The Last Jump: A Novel of World War II

by John E. Nevola

  “Not anymore,” joked Johnny.

  “I got this letter from Harley. Tell me what you think,” Jake handed it to Johnny.

  Johnny never met Harley but Jake talked about him often. Johnny unfolded the letter and struggled to read it in the dim light of the cabin.

  April 23, 1943

  Jake,

  As you know from my other letters, our division has been here in rainy and dreary old (blacked out) since last September. It’s damp, foggy and rains almost every day. Not good for morale. We are the only American (blacked out) in this entire country. We’ve been here so long they’re starting to call us the Queen’s Own (blacked out). The entire defense of (blacked out) is just the Home Guard and us.

  “He’s in England,” Johnny concluded. “And apparently his division is being called the Queen’s Own 29th Infantry Division. That’s pretty funny.”

  “I figured England but there is something else in the letter later on,” Jake pointed at bottom of the letter. Johnny continued to read.

  In December, a call went out for volunteers to train for the (blacked out). Wally Carter, my assistant squad leader and me volunteered. I couldn’t help myself. In February, about 175 of us, officers and enlisted, went to (blacked out) for training. It was the toughest training we ever had at the hands of the (blacked out) commandos who survived the (blacked out) raid. If I thought the weather was bad here, I sure was surprised to find out it was worse in (blacked out). I shouldn’t have been surprised because (blacked out) is further north and it has its own rugged mountain country, moors and swamps.

  We drill, practice and train even on our own time. The (blacked out) instructors are really impressed with us. We hope to join the other three (blacked out) battalions in (blacked out) soon so I hope to look you up.

  Harley

  P.S. This is a really tough group of soldiers and we’re even allowed to wear jump boots. Now I know how you feel.

  Johnny handed the letter back to Jake. He deliberated for a moment. “He was in England for sure and trained in Scotland. I think he trained under British Commandos, veterans of the Dieppe Raid and he expects to be here in North Africa soon.”

  “Right,” answered Jake, “but to join three battalions of…who…what?”

  “Rangers. Your cousin joined Darby’s Rangers.”

  Jake smiled. “Well I’ll be...”

  Just then the red light went on and the twin radial engines strained to lift the Skytrain to jump altitude. Copping stood up and went through the hand signals and the men followed with practiced precision. When the equipment check was completed, Copping stood in the door. The stick crammed together tightly, supporting each other against the turbulence-rocked plane and awaited the green light.

  The light turned green and Copping was immediately out the door. The rest of the eighteen-man stick shuffled quickly to the door and out. There was no hesitation. They spilled out into the night in less than twelve seconds.

  Jake was the last man out. He held his breath and his parachute deployed and mushroomed open with a loud slap. The opening shock was hard and violent. For a moment it seemed to lift him upward and back toward the plane. Jake immediately knew something was wrong. He was swinging rapidly back and forth and out of control. His effort to pull on one riser and spill some air was in vain. The turbulent wind had him in its grip and tossed him wildly like a weight on a clock pendulum. He knew this would be a blind crash landing. Jake gritted his teeth and pulled hard on the risers with both hands. He hit the hard-baked dirt backwards and crashed hard into the sandy, rock-strewn desert. The wind kept his parachute inflated and dragged him along the ground. Pulling his safety knife from his right shoulder scabbard, he cut the right riser strap. Before he could cut the left riser, his chute dragged him struggling and twisting head first into a basketball-sized boulder. As he was being dragged he switched the safety knife into his right hand and cut the left riser. At last he was free from the deadly grip of his parachute.

  Jake rose slowly to his feet while checking for broken bones and other injuries. Aside from the large scrape on his left arm, which tore a huge hole in his tunic sleeve, he seemed to be okay. Sky ran up to him.

  “You all right, Jake?” he asked. “Where’s your chute?”

  Jake held up the cut strap. “Probably halfway to Egypt by now.”

  “I know,” answered Sky. “Can you believe this freakin’ wind?” Sky looked around the drop zone. “And look at this, big boulders all over the place. I don’t think they were supposed to drop us here. They couldn’t have found a worse place!”

  Johnny limped over joining Jake and Sky. He too had been dragged along the ground. The three men looked out over the landscape and in the bright moonlight could clearly see the ghastly scene before them. All over the drop zone the boys were being hurled by the wicked surface winds and slammed into the ground. Troopers were wildly scattered as far as the eye could see. Many were struggling with their windblown parachutes while others were lying lifeless on the rubble-strewn ground. There was no effort to roll up the stick or to consolidate the force. The boys were too busy helping injured buddies. When the drone of the transport planes faded into the night, the cries and groans of the injured could be clearly heard from all directions.

  Medics arrived on the scene. Ambulances soon began arriving to pick up the immobile soldiers and move them to the field hospital. Even those who could move on their own were badly battered and bruised. Oujda had not been kind to the 82nd Airborne ever since they arrived but the training drop on the night of 5 June was an unmitigated disaster for the 3rd Battalion of the 505th.

  The trucks had brought the entire battalion back from the drop zone to the bivouac area. Sergeant Copping handed Johnny Kilroy a holstered .45-caliber pistol Model 1911A1 and the keys to a jeep parked outside his squad tent. “Take the captain to regiment, Johnny. I’ve got a mess to deal with here.”

  “Right, Sarge,” Johnny strapped on the holster as he walked to the jeep. Sitting in the front seat was Captain Daniel B. McIlvoy Jr., the chief medical officer of the 3rd Battalion.

  “Evening, Doc. We’ll get you right there, hubba-hubba,” Johnny drove the jeep slowly up the company street between the eight man pyramid tents. Doc said nothing, quietly staring out to the east and the sunrise. In less than five minutes, the jeep was pulling up outside Gavin’s tent. Doc McIlvoy entered the tent while Johnny shut off the engine and waited.

  “Doc, come in. Sit down,” Gavin motioned to a folding chair. The tent was spartan with just a folding table in the center and a few chairs surrounding it.

  McIlvoy sat down and pulled out a small pad from his breast pocket. He said nothing while Gavin slid some papers to the side and closed the maps he was studying.

  “What’s the damage from the Third Battalion drop?” asked Gavin. He had reports that high winds had scattered the drop resulting in injuries.

  Doc McIlvoy hesitated. He had something to say and getting face time with the busy colonel was a rare opportunity. He decided to take advantage and get a load off his chest.

  “Eleven hundred men jumped last night and the casualties were higher than they ought to have been. We’ve been here only four weeks and we won’t last another three at this rate.”

  “Is that a medical opinion, Doc? Or a comment on the hard training?”

  “Medical opinion only, sir. The boys have been coming down with malaria and dysentery at an alarming rate. It’s almost an epidemic. Most of them have diarrhea and pretty soon every one will have it. They’re not sleeping and not getting enough to eat or drink and can’t hold down what little they do get to eat. They’re dehydrated most of the time and they’re all losing weight and strength. Soon they’ll be just a shadow of the unit you trained and brought here. You should have seen the jump. The wind was pushing them around like rag dolls. They’re losing their strength and their edge.”

  Gavin pondered the report. He had been driving the Oh-five hard since inception because he believed discipline and harsh
training would harden his troops and provide them the best chance at defeating the enemy and surviving. “What would you have me do?” he asked.

  “The conditions are not sanitary here,” Doc McIlvoy continued as if he had not heard the colonel. “The heat is inhumanly oppressive, the men can’t sleep or shower, the bugs are all over them, and in their food. This place is a cesspool. Who picked it anyway?”

  Gavin smiled. “General Ridgway picked it because it’s out of range of Italian and German bombers. Should we go tell him he screwed up?”

  McIlvoy composed himself. “No, sir. But we have to take the conditions here into consideration or you won’t have a regiment left that’s fit for combat when you’re ready to fight.”

  “I’m hearing pretty much the same from the other battalion surgeons. I’ll ask again, Doc, what would you have me do?”

  McIlvoy looked at his pad. He had previously jotted down some notes. “The men need to eat better, sir. You have to get more and better food to them. They also need to be hydrated more so I suggest you ease up on the water discipline. The officers need to make sure the men take their Atabrine tablets religiously.” McIlvoy was referring to the medicine prescribed to prevent malaria that some of the men refused to take because of false rumors the medication rendered them sterile or impotent. “Finally, sir, if there is any way you can avoid mass night jumps like last night,” McIlvoy hesitated, “well, sir, you can avoid the casualties.”

  “What were the casualties?” Gavin asked again.

  “Two dead, sir. Fifty-three men with broken bones who won’t be returning to duty anytime soon and hundreds more with various bumps and bruises who refuse to come to sick call.”

  Gavin stared at McIlvoy open mouthed. “Two dead?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. He would write those letters to the next of kin. He would always write the letters. It made every loss suffered under his command a personal loss. He never wanted his casualties to become impersonal statistics lest he lose his sense of value for human life. Two letters to write and he hadn’t even led his men into combat yet.

  Before McIlvoy could say anything else, Gavin focused himself, reached for a pad and started jotting down notes. “We’ll only be here a few more weeks, Doc. I can do something about the food, water and medication. The pilots still need more training but we don’t have to risk paratroopers in mass drops to do that.” Gavin looked at McIlvoy. “Is there anything else?”

  “No, sir. Thank you, sir.” Gavin’s tone signaled the end of the meeting. McIlvoy stood up, saluted and exited the tent.

  Johnny was sitting in the driver’s seat when Doc McIlvoy came out of the tent. The sky was cloudless, clear blue and the sun was up over the distant hills. It promised to be another scorching hot day.

  “Take me to the field hospital, Private,” he ordered. “I have a lot of patients to see.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kairouan, Tunisia, North Africa - July 9, 1943

  “The more darkness in night attacks hinders and impedes the sight,

  the more must one supply the place of actual vision by skill and care.”

  Scipio Africanus (236 BC - 184 BC)

  The paratroopers of Jake’s squad were lined up at the doorway of their dark green C-47 Skytrain preparing to load up. Their plane was one of 226 transports scattered among twelve new airfields recently gouged out of the Tunisian hardscrabble. The sun was low in the western sky as the boys began to climb up the narrow aluminum ladders that hung from the doors of the planes.

  If all went according to plan, they would drop near midnight, by the waning light of the full moon, and attack their targets shortly after moonset. Wherever it was they were going, it could never be as dreadful as North Africa. Jake and Johnny were ready to jump into Hades itself while Danny kept repeating, “Where the hell are we going?”

  General Matthew B. Ridgway moved his 82nd Airborne Division from Oujda to Kairouan in the beginning of July. Everyone sensed they were getting close to their first combat jump.

  Upon arrival at Kairouan they pitched their tent city in the shade of pear and almond trees, which protected them from the brutal July desert sun that often pushed temperatures to 125 degrees. The trees also offered some concealment from the prying eyes of Axis reconnaissance planes. An occasional romp in the surf of the nearby Mediterranean substituted for showers and cooled them from the ever-present hot, dry desert siroccos.

  Ridgway desperately wanted to deliver his entire division in one airlift. There simply weren’t enough transports because General Dwight D. Eisenhower allocated some of the American C-47 Skytrains to the British. Ridgway was forced to cobble together a Regimental Combat Team under Colonel James M. Gavin. The 3,400 troopers in the 505th RCT would be the first Americans to take the fight to the continent of Europe. The jump was scheduled for the night of 9 July. The remaining battalions of the 504th PIR would be flown in the next night.

  Gavin was true to his word to Doc McIlvoy. Immediately after their discussion, he increased the food and water rations and enforced the Atabrine tablet discipline. He still trained the men hard but mostly at night out of the scorching heat of the day. There were no more mass practice drops. Casualties from training accidents went to near zero. The 82nd Airborne was slowly recovering from the depths of depravity it suffered in Oujda and morale began to rise. The 505th was a proud unit with tremendous espirit de corps. They were once again becoming the physically and mentally tough fighting machine Gavin had envisioned.

  A few days before the jump, each company was brought into a large tent to study their objectives. The Allies planned a sea borne landing along a one hundred mile stretch of the southern coast of Sicily. The British Eighth Army under General Montgomery - four divisions, an independent brigade and a commando force - would land on the southeast coast of Sicily on a forty-five mile front ending near the port city of Syracuse.

  The Seventh Army, under General Patton, would land near the seacoast towns of Scoglitti and Gela. The first American amphibious wave of the 1st “Big Red One”, 3rd “Rock of the Marne” and 45th “Thunderbird” Infantry Divisions and Lieutenant Colonel William O. Darby’s 1st, 3rd and 4th Ranger Battalions would spearhead the sea borne invasion.

  The airborne assault, codename Husky One for the American effort and Ladbroke for the British drop, was designed to buy the sea borne element sufficient time to build up adequate forces on the beachheads. The paratroopers would accomplish this by seizing the high ground inland above the town of Gela and controlling the roads inland from the beaches.

  Gavin’s greatest concern was the flight to the drop zones. In order to avoid flying over the invasion fleet, the planes would navigate a circuitous route looping around the convoy of ships. This lengthened the flight time to more than three hours. To avoid detection they would fly only a few hundred feet above the sea. These factors were daunting enough to the most experienced aircrews and Gavin knew the pilots who would ferry his troops were mostly green and inexperienced. Even though there were no alternatives, it still gave him sleepless nights.

  Captain Louis Wolff’s Item Company had been designated for a special mission. He gathered his troopers around a covered sand table. Behind the table, hanging on the wall was a large blurry blowup of a reconnaissance photo. In front of the photograph, standing on a low platform, was the unpopular CO of the 3rd Battalion, Major Edward C. Krause. He earned the nickname “Cannonball” for his gruff manner and fiery temper.

  Wolff joined Major Krause in front of the aerial photo. Krause spoke first. “Before I let Captain Wolff brief you on your mission, I want to remind you this battalion is made up of the toughest bad asses in the army. You’re going to go in amongst them and stack bodies!”

  The boys listened in silence. Krause continued. “Intelligence tells us there are no German combat units and no heavy tanks.” This information was important to the paratroopers. Being light infantry, they were particularly vulnerable to heavy armor. They did carry a rocket launcher, called a “baz
ooka”, a light, portable anti-tank weapon, but the paratroopers never seemed to have enough rockets for it. Besides, they knew the bazooka could not stop the heaviest German tanks.

  “We’ll be landing and assembling after dark. The challenge is ‘George’, the response is ‘Marshall’,” Krause explained.

  “Who’s that?” Dom Angelo chuckled. The whole company broke up in laughter. Everyone knew that General George Marshall was the Chief of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the military and President Roosevelt’s right hand man on matters pertaining to the War.

  Krause continued. “Very cute! Now pay attention! Item Company has been assigned a detached special mission. You men will be dropped on a different target than the rest of the battalion. I’ll let your company commander brief you.” With that, Krause stepped off of the platform and gave way to Captain Wolff.

  Wolff snapped the tarp off of the sand table. He used a long wooden pointer to direct attention to locations carved into the sand. “We are tasked with the mission of reducing this pillbox complex at this road junction. Then we hold this road junction until relieved.” He moved the pointer from the sand table to the blurred blowup of the photo and back. A murmur arose from the group as the troopers in front crowded closer. The targets were arranged exactly like the mock-ups they had repeatedly attacked in training.

  Before Wolff could continue, Sky spoke up. “Captain, are those ridges on both sides of the drop zone to scale?” The drop area for the entire company was in a narrow valley between two high ridgelines at the western end of a large lake. The paratroopers looked around at one another. They instinctively understood this narrow drop zone would be difficult to find at night.