So I told him what I figured and how I had it analyzed. We shot it over, back and forth. I said, “It isn’t foolproof but it’s almost. I don’t think a one of us will ever jump again.” Well, then Williams went down and signed up.
So that night five men volunteered for this with me: Lieutenant Williams, John Dewey, Jack Agnew, Bill Coad, and Max Majewski. Every man in my platoon, to whom I had faithfully promised there could never be another mission, jumped on the first emergency pathfinder job that came along.5
9TH TROOP CARRIER COMMAND PATHFINDERS CHALGROVE, ENGLAND
When we arrived at the barracks in England, I just went straight to bed. Someone woke me and told me to report to the company commander [Captain Frank L. Brown]. So I reported in to the company commander as a staff sergeant and asked, “What’s your big problem? I don’t know what it is but I did not do it. I just got here last evening at five o’clock and went to bed. I don’t know what your big deal is but I was not even involved.”
He said, “Sergeant, I don’t know you or anything about you. I know you are a goof-off or you wouldn’t be here, but I need an acting first sergeant and you’ve been recommended.”
I said, “Boy, somebody’s been pulling your leg. What do you mean I’ve been recommended? I’ve been in here for nearly three years now and haven’t made PFC yet. I don’t care about garrison soldiering or military discipline or courtesies and that sort of thing. I’d have my arm fall off before I would salute an officer. I would not pick up a cigarette butt if you all were going to put me in chains. I don’t go for any of that. I don’t care any about that whole malarkey. You don’t want me as the first sergeant. I’m not first sergeant material. I’m the biggest goof-off in the army.”6
He said, “I’m here for the same reason you are. I’m a goof-off. I don’t care about military discipline or saluting or cigarette butt-picking and all that. We’ve got four hundred goof-offs here, a hundred from the 101st, a hundred from the 82nd, a hundred from the 17th and a hundred from the foreigners. They told me that you have been through this thing since day one, Normandy and on through and made two jumps and that you could whip this deal into shape and get it right and ready quick. That’s what I want.”
I said, “It sounds like we might be dealing right on the table.” I told him what all my demands would be for the men, for myself, and how we expected to be treated—halfway reasonable for a change. “We have never had a square meal since we went in the army three years ago. I want good food. I want good, reasonable quarters, and want these people just to have an almost permanent pass as long as they’ll respect it.” I said, “The first thing they’re going to do is take a three-day pass to London.”
He said, “That may be beyond the line of reason, McNiece. How many do you think we’d get back?”
I said, “You’ll get back all of them except the ones that are in jail and just as quick as they notify us, we’ll go get them. Most of these boys are fine soldiers. Everyone of these boys is like me. They’re just field soldiers, combat men, not garrison. These are a good bunch of men. They have been behind enemy lines for seventy-eight days. They need to get into town and let some steam off.”
He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get you a pass book and you can let everybody in here have a three day pass without destination, but you’ve got to stay here and get these sticks organized and a training program set up. You’re going to have to pick you out a stick. You all will stay here the three days while they’re gone and familiarize yourself with the whole organization and objective. When they get back then you can go.”
I said, “Okay, I’ll be the acting first sergeant under that kind of a deal.”
He said, “We don’t have any table of organization. You’ll just serve in here in the same grade that you came in.”
I said, “The pay doesn’t mean much to me. Just let me jump in where there is money and I’ll get my own pay raises.” As demolition men we blew every safe we came upon.
I gave the rest three day passes to London and everybody came back except the ones we had to go pick up from jail. I would have loved to have gone with them but I stayed there and I selected the men who I had fought with for a long time. I knew them, knew what they were capable of, and how they would perform under fire. I also picked George Blain because he had been in Pathfinder service since Normandy. So I picked me a stick from what I thought was the cream of the crop, which is what I got. If a guy has got any sense at all that is what he would do. It is just common logic that he would take proven material against inexperience. We went on our three day pass after the others came back.7
CRN-4
When I came back from pass (on time) we began Pathfinder training. We used dummy CRN-4 sets. We practiced laying out panels in a circle like pie-shaped cuts. This would help send out the signal. The ground was covered with snow so we did not do any practice jumping.
The Pathfinders did not have any supplies there at all. We just made do with what we had in the way of clothing. I still had the same pair of boots that I had jumped into Normandy and Holland with and they had holes in them the size of quarters. I put paste board in the soles.
The CRN-4 sets belonged to the air corps. They set them up and coded them. They just had two buttons on them. We would push one every thirty seconds and it would send out a signal to a C-47 that was equipped with a G set. It had a crosshair in it that looked just like a scope and a dot showed up on there. If the dot was over to the right then the pilot would start pulling over to the left until he was on the perpendicular line and the plane would fly on that azimuth. When the dot got down to the intersection of the cross hair, then he unloaded whatever he was bringing in, supplies or men or whatever.
Our instructions were if we saw that we were going to be captured or were severely wounded then we pushed that second button. It was loaded with explosive. It would blow that CRN-4 set up and maybe us with it. Then the Germans could hardly diagnose the mechanism or its operation. Our S-3s and intelligence had not determined if the Germans had the CRN-4. That is why we had absolute orders to destroy it. The existence of the CRN-4 was a secret and the air corps wanted to keep it that way.
While in Chalgrove, we put on a demonstration for some air force officers. Max did not know anything more about this machine than to push the two buttons. Neither did I. He had been one of the best soldiers over there but he was no longer stable since his wife died. He became a hair trigger. I did not pick him for my stick. Majewski was a heck of a shrewd soldier but he was a fool sometimes.
So Max was explaining how that CRN-4 set operated: “This button here, you just press it on and off, on and off, and on and off. It will send these signals so they can pick you up with their G set.”
This lieutenant-colonel said, “You mean intermittently?”
Max said sarcastically, “Let me see. On and off, on and off. Yes, colonel that would be intermittently. I think.”
BASTOGNE JUMP8
December 23, 1944
None of us had any idea that the Battle of the Bulge was just around the corner. We had complete aerial supremacy. The Allies had photographed every move that the Germans made. So someone should have known. I am confident that Eisenhower, Marshall, Montgomery, and all of them knew that this was about to happen because they had just put two of the greenest divisions they had right in front of that area.9 They also had the 28th “Bloody Bucket” Division establish their command post at Bastogne. They were a real seasoned combat division but they had been decimated at the Huertgen Forest.10 There was practically nothing left of the original lot. They had been replaced with infantry people who had never heard a shot nor seen a drop of blood.
So I thought it was a conscious decision that our commanders had made. This was the exact same attack that Hitler had made clear to the coast in 1940. So this was going to be a repeat of that. They knew that Hitler was not a madman. Twenty-some German divisions can make a point, without being serious about it.
We had not be
en in England for ten days when I had organized the company into ten pathfinding sticks for each of these boys’ four divisions. I had forty sticks set up and trained. I was walking up the company street on the morning of the twenty-second of December when Lieutenant Williams walked up to me and said, “Jake, have your stick ready to jump at one o’clock.”
I said, “Willy, let’s forget this jump out here in this snow.” The snow was ass deep to a tall Indian. I said, “What are you thinking about to jump in these conditions when every one of them has forty, fifty, up to a hundred jumps. They don’t need this. Just knock it off. You find some other way to occupy your time. You’ll get legs broken, backs broken. You’ll have men disqualified forever. We’re not jumping, on account of the weather.”
He said, “Yeah, you are. Not here. Over in Belgium. It’s a combat mission.”
I had not yet heard about the Bulge. I said, “What are you talking about?”
He said, “The 101st is cut off in Bastogne. We’re going on a combat mission, one o’clock this afternoon.”
I said, “When are we going to be briefed?
He said, “They’ll brief you at the plane.”
I said, “Do you know that not a man in the outfit has any combat equipment. We don’t have a CRN-4 set.”
He said, “They’re working on it right now. They’ll be at the plane.”
I said, “You are really serious about this.”
He said, “I am and you have not heard the worst of it. You be at the orderly room with your stick at one o’clock. We’ll have jeeps to run you out to the plane.”
So we ran out to the runway and they had that C-47 revved up with two air corps colonels standing there. They shook hands with me and said, “Good luck.”
I asked, “What do you mean ‘good luck.’ Where are we going and what’s the deal? When are we going to get briefed?”
He said, “Right now.” He pulled out a map that looked like a state highway map with a circle about two miles in diameter and said, “See that circle?”
I said, “Yeah.”
He said, “That’s Bastogne. Your division is cut off in there and completely encircled. At least they were the last time we heard from them. We have not heard from them in two days. Whether they are still there or not I don’t know. All indications are they still are. You are going to jump in there on a resupply mission. They are out of ammunition, medicine, and food. They have nothing left but a handful of men in there. We have to maintain and control Bastogne to prevent the blitzkrieg from succeeding.”
They had sent General McAuliffe with the 101st in by truck. The entire American army was in total disarray and retreating. They told General McAuliffe, “Do not retreat an inch. Stay and fight and die to the last man.”11 Well, they were holding their position while everyone else was retreating. The Germans were following the others and pushing them back. After the 106th and the Bloody Bucket had retreated, the 101st had about a two-mile-diameter perimeter and was cut off without supplies. They had not been in Mourmelon long enough to be refitted and resupplied. Many of the boys did not have much ammunition when they went in there. It was about ten miles from the point of their advancement back to our main line of defense. In every direction there were about ten miles of Krauts.12
He said, “Well, good luck.”
I said, “I don’t need good luck, I need a miracle. This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.” I said, “You all couldn’t find that place in three days even if you didn’t have any interference at all. You are trying to hit a two-mile diameter circle flying four hundred miles to it in a C-47 that has no navigational aids or instruments.”
He said, “Pretty tough deal boy, but that’s the way it is.”13
So we loaded in that plane. We took off and we flew and flew and flew. It was foggy. We could not see any ground for two miles. Then it would lighten up and we would see a spot of real estate, then we would go a little further and we were in soup and snow and rain and fog. This pilot had communications with someone on the ground and determined where he thought Bastogne was. Through his radio he finally realized that he was thirty-five miles past Bastogne. So he turned back around to Chalgrove.14
When we got back, I said, “Hey, let’s go down to the war room where they’ve got some maps and so forth and see what the best plan of attack is.”
They said, “Okay.”
So they fed us a good meal in the air force mess, then we went in there and sat down. I suggested that on another day, if we attempted it again, that we produce two plane loads of Pathfinders. From what I could see flying over the first day, there was a possibility of losing a plane or maybe two or three. I said, “Let’s take two planeloads. I’ll be in the first plane.”
They said, “We’ve got a crackerjack pilot15 who can hit that place easily Jake.”
I said (sarcastically), “I hope so. You missed it by thirty-five miles today. Everything would be a little happier if you could get a crackerjack pilot who could put me in or near Bastogne. I’ll take black and orange smoke grenades. When I have visibility enough to recognize the situation, if it looks feasible that we could get in and start a resupply mission, I will throw out orange smoke grenades.” Orange was a friendly military signal then. I said, “If I see we are utterly off the target, I’ll throw out black smoke which means danger or disaster. If they see the orange smoke then they are to drop the next plane load right on top of me. If it’s a hopeless case and they see black, why just circle. Try to relocate and drop them on the target.”16
Before we left on the twenty-third, I did not have anything on me but orange smoke grenades. I did not take any black. I was going to look like an orange juice tank truck exploding. I thought twenty was better than ten under any circumstance when landing in the middle of five million Germans.17
This ole boy [Crouch] who was going to fly us in asked me when we left England, “You don’t have any confidence in this do you?”
I said, “No. I got carried on a merry chase yesterday and I’m expecting the same thing today.”
He said, “I can fly you in there. I’ll prove it to you. Let’s synchronize our watches.” We synchronized our watches. “Now, at 9:15, I’ll pull this thing down out of the fog and we’ll be right over Lille, France.”
I said, “Good.”
So at the set time he pulled her down. I was right up front in the cabin with him. He pulled her down and we were right over Lille, France, right in the middle of it. I think the next place that he said he would hit was Luxembourg at such and such a time, and he did. He pulled her right down.
I said, “Well, this gives me a little more hope.”
He flew us in there and just before we jumped, he gave us the red light. They were shooting us up pretty good and we stood up and hooked up and stood in the door.
Cleo Merz from C Company was just a little bitty fellow. He was the nicest and quietest guy and always had a little bit of a smile on his face. While we were flying into Bastogne he was directly behind me. We were getting a lot of antiaircraft fire and it was hitting the plane pretty good. We both flinched. I looked over at Merz and he kind of grinned and then he stuck his finger through a bullet hole where it had come right between us.
I was standing in the door watching for that green light to come on when the pilot nosed that plane down through the clouds and that snow was black with German infantry, tanks and everything else. It looked like a carpet down there and boy they went crazy when he pulled that C-47 down. They were anticipating fire and bombs. Then he pulled her right up and it was just a minute until he gave me the green light. Then out we went.18
Where the paratroopers had their main line of defense, it was about a hundred and fifty yards to the circumference of the German line of offense. The first thing I saw was a graveyard, a big graveyard. They had huge monuments which provided good cover from enemy fire. So I knew I was in the immediate proximity of a pretty good-sized city and Bastogne was really the only city in that area that would accommodate a gra
veyard like that. I began throwing out all the orange smoke that I could get a hold of so that the others would be dropped right on top of us.19
BASTOGNE
We landed about halfway between the two main lines of resistance. Of course when we jumped out of that plane, the paratroopers there on defense opened up on those Krauts with everything they had. That second stick came right in on top of us and we made a run into that graveyard where there was plenty of protection behind those stones. Every paratrooper that was on our line of defense opened up and gave us good cover. We got in all in one bunch. Of the nineteen men I had with me, I only lost one.
We landed not too far from C Company, 506th. The first news I heard when I was safe within their lines was, “Jake, Colonel LaP was killed in his CP last night!”
Lieutenant-Colonel James LaPrade had been the commander of the 1st Battalion and some of the guys hated him. I thought it was funny that they were more interested in telling me that than asking what my mission was.20
We had four CRN-4 sets and we laid out panels and infrared lights. Then we set our antennas up and started transmitting. When we jumped in there, the air corps had hundreds of C-47s loaded with combat equipment, gear and ammunition and gasoline. They had them rendezvous over France waiting to see if we could get a signal out to them.
We set up our CRN-4 sets initially on three different locations; the brick pile, a small hill, and another hill a few hundred yards from the enemy front. We had to abandon the last one because it was too close to the enemy. The Germans had the ability to pinpoint our location when we sent out our radio signal. We would send out a signal from one location for a while then send it from the other.21
As soon as we sent out the signals they picked them up and began to fly into Bastogne. It was not even an hour and we had a trail of C-47s. The first day, we brought in two hundred and forty-four C-47s full of supplies. The next day we brought in one hundred and sixty and then the next day, which was just a special order of gliders, we got in only forty-four. The next day came two hundred and sixty-nine C-47s and by the fifth day a hundred and twenty-nine. We brought in over six hundred planeloads of ammunition, gas, special equipment they needed and this and that.22
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