After he finally killed it, we skinned it out. I took the fat off of his skin, just scraped it all off. So I got all the fat off of him that I could get and boiled it up. I had, I don’t know, maybe half a gallon or so of grease. I tried to fry them but we could not eat those chickens. We could not even bite off a piece. It was like leather. So we threw them all in a big stew and boiled it for hours and then it turned out to be real good chicken.37
THANKSGIVING DINNER
We came off of OP duty two or three days after Thanksgiving and went back down and joined our company.38 When we came out of there, Top Kick Miller asked, “Jake, what are we going to feed these people for Thanksgiving?”
I asked, “What do you want to feed them?”
He asked, “Well, can we get turkey or chicken?”
“No, you can’t get turkeys or chicken. There are not enough to feed a company.” I said, “If you’ll give me a jeep for a little while, we can feed them beef. I know where there are some really good looking cattle that’re fat.”
He said, “Are you really going to go butcher something or do you just need a jeep?”
I said, “I’m going to go butcher some if you want me to.”
So he gave me a jeep and two or three boys. We went out and butchered a beef and hung her up and let it cure out for two days. A big carcass has to set for two days until the body heat leaves it, otherwise anyone who eats it will get dysentery. I took it back and gave them the beef, but I kept the liver and the heart. They can be taken right out of the belly and eaten the first day. They will not make anyone sick.
I also remembered where I had seen a garden which had cabbage and leeks. So I picked a bunch of cabbage and those leeks. Those leeks were big up there. I also knew where there were some potatoes. Everybody in Europe had potatoes but they had them hidden. I would go to a house and say I wanted some kartoffels, which meant potatoes, but of course they would tell you they did not have any kartoffels. I told them to get outside and I would look for myself. Then they would give me some potatoes.
So I brought all this stuff in. We had an ole boy up there in Headquarters Company who was a good cook. He was not a cook by trade. He was just a line man. He took that stuff and cooked it up real good.
Top Kick Miller told me about fifty years later, “Jake, I’ve remembered that meal a million times. That was the best meal I ever ate in my life.” Of course, he had not been eating very good.
I said, “I don’t imagine it would taste near as good to you right now, Top Kick. You’ve been eating well.”
LINE REPAIR
The communication section in Regimental Headquarters Company had lines out. They used a lot of wire. They had line men who would go out and string wire up all over the place since we were mainly on outpost perimeter defense. We were down to almost nothing. The enemy had a million of those Germans with tanks and everything. Every night those Germans would come across that river in boats with patrols of thirty or forty men. Every time they came across one of those communications lines, they would cut it. So when a bunch of those lines were cut to where we could not communicate, why we would send these line men out there to repair them. They would usually send demolitions people along for protection.
We were out there one night after Thanksgiving dinner with Malcolm Landry, a little ole boy from down there in New Orleans. He was the line man who was repairing all these breaks while we went along to keep all those Kraut patrols from running into him. That night Herb Pierce was back at the end of the column. There were not but six of us. He was very high strung. He was talking and yakking back there and I went back and told him, “Herb, knock that off. We’re out here and there are Krauts all around. We’ll get these lines repaired and get out butts back out of here if we can.” So I said, “Stop that. You’re going to get us all killed.”
I returned to the front. We walked on for a while and it was not ten minutes later before Herb was yakking again. We got to the next break where it had been cut. We had sat down to wait for Malcolm to repair the line. Herb started chattering again.
I went back there and told him, “Herb, I will tell you something boy. You can get killed if you want to but you are not going to kill all these guys. If you want to just take off on your own, get your ass on out of here. But if you make another noise until we get back to camp, I’m going to come back here and cut your head off.” He turned white as a sheet. I said, “I won’t talk to you any more, Herb. If you were exposing yourself that was one thing but you’re exposing six other men. I will cut your head right off at your Adams apple if you make another noise.” I said, “If you want to go somewhere and talk, take off.”
Well, he did not want to take off and he kept his mouth shut from then on. Herb was a pretty good soldier but he was just a kid.39
72-HOUR PASS TO MOURMELON
Two days after Thanksgiving dinner we were pulled out of Holland and sent back down to Mourmelon, France, to be refitted, re-equipped, and filled up with replacements.40
We had been in Holland seventy-eight days without a break. I mean just straight out combat for seventy-eight days. Well after we came back, they gave each one of us a seventy-two-hour pass. Seventy-two hours was not a reward for being in Holland. Seventy-two hours was not even an hour for every day I spent up there behind the lines! I did not think it was quite fair at all—and that pass was only good for Mourmelon. The destination was written right on it.
Mourmelon was our camp. One could stand with one foot in camp and put the other foot in the city of Mourmelon and this was our reward. Mourmelon was a little town that I guess had about ten whorehouses and probably ten bars.
We had thousands of young recruits picked from all over the United States. We had lost nearly 65 percent of our men in Holland. So they had just loaded everybody as replacements who said they would be paratroopers to build our division back up to combat strength. Most of them were kids, just seventeen, eighteen, and twenty-one years old. They had never been out of the United States before. They were in that town drinking every drop of whiskey, grabbing all the prostitutes in those ten or twelve houses, and they were lined up three abreast just as far as one could see. So I looked the situation over. I could go to the back of the line and maybe get close enough to a drink of whiskey or the smell of a woman.
There was this kid with me, named Frank Kough.41 He was a corporal and married. I said, “Well Frank, I’ll see you later.”
“What do you mean you’ll see me later?”
I said, “Well, I’m getting out of here. I ain’t going to stay here with this mess and fight this crowd. I’m going to go to Paris or Reims or somewhere.”
Reims, France, was SHAEF headquarters. That is where Eisenhower and his whole staff were. I guess he had a thousand WACs in there taking care of all his paperwork. I did not know it, but the 82nd had come back a week ahead of us. Their division had given them all passes. Boy, they headed right straight to Reims. They got in there and raped and killed them WACs, tore up everything in town, killed a bunch of civilians and SHAEF finally had to send back for General Gavin to come down and take his troops out of there. Afterwards they put Reims off limits to all airborne troops. I did not know that then.
I said, “I’m getting out of here. If you stayed here for seventy-two hours you could not get close enough to get a drink of whiskey or the smell of a woman. I’m going AWOL.”
“Jake,” he said, “I think I’ll go with you.”
I said, “Kough, you’re a corporal, married and they’re going to bust you the minute they lay hands on you when you get in.”
“Well,” he said, “you always have so much fun I just wanted to go see it.”
I said, “Well, come right on!”
He and I walked out on the edge of town. I stepped out on the street and started bumming trucks. The first truck that came by and stopped was a six-by with Lieutenant Whitehead and his driver in it. I had fought with him the biggest part of the time in Holland and we had become real close associates. He pul
led over to the side and said, “What are you doing, Mac?”
I said, “I’ve got a pass.”
He said, “Where’s it to?”
I said, “I don’t know where it is. They’ve got it written in French here. I don’t even speak French much less read it. I don’t know what the destination is.”
He said, “It shows the time expiration doesn’t it anyhow?”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
He asked, “What does it say?”
I said, “Seventy-two hours.”
He asked, “Do you think you could hitch-hike to Paris and stay drunk for two weeks and hitch-hike back in seventy-two hours?”
I said, “I don’t really know. I wouldn’t bet on it but I’m willing to try.”
“I’ll tell you something, Jake,” he said. “You get rid of them wings and unblouse them boots, cut them markers off your caps, shoulders and everything else. They have brought special MP units into Reims and it is totally off limits to every airborne man in Europe. Don’t you try to lay in there. You’ll be safer to go on to Paris.”
I said, “Okay, sounds good to me.”
He hauled me clear to the outskirts of Reims and said, “I can’t afford to drop you off in there.” Then we took on off and got through Reims then went clear to Paris. We had a heck of a deal down there. I stayed gone for about four or five days then came back.
5
RESCUE OF A DIVISION
MOURMELON, FRANCE
December 5, 1944
When I returned from AWOL, they immediately put me under arrest of quarters. Shorty Mihlan was Charge of Quarters that day. He came in and asked, “Jake, how would you like to go to England?”
I said, “Oh, is England where they are going to hang me? I don’t like them French guillotines.”
He said, “That’s not exactly it, Jake. It’s almost. They would like for you to volunteer for parachute pathfinding service.”
I said, “Oh, they would, would they?”
He said, “Yeah.”
So I went down to the orderly room and Browny asked me if I would volunteer for pathfinding service. It was just nearly straight suicide. Pathfinding service generally had a loss of 80 percent. They jumped ten men to a stick figuring they would lose eight of them. The two men left would operate one of two CRN-4 sets. They believed that one out of the two sets would still operate after the jump.
It was so dangerous an assignment that no one could assign anyone to it. A paratrooper had to volunteer to become a Pathfinder. It was like volunteering to kill yourself, but Browny promised that I would go out with a clean record. I did not care if I had a clean record or not. I had been in every jail from Rome to Nome and Maine to Spain.
Of course the chain of command really did not know anything about the Filthy 13 until after Holland. I did not know it but this article about the Filthy 13 dated December 4, 1944, had come out in the Stars and Stripes while I was AWOL. It must have caused quite a stir up at the high levels when they learned that such an outfit as that operated within the 101st Airborne. Up until that time our reputation was confined within the regiment.1
I got along well with my company officers. Shrable Williams was one of the best lieutenants in the whole damn army. He backed me all the way on everything. Browny and I were also very good friends but he was getting a lot of flak from higher up. So he felt convinced that he had to finally get rid of me. He was just tired of fooling with me. He must have thought, “Well, here is a real good place to get rid of McNiece.”
I asked Browny, “What happened to all the guys who volunteered for this crap up in Holland?”
Browny said, “When they came back they un-volunteered.”
While we were in Holland, division officers came around and asked guys if they would volunteer for pathfinding service. They wanted to have a pool to draw from when we returned from Holland. Of course a lot of those guys volunteered for it thinking they would be taken out of combat and sent back for training. When they got back to Mourmelon, division asked all these guys to get ready. Only then were they going to ship them out and train them. The guys said, “No way, we’re not going into that stupid deal.” So the division was really rustling around trying to find anybody for pathfinding service.
So I told Brown, “Why don’t I think this over a little bit and I’ll have you an answer in about an hour.”
So I looked the situation over and the state the war was in and all that. I did not see any real possibility of Pathfinders being engaged in combat this near the end. We were just on the verge of achieving our principle objectives in Germany.
We had total aerial supremacy. I would see columns of B-17s. I would look at my watch when the first nine planes flew over me and then I would check my watch again when the last ones passed over and it would be forty-five minutes or an hour or an hour and a half later. This meant that the train of them was a hundred to two hundred miles long, nine-by-nine-by-nine. The German air force was nearly gone. We would go for days and days and never see a Messerschmitt. The last Messerschmitts I had encountered were back in Holland and I only saw two groups of them up there. So we had total aerial supremacy.
After I thought it all over, I figured they would never have any use for parachute pathfinders again. The purpose of pathfinding service was to jump anywhere at any time for any plausible cause. I did not figure there would be any more plausible causes. Best of all, pathfinding headquarters and the training area was at Chalgrove Air Force Base.
I thought, “My goodness, I have been eating this slop for three years. Now I would be eating that air force food. They would be responsible for our rations and quarters. No KP! And they were just eight miles from Oxford University with all the English men off to war. There would be more women and more whiskey and a better opportunity to do some postgraduate work than any place in the world.” So I figured it would be a paradise. I was not being brave or anything, I just did not think anyone would ever need Pathfinders any more. Besides I kind of thought that I might enjoy that kind of warfare anyway.
So I went back and told Browny, “Yeah, I will go. I’m packing right now.”
Captain Brown thanked me. He was grateful that I was getting out of there. He did not have any more responsibility for me at all. He just knew I was going to go in there and get my ass killed.
But I told him, “You’ve got to take me off of arrest of quarters here because I want to go around and say goodbye to a bunch of these guys and thank them for the way they served.”
So he said, “Okay, you’re not under arrest of quarters but you be ready to leave in the morning.” He then asked, “What about Majewski? Will Majewski go with you?”
I said, “Wait a minute, Browny. I’m not encouraging Majewski or anyone else to go into pathfinding service. That’s your problem. You all talk to him. I am well satisfied with the decision that I have made but I would not try to influence anyone to go into Pathfinder service.”
They hated Majewski. Max looked like a big stupid idiot. His father was Polish, and I think his mother was German. He was the one who got the officers burned from Eisenhower on down.
At that time in Europe the Stars and Stripes, a little ole newspaper for the military, had a column in there called “Bitch Bag.” They advertised to any enlisted man or officer who felt he had a legitimate bitch to mail it straight in to “B-Bag,” which answered to Eisenhower himself. If it was a legitimate call he would take action.
Max had earned the combat infantryman’s badge during Normandy.2 When we returned to England he had taken off into town and picked up a dose of clap. The commander rescinded the order on his combat infantryman’s badge as a punitive measure for getting a dose of clap. Well that was stupid. Why, only an idiot would resort to something like that, taking a combat award away from a man because he got a venereal disease.3
Well, Max wrote right straight to Eisenhower and denounced this treatment. Ole Eisenhower started right back down the chain of command, from the top man right down to the
bottom man, eventually to Colonel Sink and right on down through the chain to the lowest echelon. Boy, he chewed their asses like you would not believe. They really took a lot of heat for it and this was waiting for them when we came back from Holland. Well, they really wanted to get rid of Max after that. They wanted him dead. They would put him on any special assignment where he might get killed. So about thirty minutes after I started packing up my gear, Majewski came in and asked, “Jake, what are you doing?”
I said, “I’m packing my stuff.”
He said, “Why? Where are you going? I thought you were under arrest of quarters. I did not know you had privileges to travel?”
I said, “Yeah, I have. There’ll be a plane here in the morning to kick me out.”
He said, “Well, Captain Brown called me in and said he would like for me to go with you. What made you determine this was a good move?”
I told him what the deal was and how I had it figured and analyzed. I told him, “I don’t believe they will ever be used again.”
He said, “I think I’ll go back down and talk to Captain Brown again. You’ve probably got this thing figured out right. I believe I’m going too.”
I said, “Don’t let me influence you. This is just what I believe. This is not firsthand knowledge. I can’t give you any guarantee.”
So he went down and volunteered. Then he came back and started packing. By that time the word got out to the other men that I had volunteered for this mess.
Well, Jack Agnew found out about it. He did not even talk to me but just went right straight in to Captain Browny and asked if Majewski and McNiece were going. Browny said, “Yeah.”
Jack said, “I believe I’ll go too.” He then came in and told me, “I’m going with you!”4
Then a kid named William Coad came in. When he saw what was happening, he said he would go. Then John Dewey came in and volunteered. By then we had five enlisted men.
That night, Lieutenant Williams came in and talked to us. He asked, “What’s the deal here? I’m losing half of my demolition platoon.”
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