Deliver Us From Darkness

by Ian Gardner

  Moments later a German lorry with a guard sitting on the front fender came speeding down the road from the south, ahead of the British spearhead... We ran for cover as the paratrooper sprang into action and fired several long bursts into the vehicle as it reached the junction opposite the theater. When the firing stopped we clambered back onto the roof of the shelter and watched with anticipation as the smoldering truck began to catch fire. As nobody got out we realized that the German occupants had all been killed. Moments later, a US Military Policeman stepped onto the junction and began to direct the military traffic towards Boschdijk and Son as if nothing had happened.

  The 3rd Bn took over the bridges at de Wal and Van Abbe (Elzentbrug) while 1st Bn (who were now in reserve) were handed temporary control of the bridges at Stratumseind. Maj Horton and Col Sink occupied Den Elzent, an imposing property diagonally across the street from the art museum. The large three-story townhouse had previously been the German Wehrmachtkommandantur (military headquarters). When Sink arrived at 1740hrs, he received a warm welcome from the town’s officials. The colonel then called a battalion commanders’ meeting, to begin drawing up defensive plans for the area.

  The regiment began to make its home in the wealthy suburbs of Elzent and Villa Park. Regimental HQ Co established a base at the Katholiek Leven (“Catholic Life,” the Catholic Community Center and Social Club), on de Wal (where the council offices now stand adjacent to City Hall). Before the liberation, the Katholiek Leven was used as the central bureau for Eindhoven’s Luchtbeschermingdienst.

  Bobbie Rommel could not believe the reaction from the population: “Scores of people surrounded us, asking if they could help carry the machine guns. Upon reaching the Van Abbe, I instructed my team to set up our gun on one of the traffic islands opposite the museum, amidst the beautifully manicured flowerbeds.” The MG Ptn were treated like celebrities as they relaxed on the sloping lawns in front of the museum. Teenage boys and girls moved among the soldiers, asking for autographs and souvenirs. “Afterwards we took up positions further south along the riverbank, where we established a defensive perimeter. My guys had been lucky as we didn’t sustain a single casualty on the move into Eindhoven,” reflects Bill Wedeking. Executive Officer Bob Harwick recalls: “We did our best to keep everyone in line but formations were almost impossible, as our soldiers were quite literally dragged away into homes and local bars.” By early evening each company had been assigned a sector within the battalion area. Maj Horton and Capt Harwick even found time to tour the bombed-out shopping area at Demer and were greeted by an adoring public.

  During the afternoon, 1st Lt Ed Harrell and 2 Ptn were sent back to Eindhoven from Son, and joined the rest of G Company, who were already bivouacked at Sint Joris College (Saint George High School) close to Elzent. The empty college had previously been used by the Germans as a collection centre after Dolle Dinsdag. The three rifle companies dug in for the night around the college: “We set up our 60mm mortar on a nearby playing field,” recalls Ralph Bennett. Gene Johnson remembers: “Even after we’d dug in, the civilians still kept arriving to say hello and shake our hands.” This did not last long because at 1830hrs, after spending a wet night near Valkenswaard, the main body of British armor arrived in Eindhoven. A single column of over 10,000 vehicles and 1,000 tanks met with an overwhelming welcome as the civilians blocked the streets in excitement.

  The support begins to arrive

  At 1530hrs on D+1, over 400 gliders landed on the LZ at Son, bringing with them 3/327 Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR), an engineer battalion, elements of 377 Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, and the remainder of the medical and signals personnel. Glider pilot 1st Lt Lloyd West from the 442nd TCG, was flying a CG4A Waco as part of Serial A-41:

  We took off from Chilbolton, at 1158hrs on September 18. The flight to Son was smooth with good visibility. However, when we arrived over the landing zone at 1514hrs, there was another group trying to land, which confused our final approach. Luckily we could see smoke signals on the ground indicating wind direction, but despite this it was still a struggle to land with our unusually heavy loads. Afterwards, we helped unload our gliders before proceeding to a nearby bivouac area designated for pilots, and signed in for the night. We didn’t realize at the time how hard it would be to get transport to the rear. On September 21, we got permission from a British tank officer who took our group out on some of his supply trucks, but they were only going as far as Hasselt in Belgium. From here, we split into smaller teams and worked our way back to Brussels, where we were able to catch flights back to the UK. Our journey was further complicated by the fact that for some reason we were not issued maps and currency for the countries we might be expected to travel through.

  Still wearing the girdle given to him by Briggsey, Ben Hiner came in on one of the 22 gliders carrying the 506th vehicle echelon. Before joining the army, Ben had received six months’ rudimentary flight training and therefore was able to act as a copilot for the mission. After a rather hairy landing, S/Sgt Hiner helped capture a group of enemy soldiers who were ransacking a glider that had landed the day before. Hiner was sent to the Sint Josef Milk Factory, situated on the banks of the Dommel between de Wal and Paradijslaan.* The milk factory was situated in the industrial part of town surrounded by several tobacco companies (such as Karel 1 Sigaren, and Mignot en de Block) and a large clothing factory that generated its own power supply. For the next few days the factory became the main collection and distribution point for the 506th PIR’s equipment and supplies.

  The Medical Detachment (Med Det) occupied an office at the milk plant and soon discovered a vegetable garden at the rear of the building close to the river: “We made a lovely stew that lasted us for a couple of days while we waited for further orders,” recalls John Gibson. During this period Gibson also found time to practice his hand-balancing tricks with T/4 Dave Marcus (Regt S-3 and runner up in the 1942 “Mr America” contest) on the lawn outside battalion headquarters at Den Elzent. With the mission now “complete” the 506th was expected to secure the flanks of XXX Corps and Second Army as they made their way towards Son. When the British reached Bokt, at 2100hrs, the Royal Engineers immediately set to work constructing a Bailey bridge across the Wilhelmina Canal.

  * Built in 1928, at its height the milk plant processed 7,049,276 liters of milk per annum. It closed in 1947.

  7

  “The burning sky”

  The bombing of Eindhoven – September 19, 1944

  The 3rd Bn spent the morning of September 19 improving its defensive positions, patrolling, reorganizing, and cleaning equipment. At 0815hrs, Col Sink and Maj Clarence Hester (Regt S-3) visited the areas held by the regiment and were pleased by what they found. A steady stream of Allied vehicles was now moving northward bringing a range of bridging equipment, cranes, and bulldozers, some of which were destined for Welschap to help rebuild the airfield. Shortly after the main highway was captured by the 506th PIR, it was marked using a club sign but a week later, due to lack of momentum from XXX Corps and Second Army, two more routes were opened through Tilburg (heart) and Helmond (diamond).

  Capt Leach was doing his best to disseminate the information coming in from the resistance regarding enemy troop movements. As a result he asked Ed Shames and John van Kooijk for assistance as Ed recalls: “One of John’s friends was a local doctor from Veghel, who volunteered to drive us around in his sumptuous black Opel Kapitan, which was originally intended for use by Colonel Sink.” Despite these intelligence issues, Eindhoven was still in a celebratory mood but all that changed during the afternoon.

  Orange bunting around the city suddenly vanished when forward elements of the German 107th Armored Brigade, led by Maj Freiherr von Maltzahn, were seen in the vicinity of Nederwetten, two miles east of Woensel. Supported by a ferocious armory of Mark V Panther tanks and self-propelled guns, the brigade had recently been rerouted by train from Aachen. Von Maltzahn had orders to capture Sint Oedenrode and cut the Allied supply route to Grave. Unbe
known to the Americans, the immediate threat was not aimed at Eindhoven but the newly built Bailey bridge at Son.

  While searching for alternative routes into the city, a recon unit from the 107th Armored Brigade, comprising five half-tracked vehicles, discovered that the bridge over the Dommel near Soeterbeek was a potential crossing point. Courageously, 50-year-old local groundsman, Wilhelmus Hikspoors, took full advantage of the situation, approaching the German recon commander and convincing him that continuing would be pointless, as the bridge could never support the weight of a main battle tank. Hikspoors’ cunning and subterfuge paid off as the German commander, not wanting to take unnecessary risks, carefully turned his vehicles around and drove away. Meanwhile, the British, using the railway system at Vaartbroek, managed to transport some of their armor to temporarily counter the enemy threat on the northeastern edge of Eindhoven.

  A squadron of tanks from 15/19 Hussars and a recon troop from the Blues and Royals was attached to the 506th PIR. Another squadron from the Hussars went to assist the 502nd, who were still battling the Germans at Best and Sint Oedenrode. A/506 (less one platoon) was attached to the Hussars, forming a mobile task force to patrol the surrounding countryside.

  After receiving fresh orders to widen the regiment’s defenses, 3rd Bn was sent to the small town of Winterle, six miles west of Eindhoven. At the same time 2nd Bn moved east through the suburb of Tongelre to protect Nuenen and Helmond from Von Maltzahn’s brigade.

  Hank DiCarlo and his friends were standing around talking in the grounds of Sint Joris College when Pfc Luther Myers ambled over to see what was going on: “We told him that the battalion was now on a ‘warning order’ for a rapid movement to Winterle,” recalls DiCarlo. “Myers told us that he needed to find a latrine before we left and Harry Clawson pointed towards an old outhouse about 30 yards away.” As the men were resuming their conversation, the door of the outhouse flew open and Myers launched himself, pants around ankles, onto the ground. “A split second later, the toilet exploded,” recalled Hank. It would seem that as Luther Myers sat down he unwittingly dislodged the pin from a hand grenade hanging from one of his equipment straps and luckily survived to tell the tale.

  Around dusk, 3rd Bn marched out of the city along Grote Berg passing the Police HQ, with G Co in front, followed by I Co, HQ Co, and H Co. No forward patrols were sent to Winterle and Derwood Cann was not alone in thinking that a recon should have been made of all the possible approach routes. It was beginning to get dark as the column moved due west through the industrial area at Strijp, over the Beatrix Afwaterings Canal and into the rough open heathland towards the railway and Winterle. As Teddy Dziepak (I Co 1 Ptn) remembered:

  Shortly after leaving the city we came under mortar fire and were maybe 150 yards away from an isolated pocket of enemy troops when they started to withdraw… I got one guy in my sights, squeezed the trigger and he went down. As we pushed forward, I saw that the man who I’d just killed was an officer, and took his Luger pistol as a souvenir. During the same action, my lieutenant was hit in the leg and rapidly began to lose blood. Dressing the wound, I yelled to Pvt Martin Dodge, who was closest, to find a medic. He chose to go the wrong way along a hedgerow, inadvertently exposing himself, and was killed.

  Two miles from Winterle, the lead scouts ran into a group of civilians who reported that the Germans had recently pulled out. At 1915hrs, as Maj Horton was deploying his reconnaissance patrols, the battalion was instructed to return to Eindhoven via the airfield. Within minutes of setting off for Welschap, the order was suspended when the unthinkable happened, as Bob Harwick recalled: “The movement was a complete success so far as the enemy withdrawal was concerned. As it was getting dark we heard planes flying overhead and were totally shocked to see lines of parachute flares appearing over Eindhoven. The markers grew brighter and brighter until the whole city was covered in a yellow light that hung suspended like some kind of giant chandelier.”

  That evening in Eindhoven the streets were jammed with civilians all trying to express their deep gratitude to each and every Allied soldier, as Cam Pas recalled: “We wrote all kinds of good wishes and slogans on the vehicles like, ‘Away with the bloody Krauts’ and ‘Long live Orange.’ I handed out peaches (from our own garden) and in return received chocolate, cigarettes, and biscuits.” During the celebrations, Frans Kortie climbed up onto a tank with a couple of his friends: “At one point, I became worried that somebody was going to get run over. In my best English, I asked the tank commander to stop but he couldn’t understand because he was actually Scottish!” Frans worked for the recently reinstated city council and was asked by his new boss, Mr van Elk, to act as an interpreter for the 506th PIR:

  The regiment needed a point of contact within the council who could speak English, and Van Elk volunteered me for the job. When I arrived at City Hall (which was located in Stratum at that time) the Luftwaffe had already started dropping flares. Many mistook the bright orange lights as fireworks, celebrating the liberation. When the bombs began to fall there was mass panic as everybody ran for the public shelters across the city. A smartly dressed British officer came down into my refuge and demanded in no uncertain terms that he wanted to speak with the mayor. After a brief introduction the officer said that he was the representative for the Dutch military authority in the UK. I was surprised by his aggressive tone and politely replied that “there was nothing we could do right at that moment, due to the fact that there was a bloody air raid going on.”

  The first flares appeared overhead at about 2030hrs, followed a few minutes later by the bombers. Before long the southern part of the city was in flames, telephone lines were down, and the mains water pressure had failed. Streets close to Col Sink’s CP at Den Elzent – such as Bilderdijklaan, Hertogostraat, and Keizersgracht – were badly hit. Eindhoven’s Air Defense Platoons were completely overwhelmed when buildings began to collapse, burying dozens of people in the rubble. The AB Theater and part of the municipal gasworks were totally destroyed. Over the next 20 minutes two more raids struck Stratumseind and Vestdijk, annihilating the Van Piere bookshop, damaging St Catharina Church, and blocking vital roads.

  This photograph, taken well after the construction of the Bailey bridge, clearly shows the access ramp (foreground) along the canal bank used by the 506th PIR to float vehicles and equipment across on the morning of September 18. (Foundation Remember September 1944 Collection)

  Pvt Wilbur Shanklin from RHQ Commo Ptn on a Cushman scooter at the beginning of the regimental assault into Eindhoven. (John Reeder via D-Day Paratroopers Historical Center, St-Côme-du-Mont)

  Pvt James “Sharkey” Tarquini (H Co 1 Ptn). This picture was taken in Austria, during a party on June 6, 1945 to celebrate Col Wolverton and his D-Day “one year later” reunion request. (L to R) Bob Hoffman, Bob Vann, “Sharkey,” and Lou Vecchi. (Hank DiCarlo)

  1st Lt John Reeder’s Communications Platoon relaxing with their SCR-694/BC-1306 radio and a GN-58 hand generator in the walled play area behind Vlokhoven Girls School. (L to R) unknown, T/5 Louis Tuttle, T/5 Charles Bolt (not wearing headphones), S/Sgt Richard Roderick, Pvt Wilbur Shanklin (possibly), and unknown. (John Reeder via D-Day Paratroopers Historical Center, St-Côme-du-Mont)

  RHQ Commo Ptn digs in on the play area at Vlokhoven Girls School. The bodies of German soldiers were stored behind the shelter (left). The concrete walls have long gone but in 2011 the three-story school building still remains. (John Reeder via Tom Peeters)

  Modern view from the base of the church tower across Vlokhoven Square to where John Kiley was killed (the railings and tree in foreground are post-war). Originally on September 17, the two 88mm guns would have been sited on extreme left of the photo.

  Now out of action, the first 88mm gun along Woenselsestraat, seen here outside the Firma AA Notten grocery store. The gun crew sabotaged the breach before surrendering – note the rings around the barrel marking 17 previous kills. (Tom Peeters)

  A slightly blurred but nevertheless amazing pho
tograph of the second 88mm AT gun positioned along Woenselsestraat, opposite the T-junction with Kloosterdreef after it too was neutralized. (J. J. M Van Kruijsdijk via Tom Peeters)

  Captured crewmen, one of whom is wounded, being marched past the gun on Kloosterdreef. (Tom Peeters)

  Damage to a house in Kloosterdreef caused by 88mm AT gun in nearby Woenselsestraat. Elements of D and F Co probably used the upper floors of the building to pour direct fire onto the crew during the final stages of the assault. (Tom Peeters)

  The first gun was towed away and dumped on nearby waste ground in Hamsterstraat. Local children used the abandoned artillery piece as an adventure playground, until its pilfered remains were broken up after the war. (Piet van Heeswijk via Tom Peeters)

  Tented facility belonging to 326th Airborne Medical Company where Bill Galbraith and Ray Skully were both evacuated. Advance elements of the 326th operating from the DZ at Helena Hoeve occupied the sanatorium during the afternoon of September 17. (Heemkundekring Son en Breugel)

  Bill Galbraith (far right) recuperating at Hammond General Hospital in 1945. Muscle and tissue were harvested from Bill’s legs and back to rebuild his damaged body. (L to R) Bill Colbrook (I Co – wounded at Bastogne), his fiancé Lucy, her sister Jean, and Bill Galbraith. (Bill Galbraith via John Klein)

  This photo is believed by the author to be T/4 Alcide Leveille from RHQ Commo Ptn, posing with local man Mr Kluijtmans in front of his house on Frankrijkstraat. Note leather wrist compass hanging from Leveille’s left shoulder. (John Reeder via Tom Timmermans)