Filthy Thirteen

by Richard Killblane

  18. The mission to reopen the road fell to Sink’s 506th PIR. On September 25, a British armored brigade joined the 506th in Veghel from the north. Sink’s force then pushed its way up to Uden to clear the road and rejoin Chase’s advance guard. The next day the 506th marched back to Veghel to reopen the road south of the town cut by their old friends, the German 6th Parachute Regiment. Leaving at 1:30 in the morning, the regiment arrived at 5:30. At 8:30 the 3rd Battalion attacked to the south with 1st Battalion on the right and 2nd Battalion in the reserve. Upon reaching resistance, the two battalions were stopped. Then the 2nd Battalion deployed to the left of the 3rd. 1st Battalion swung around to the right and made contact with the 501st while the 502nd came up from the south and linked up with 2nd Battalion. In an enveloping attack on the 26th, the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 506th held while the 2nd Battalion and the 502nd forced the Germans to abandon the Koevering roadblock. The attack to the south on the 25th is more likely the setting for this story. (Koskimaki, Hell’s Highway, pp. 291–322.)

  19. A bar ditch is a “V” shaped ditch dug alongside a road for drainage.

  20. Jake took Jack Womer along to check out the house. Womer checked for booby traps while Jake searched the pantry for food. Womer discovered a mattress in the upstairs bedroom which he pitched out through a hole in the wall. After Jake passed the lieutenant’s inspection, Womer then ran around to pick up the mattress so he could sleep on it that night.

  21. LTC Hank Hannah had just finished coordinating with the British and on his return trip an 88 struck a tree next to his jeep. Shrapnel ripped through his right shoulder joint, requiring his evacuation to England and the United States. (Hannah, A Military Interlude, pp. 138–143.)

  22. The British paratroopers had evacuated Arnhem on September 25.

  23. American paratroopers were intended for use as shock troops trained to conduct intense fighting for a short period of time and then return to the rear to rest and train up for the next mission. The paratroopers had fully expected to be returned after six days when they had handed their corridor over to the British, but were instead used to drive back the German penetrations of the corridor and reinforce the British on the Rhine. The Americans bitterly resented this, especially since they felt the British had not aggressively pursued their end of the fight, highlighted by the fact that they regularly stopped for tea.

  24. On October 2, the 506th moved north by truck to Nijmegen. Herb Pierce remembered leaving Uden in a “six-by.” They rode to the “Island,” a stretch of land between the Waal and Neder (Lower) Rhine Rivers. Upon reaching Nijmegen, they ran into an MP who instructed them on which route to follow. At the bridge another MP stopped them. They saw dead bodies and craters. The German artillery had the bridge zeroed in and the MPs only let one truck across at a time. The MP told the driver, “When I tell you to go, you floor that thing.” When he gave the order, they took off with shells landing all around them. The paratroopers made it safely to the other side. That was the only time they listened to MPs.

  From there the 506th turned west about ten miles to occupy a line of defense near Opheusden. Sink placed the 3rd Battalion on the left while the 2nd Battalion held the right along the Neder Rhine. He held the 1st Battalion in reserve. As German pressure increased around Opheusden, Sink deployed the 1st Battalion on line to hold Opheusden on October 5 as 3rd Battalion shifted its line to the south. After two days of intense fighting, in which the town changed hands, the 327th Glider Infantry relieved the 1st Battalion on the night of the sixth. 1st Battalion then fell back to bivouac in an apple orchard. That same night the Germans broke through the 327th and ran into the 1st Battalion in the orchard and were repulsed. (Koskimaki, Hell’s Highway, pp. 369-394.)

  25. Jerry Higgins had previously been the division’s chief of staff but was promoted to brigadier-general as the new assistant division commander after General Pratt was killed in a glider crash in Normandy.

  26. Richard Killblane’s interview with Virgil Smith.

  27. Jake said that Lieutenant Whitehead was originally assigned to G Company, but the name does not appear on any roster. Lieutenant Guthrie Hatfield did transfer from G Company to C Company at this time and may be the officer Jake remembered as Whitehead.

  28. When 1st Battalion moved up to support 3rd Battalion at Opheusden it was continually pounded by artillery and mortars. C Company was soon reduced to Lt. Hassenzahl and 26 men. (Mark Bando, The 101st Airborne; From Holland to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, p. 69.)

  The bombing and fighting around Veghel had depleted the Filthy 13. Plauda had not jumped and did not return to the unit. Freedman and Graham had both been wounded, Oleskiewicz was still missing and somehow Zemedia was pulled away by Regimental Headquarters Company. Only McNiece, Agnew and Womer remained out of the original Filthy 13 who jumped into Normandy.

  29. On the Island, the demolitions men found an old abandoned halftrack, either French or German. Jack Agnew figured out how to get it to work by covering the carburetor with a perforated can. They used it for transportation until they were assigned to OP duty on the Rhine. The noise of the vehicle would give away their position.

  30. Jack Agnew remembered, “We ended up in listening posts on top of the dike. Two guys would be in there and you would listen to hear if there was any activity. If there was, then you would try to get back without getting blown out of there because the Germans on the other side of the river in Arnhem were on high ground. The only time you could really move was at night and you did not go back until you were relieved. If someone was not out there for you the next night, you just stayed there until someone did come. So, it was the loneliest spot in the world, a listening post out on that dike.”

  31. Lieutenant-Colonel D. Dobie of the 1st British Airborne Division had escaped a German hospital and was hidden by the Dutch underground. He then swam across the Rhine and reported to Sink that 125 British paratroopers, 5 American pilots, and 10 Dutch resistance fighters wanted by the Germans were hidden away across the Rhine waiting for rescue.

  32. The name Brock does not show up on any map. Randwyck matches Jake’s description. At that point the Rhine River made a bend away from the Americans and the stretch of land to the river was covered by trees. It was the only place where the Germans occupied the same side of the river as the Americans. This sector also belonged to E Company which was in charge of the evacuation. (Koskimaki, Hell’s Highway, p. 364.)

  Jack Agnew remembered that they had established their CP in a thatched-roof farm house in Zetten. He did not remember moving to another location for the rescue. From there they conducted patrols and relieved the OPs. They could not move about during the daylight because of German snipers and artillery. He remembered that this was where the stories of milking the cows, cooking the chickens, and Marquez killing the pig took place. The house later caught fire.

  33. Jack Agnew complained, “Jake always made fun of me about not knowing how to milk a cow. I knew how to milk a cow as well as anybody. My parents were dairy farmers. One of the cows had been shot through the utter though. When I tried to milk her, milk squirted out the bullet hole.” The three cows later disappeared. Jack thought they had been stolen but it turned out the owner had come and claimed them. He was grateful for Jack having milked them for him.

  34. Because the paratroopers were hidden in different Dutch homes, some as far as 15 miles away, it took nearly a week for them to move to the evacuation point.

  35. There is no reference to the demolition men’s participation nor even the existence of the minefield, but only that a route had to be laid out with white engineer tape by the engineers. One can only assume the path was through a minefield and not just to keep men from getting lost in the dark. At that time Jake was the only demolition sergeant left and his section was probably the only demolition section still intact in the 506th. His section would more likely have been the only one left to clear the minefield.

  36. Jack Womer remembered on another occasion: While up there one night, a “
90 day wonder” (lieutenant) from a line company came over and told the demolition men to clear a path through the mines along the bank. The place he wanted cleared was four houses up. The line company had their side covered with a .50 caliber machine gun upstairs in a house but the Germans had theirs covered by an 88 millimeter cannon. As the lieutenant led Jack Womer and two other men along the sidewalk, the 88 opened up on them. Jack Womer figured if they had been out in the open on the bank, they would have been killed. Jack was mad. He told the lieutenant that they did not need the other two men. “You and me go.”

  The lieutenant agreed. With only their jump knives they probed for shoe mines. The snow had melted and they had only made it out about ten yards when the Germans sent up a flare. Jack had figured correct. The lieutenant realized clearing the mines was not worth the risk. He said, “We’ve got to go back.” They waited as another flare went up. After it burned out the two got up and walked back to the house. He just wanted to know what was out there.

  37. “Our men killed a pig while we were there and they ate that. They sort of had a party with the pig but I didn’t eat any pig. It had a bad leg but they ate it anyway. Then there were chickens in the house and a Mexican and I went and got them chickens and cut their heads off. I didn’t eat any of the chickens. I don’t know why I didn’t.” (Mohr, Memories, p. 45.)

  38. “We went to a big farm and our regiment camped there. There was a great big barn and some other buildings, a big-wheel man and 3 daughters.” (Mohr, Memories, p. 45.)

  39. Herb Pierce remembered walking down a road on the wire detail. “I was whispering. It was my way of letting off tension. Jake came back and said, ‘Kid, shut up,’ then he returned to the front. It was not long until I started whispering again. Jake came back and told me, ‘Pierce, I told you to shut up.’ He left and I began whispering again. He came back and stuck his gun in my gut and said, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’m going to shoot you!’ I believed he would do it.”

  40. The 101st Airborne Division withdrew from Holland on November 28, 1944.

  41. Frank Kough was also in the demolitions platoon.

  Chapter 5: Rescue of a Division

  1. Captain Virgil Smith, General Higgins’s aide, said that immediately after Holland, General Maxwell Taylor had been ordered to report to General Marshall in Washington, D.C. on account of the crimes by some of the men in his division. Evidently there were reports of the men looting property and blowing safes. The men had accumulated fine furniture in their fighting positions. He had not heard anything of the press release of the Filthy 13. Momentum was building for the airborne divisions to finally get rid of their troublemakers.

  Afterwards the 17th, 82nd, and 101st Airborne Divisions unloaded their worst cases for transfer out of the theater. They were loaded on a train. Stories came out of how they would sell overcoats and shoes for high prices to civilians at the train stops, and then another paratrooper with an MP brassard would come up and confiscate the government property from the unsuspecting civilian. He would then return it to the original owner and they would repeat the process. This scam made them a fortune. The unruly paratroopers eventually took over the train and stopped in a town where they raped a number of the local women.

  2. In Normandy, units had initially had limited quotas for the combat infantryman’s badge. So it was initially viewed as an award. In time every infantryman who served in combat was issued the badge.

  3. Jake is not sure who the acting company commander was when this happened. He did not think Gene Brown would have done something like that.

  4. Jack Agnew remembered, “When I heard Jake had volunteered for pathfinders, I said, ‘Hell, he’s not going without me.’”

  5. SSG Jake McNiece, Jack Agnew, and Max Majewski were survivors of the original Filthy 13 from Toccoa. Corporal Jack Womer was the only member from the days in England left in the section after that. Chuck Plauda and George Baran were still alive but did not return to the demolition section. But essentially, the majority of the survivors who created the legend of the Filthy 13 had volunteered for Pathfinder training in England.

  6. To this day, first sergeants still supervise formations, police call, and recommend discipline to the company commander. Since these functions are all most soldiers ever see their first sergeant do, it is easy for an enlisted man to think that is all the top sergeant does. What the Pathfinder company commander needed was what one calls a field first sergeant. The U.S. Marines still reserve those training duties for the company gunnery sergeant.

  7. Jake’s Pathfinder stick was made up of men from his own regiment: Lieutenant Shrable Williams, Sgt. John Roseman from A Co., Sgt. Cleo Merz from C Co., Sgt. Leroy Shulenberg from B Co., Cpl. John Dewey, T-5 George Blain from Headquarters Co. 1st Battalion, Pfc. Jack Agnew, Pvt. Bill Coad, and Pfc. George Slater from B Co. (The Pathfinder, Vol. I, No. 4, October–November–December 1986, p. 6.)

  8. Pathfinders were not permanently assigned to the IX TCC but belonged to their parent units. It was coincidence that they happened to be training with the IX TCC when the German counteroffensive began. (Captain Frank L. Brown, “Report of Airborne Pathfinder Operation ‘Nuts,’” to Commanding General, XVIII Corps (Airborne), 7 Jan. 1945.) The reason that the Pathfinders were alerted so late to resupply the 101st Airborne Division was that the two regiments of the 106th Infantry Division cut off behind German lines had priority. These regiments ended up surrendering and the priority then shifted to Bastogne.

  9. The 106th Infantry Division had just arrived in France on December 6. They replaced the 2nd Infantry Division on December 11. When the Germans attacked on December 16, two of the regiments surrendered and the other fell back in complete disarray. The 99th Infantry Division was just north of them. It had arrived in France on November 3. It had seen a little prior action but also fell back and suffered heavy losses.

  10. The 28th Infantry Division had been pulled out of the Huertgen Forest on November 19. It was recruited from Pennsylvania and wore a red keystone patch which earned them the nickname of the “Bloody Bucket.”

  11. “I passed this order on to General Tony McAuliffe, commanding the 101st in the absence of General Maxwell Taylor, who had gone to the States, at my request, to confer with General Marshall on certain matters pertaining to the airborne.” (General Matthew B. Ridgeway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgeway, p. 114.)

  According to Captain Virgil Smith, General Marshall refused to let Taylor leave. McAuliffe was the highest ranking officer left in the division.

  12. “My decision to hold Bastogne, at all costs, had been anticipated by [MG Troy] Middleton [Commander of the VIII Corps] even as his front was crumbling to pieces. When I called Troy to give him the order to hold that crucial road junction, he replied that he had already instructed his troops there to dig in and hold. Elements of the 10th Armored Division raced north to Bastogne to reinforce tanks of the 9th Armored in their defense of that key position. That evening the 101st Airborne Division roared into Bastogne after a wild truck ride from Reims while the 82nd Airborne continued north to blunt the pincer that had forced its way between Malmedy and St. Vith.” (Bradley, Soldier’s Story, p. 467.)

  13. “Intelligence reports relative to enemy and friendly situations on the ground indicated that the situation in the area was fluid and close map reconnaissance of the DZ was impossible due to lack of large scale (1:25000) maps of the area…. The time limit from the receipt of necessary information to take off (thirty minutes) did not allow time for proper briefing, plotting of course and preparation for an emergency operation under the circumstances. Combined Air Corps and Airborne teams took off at 1452 hours.” (Brown, “Report.”) 14. “Commanding Officer, IX TCC Pathfinder Group returned to this headquarters at 1455 hours and checked prior preparations made in his absense [sic]. After checking weather and sunset time he radioed the Flight Leader to return to the Base. Message was confirmed and flight returned.” (Brown, “Report.”) Jake claims they turned around only after they failed
to find Bastogne. Agnew said they should have kept trying.

  14. “Commanding Officer, IX TCC Pathfinder Group returned to this headquarters at 1455 hours and checked prior preparations made in his absense [sic]. After checking weather and sunset time he radioed the Flight Leader to return to the Base. Message was confirmed and flight returned.” (Brown, “Report.”) Jake claims they turned around only after they failed to find Bastogne. Agnew said they should have kept trying.

  15. LTC Joel L. Crouch was the crackerjack pilot. Crouch had originated the pathfinder concept. (The Pathfinder, pp. 1, 3.) 16. “In as much as up to the minute intelligence reports were unattainable it was decided to drop one stick and wait for a predetermined signal (orange smoke grenade) prior to dropping second stick in order to definitely establish the fact that the Airborne pathfinders were in friendly territory.” (Brown, “Report.”)

  16. “In as much as up to the minute intelligence reports were unattainable it was decided to drop one stick and wait for a predetermined signal (orange smoke grenade) prior to dropping second stick in order to definitely establish the fact that the Airborne pathfinders were in friendly territory.” (Brown, “Report.”)

  The official report states that the Executive Officer of IX TCC Pathfinder Group and the XVIII Corps Pathfinder Officer, CPT Frank Brown, made the decision to commit two identical teams. The decision had to be approved by IX Troop Carrier Command. (Brown, “Report.”) Jack Agnew said that Jake McNiece originated most of the plans even though Lieutenant Shrable Williams was the stick leader. The reason that the men thought Williams was such a great officer was that he listened to them.

  17. “During the night of 22 December 44, all available information in reference to the operation was obtained. Maps (1:50000) were to Airborne Pathfinder. Briefing was accomplished and flight took off as scheduled at 0645 hours.” (Brown, “Report.”)