stopped suddenly and the driver got out. I’ll never forget this but the guy opened up the back doors and said casually, “Relax lads don’t worry, we’re just waiting for an ammunition truck to explode!”
After the British ammo truck blew up, we were able to reach our destination. I was reassessed and sent to Brussels to have my leg plastered before being returned to the UK. In England the doctors removed the cast and put me in traction. One night I woke up to find maggots crawling all over my injured leg. I couldn’t move and cried out for help. One of the nurses who came to my aid told me that this sort of thing was quite common! After that they operated on my shoulder, which miraculously returned full movement to my right arm.
Several weeks later in November, Galbraith found himself on the US Army Hospital Ship Larkspur bound for Charleston, South Carolina. Only recently converted, the steamer Larkspur had the capacity to transport and care for nearly 600 patients. Built in 1901, the former cargo ship had originally been an auxiliary vessel in the Imperial German Navy. “At times during the painfully slow ten-day crossing the weather was rough,” recalls Bill.
On one particular night, storm water came crashing through an open porthole and washed me out of my bunk onto the guy below. The next night during further bad weather, I accidentally tipped my piss pot on the same guy, who needless to say was not at all impressed with me.
After the ship docked in Charleston, the medics fitted a new cast before transporting me to Hammond General Hospital in Modesto, California. My folks came to visit just before Christmas. It was quite a journey for my mom who traveled over 300 miles by train from Long Beach. In January 1945, I was moved to Dibble General Hospital at Menlo Park and then to McCormack in Pasadena, which was much closer to home. Amongst other things, McCormack specialized in orthopaedic surgery and after a lengthy period of rehabilitation I was discharged in June 1947. Ironically the financial impact of being busted from technical sergeant (T/4) to private first class before Holland cost me nearly $2,000 in back pay. However, on a brighter note, Anna Nertney, whom I had met on leave in Scotland after Normandy, wrote me the whole time and eventually I plucked up courage and proposed. The following Christmas in 1948, Anna came to the States and one week later we were married.
Cam Pas and his family lived at 247 Boschdijk in Woensel:
On the morning of September 18, as my mother and I were visiting a local bakery [on De Ruyterstraat] a wounded German soldier came over and asked if we knew where the English were. Pointing towards the center of the city, my mum sent the man on his way. Earlier, around 11am, we saw a British scout car coming from Eindhoven driving across Boschdijk. When we returned home, four resistance men arrived in the street wearing blue overalls, black helmets, and orange brassards. Two of the men took cover in a nearby doorway next to the Obam Garage, while the others hid across the road on the corner of De Ruyterstraat.
We had just heard that several enemy soldiers had been wounded, while manning the two 88mm guns at Kloosterdreef and Woenselsestraat. A local businessman, Mr Erkamps, volunteered to transport one of the wounded crewmen on his bakfiet cargo bicycle to the Binnenziekenhuis Hospital in Eindhoven.* As Mr Erkamps was riding down the street, a German motorcycle and sidecar approached from behind. We fled around the back of our house when the PAN guys opened fire on the motorbike. As the rider accelerated, the soldier sitting in the sidecar flipped a grenade towards the two men firing from the doorway. Erkamps wasn’t quick enough and the blast from the grenade severely injured his left leg (which was later amputated). As we waited on the pavement for the Red Cross to arrive, my mum ignored the wounded German (who was still lying on the bakfiet) and gave Mr Erkamps a pillow and blanket.
Meanwhile 2nd Bn was moving around 3rd Bn’s left flank into Eindhoven. The link-up with the British seemed imminent when, at 1230hrs, after a brief radio conversation with XXX Corps, Col Sink and BrigGen Gerald Higgins (Asst 101st Divisional Commander) rendezvoused with a recon patrol from the Household Cavalry at a small crossroads northwest of Vlokhoven. In reality the main body of XXX Corps were still several hours away from their official rally point at the Sint Joris Church in southern Eindhoven.
A friend of John van Kooijk volunteered to guide Col Strayer – who had now caught up with his battalion – through the city to the bridges over the Dommel. As Strayer made his way into Eindhoven, 2nd Bn came under accurate fire from snipers hiding high up in the Oude Toren church tower near Kerkstraat.
Shortly after the two 88mm guns at Woensel were silenced, Van Kooijk happened to mention the telephone service network operated by the Philips Corporation to Ed Shames: “John asked if we knew anything about the telephone lines, which of course we didn’t. I was amazed to learn the Germans were also unaware of the network and that the southern command had been exchanging sensitive infor
mation via the system for the last couple of years. I didn’t waste any time and took ‘John the Dutchman’ straight to Col Sink. The colonel was keen to exploit the opportunity and immediately attached the two of us to Bill Leach (Regt S-2) and Bob Moon (Regt Commo) as kind of ‘unofficial’ liaison officers for the regiment.”
Earlier that Sunday morning Jenny Soon’s mother, Adolphina, had cycled to Vlokhoven to collect fresh milk for Jenny’s younger sisters Gerry and Nelly. Before reaching the village, Adolphina was stopped at a German roadblock along Woenselsestraat and told to go home. Across the street from Jenny’s house on Boschdijk was the Obam Garage:
We had seen a group of very young Germans peering out from behind the windows. After the resistance shootout which resulted in Mr Erkamps being injured they looked worried and were clearly uncertain of what to do. My dad quietly motioned for them to back away from the windows and remain inside. I think he didn’t want to see these boys hurt unnecessarily and felt it might be better to hand them over to the Americans rather than the PAN men who were still in position at the corner of the street. A short while later the Americans came in from Frankrijkstraat and walked past our house. Once it was safe, my dad told the paratroopers about the Germans hiding above the garage, who surrendered without a single shot needing to be fired.
As the day wore on scores of ammunition trucks began to arrive along Boschdijk. The vehicles, which were most probably from the American QM Truck Company, had come from the center of Eindhoven and were now congesting both lanes of the highway outside Jenny’s house. “Most of the drivers were African-American, which caused quite a panic among us kids who thought they were some sort of incarnation of Black Pete!”
Jenny climbed up onto a truck and stared into the face of the driver. Plucking up courage, she rubbed her finger across the man’s forearm expecting it to be covered with soot. Shaking her head in disbelief, the soldier grinned and returned the gesture. As Jenny touched the man’s hair, he brushed his hands through her long curls and burst into fits of laughter! “After making friends with the African-Americans we stayed outside all day long, shaking hands with every single soldier who passed by. It was an unforgettable afternoon but one of the things that struck me was just how quiet the soles of the American boots were compared to the German hobnailed variety.”
* Throughout the area, the family business of Firma operated a chain of 19 independent stores outside of the Philips Cooperative controlled areas. The shop at 441 Woenselsestraat was easily recognizable by the large exterior sign advertising the German detergent brand Persil.
* The bakfiet was a type of industrial tricycle with two wheels at the front supporting a 6ft-long high-sided wooden box on a frame.
6
“A city in chains”
The liberation of Eindhoven – September 18, 1944
Moving through the Philips Wijk, one of the subsidized housing estates along Boschdijk, H Co’s 1 Ptn came under fire and Hank DiCarlo witnessed another facet of Sharkey Tarquini’s combat awareness:
Several of us were on one side of the street and Tarquini on the other. The standard procedure when clearing houses was to roll a grenade into a room, then rush in firing immediately after it had exploded. The Germans would sandbag the corner furthest from the door of each defended room. As the grenade was delivered the “bad guys” were expected to dive behind the sandbags, and come up firing as soon as the grenade went off. This procedure somewhat dampened our enthusiasm for rushing through any door and it took us most of the morning to clear our designated buildings. As we walked out into the sunlight, there was Sharkey sitting in a doorway, on the other side of the street, casually smoking a cigarette. Unlike the rest of us he only had one grenade but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. Sharkey proceeded to throw his grenade into every room without pulling the pin. When the occupants ducked into the sandbagged area, he simply walked in and shot the inexperienced enemy where they lay … absolutely brilliant and he still had his damn grenade.
Pfc Godfrey “Jon” Hanson was shot in the stomach while house-clearing in the same area and died the following day as Hank DiCarlo recalls: “Jon was such a lovely dependable and sensitive person, who wrote the most amazing poetry, all of us were devastated by his death, especially his best friend Glenn Sweigart.”
It suddenly dawned on Ralph Bennett that the Germans were using a nearby church as an observation post (OP): “Using my field glasses, I could see movement from one steeple in particular. After notifying Lt Andros, word came back that we were forbidden to fire on any of the churches with anything other than small arms.”
Outside the Catholic seminary on Tongelresestraat, members of PAN were busy shaving the heads of women who had fraternized with the Germans. Fred Bahlau noticed the angry mob jeering at the group of frightened women, nicknamed moffenmeiden by the Dutch. “I saw this one pretty girl having her head shaved and thought it was a bullshit thing for these people to do.”
More civilians joined forces as the 506th moved deeper into the city. Some were wearing resistance armbands, while others just wanted to be involved in the fight. Many were destined to become scouts, but others offered their services as translators. At the time, very few Dutch spoke English, the exception being teachers, or those who, like 23-year-old Noud Stultiens, had studied the language: “It was about 1pm when I spotted a paratrooper relaxing at the corner of Bilderdijklaan and Stratumseind. Approaching the American, I said in my best textbook English, ‘Good afternoon sir and welcome to Eindhoven.’”
The soldier leapt up and rushed Stultiens away to meet Bill Leach: “After a brief interview, I was given a job as an interpreter and my first task was to find a place that had a room and table large enough for the captain to spread out his maps. As my parents’ house was not suitable, my friend Mitsy Vosters kindly got her mum and dad to let us use their spacious front room at 109 Stratumseind. My job was then to translate and interpret information coming in from the locals regarding enemy snipers, troop movements, and locations. These were then plotted and relayed via radio to the rifle companies.”
Capturing buildings intact such as post offices and telephone exchanges was vitally important, although some, like the Deutsche Reichspost, had already been destroyed. In many instances the Dutch actually hindered combat operations by reporting exaggerated information. Later that afternoon, the intelligence team packed up and headed for the center of town, taking Stultiens with them. “I was issued a ‘walkie-talkie’ and given the call sign K-4 or Kidnap-4. As the afternoon progressed there were numerous occasions when I was asked to speak directly to a civilian who had been put on the other end of the line. My unforgettable day with the 506th ended around 8pm, after the British Second Army arrived in the city.”
Another young man, Leonardus “Leo” Jeucken, lived at Stratum on Leostraat and joined 3rd Bn HQ Company as what the Americans had begun to call an “irregular.” The Jeuckens had emigrated to the USA but returned to Eindhoven before the outbreak of World War II. Leo was just 17-years-old, and joined without the knowledge of his parents.
As Harry Clawson and Alex Andros entered the city, they took it in turns running back and forth across Boschdijk, attempting to flush out snipers. “Civilians were emerging from cellars wanting to shake our hands and it was difficult to make them stay down,” recalls Andros. Ralph King (one of Andros’ men) fired his first shot in anger when Cpl George Montilio ordered him to shoot at a suspicious figure silhouetted behind a nearby window.
After being sent ahead, 2nd Bn was having difficulty communicating but by 1215hrs they managed to get a radio message through to Col Sink, stating that they were now in control of the Dommel bridges.
By 1400hrs enemy resistance in Eindhoven began to collapse. As the crowds gathered, a group of heavily armed PAN men, dressed in characteristic blue boilersuits, brought in five Luftwaffe prisoners and handed them over to a patrol from 2nd Bn. The captives were forced to lay face down on the road at Elzentbrug while their equipment and personal belonging
s were searched. The prisoners were then marched around the corner to a newly established POW cage at Don Bosco School.
The 2nd Bn were sent to guard the eastern sector of the harbor near the gasworks at Nachtegaallaan, where the Germans had dumped a vehicle in the canal. The largest of the four gas tanks was a local landmark, easily recognizable due to its eye-catching wraparound sign advertising Persil. The remainder of the regiment moved into town following the disused tramlines, establishing their own defensive sectors to southwest.
Jan van Hout was nearly 15-years-old and lived on Leeuwenstraat in the Philips Wijk at Tivoli, southeast of Eindhoven. “Earlier that day, I’d been walking with five friends along a footpath near the woods surrounding Tivoli, when a British jeep fitted for radio (FFR) stopped and an NCO jumped out.” The boys were amused to see that the sergeant was using a large-scale map of Eindhoven dated 1926, which did not show Tivoli because the town had been annexed from Geldrop three years later in 1929.
The youths told the British soldier about a German antiaircraft battery 200 yards southeast of De Burg in Stratum. The soldier immediately got on the radio and called for five rounds of high explosive (HE) to be fired onto the site. Later, unbeknown to their parents, the boys headed for the AB Theater as Jan fondly remembers:
Walking along Stratumsdijk we stopped by one of the public air-raid shelters, next to the municipal swimming baths, where we saw our first American soldier. The paratrooper was nonchalantly sitting on top of the shelter cleaning the barrel of his machine gun and excitedly we climbed up to say hello.