The Last Jump: A Novel of World War II

by John E. Nevola

  “The hypotenuse,” Cynthia chimed in as she lit a cigarette.

  “Right,” Sky continued. Then he took his two open hands and held them edge down and inches apart over the Gela-Niscemi leg. “This was our mission. All of our drop zones were in this corridor. This road complex from Niscemi to Gela had to be blocked to protect the beaches from counterattack. The Y Objective was halfway up this corridor. Thirty-four hundred men were supposed to drop right here and protect the landings at Gela.” Sky paused. “We were lucky if we dropped four hundred in the right place.”

  Frank nodded. The inaccuracies of the Sicily drops were well chronicled.

  “Third Battalion of the Oh-four was scattered mostly too far north and east to do any good. A lot of them became prisoners.” Sky then placed a small pink sugar packet to the south of Vittoria. “The Second Battalion of the Oh-five made a nice, concentrated drop right here. Problem was, they were twenty-five miles away from their drop zone. They made the best of it and took on some of the Forty-fifth division’s objectives.”

  J.P. wondered where this discussion was going but patiently listened to Sky as he became more and more animated as the story unfolded.

  “Most of Third Battalion under Cannonball Krause scattered and dropped over ten miles southeast of their drop zone,” Sky pointed to the middle of the triangle. “All except us. We hit our DZ dead on. That left First Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Gorham. Most of his battalion landed in the British sector,” Sky pointed to his left over to the next table. “But ‘Hardnose’ Gorham collected a few hundred paratroopers and stopped the Germans cold as they came down the corridor. Then he skillfully withdrew south, took Objective Y and held it until the First Division came up.” Sky pointed to a spot halfway up the leg of the triangle. “Hardnose was a great leader who accomplished the mission of the entire regiment with a few hundred men. He bought it a few days later. Won the DSC posthumously.”

  “What about Colonel Gavin?” J.P. asked.

  “He landed with a group of headquarter types over thirty miles away from where he was supposed to be.” Sky motioned to the edge of their table. “Boy, was he pissed. Took him almost two days to get back in the fight.”

  “And my dad and your squad?”

  “Captain Wolff sent our squad out with walkie-talkies to locate the rest of our battalion and report back to him. We had a pretty good idea where they were by then so our squad marched back to the beach and then east and headed for a town called Biscari about halfway between Niscemi and Vittoria on the…hypotenuse.” Sky smiled at Cynthia as he placed a peppershaker at that point. “A road led south out of Biscari to where we were supposed to find our battalion.”

  “Did you find them?”

  Sky reached for Cynthia’s ashtray with a smoking cigarette still burning and placed it in the middle of the right triangle. “We never made it to Biscari but we sure found Cannonball and Third Battalion. And Gavin found them too. At a place called Biazza Ridge.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Biazza Ridge, Sicily - July 11, 1943

  “To act in concert with a great man is the first of blessings.”

  Marquis de Lafayette (1757 - 1834)

  “Fix bayonets!”

  The order was unsettling and reverberated up and down the long thin skirmish line of kneeling soldiers. The men snapped their razor-sharp ten-inch bayonets onto their rifles with the audible clicks of metal on metal and waited for the order to charge up and over the crest of the ridge. The Charge of the Light Brigade, thought Johnny Kilroy.

  This group was made up of paratrooper stragglers from various units and some infantrymen from the 45th Infantry Division. Colonel Gavin assembled this mixed bag of troops in one last desperate effort to hold Biazza Ridge. They awaited Gavin’s order to attack.

  A few days before, Gavin would have never predicted he’d be leading his men in a battle that would decide the fate of the entire invasion. He and a few of his staff had been dropped over thirty miles southeast of their drop zone. Without a radio they had no communications and no idea where they were. He and his small contingent headed west during that first night picking up small groups of similarly lost paratroopers along the way.

  At daybreak on 10 July, while Captain Wolff’s Item Company was taking the pillbox complex after lighting the signal fire above Gela, a frustrated Gavin was holed up in a grove of olive trees waiting for nightfall. It was too dangerous to move in daylight so the small group of rank-heavy paratroopers took turns sleeping and standing watch.

  A disgusted Gavin contemplated his situation. Here he was, CO of a Regimental Combat Team whose mission was essential to the success of the invasion of Sicily, and all he could manage on his first day on the job was to avoid capture.

  Somewhere to the northwest was a raging battle and all he could do was listen. For all he knew, the first mass combat drop of U.S. Army Paratroopers in history had been a total disaster. His mind worked overtime conjuring up all of the worst-case scenarios he could imagine. Were all his men killed or captured? Were his troops scattered all over the island? Not only was it personally appalling for him to be out of contact with his command but also reflected negatively on the airborne doctrine he had so passionately championed.

  After sunset, he and his little entourage moved out, careful to avoid enemy positions while heading toward the sounds of the battle. After the first skirmish, his side-folding butt stock M1A1 Winchester carbine jammed. So did the carbines of many of his staff officers. They moved through the night and by virtue of road signs and information from captured Italian prisoners, eventually located American lines. They were challenged by an outpost of the 45th Infantry Division and just before dawn slipped into the recently captured town of Vittoria. Gavin wasn’t satisfied with simply finding American lines. He still sensed a battle developing ahead and he was determined to get into it. He commandeered a jeep and headed west toward Gela. A few miles down the road he ran into a large group of paratroopers bivouacked in a tomato field and just awakening. Major Krause had collected this force, mostly from his own 3rd Battalion, and was resting them. Whether it was from his own lack of sleep or the lack of aggressiveness displayed by the normally bellicose Krause, Gavin became enraged.

  “What about your objective, Major?”

  “We were dropped off target, sir.” Krause stiffened at the rebuke he knew was coming.

  “Apparently, so was everyone else,” Gavin replied. “What the heck are you doing here?”

  “We assisted the Forty-fifth in capturing the town.” He was referring to Vittoria. “I’ve been collecting stray troopers and supply bundles. I rested my men overnight.”

  Gavin shook his head in disgust. “What’s down that road?” He pointed west along the road to Gela where sporadic gunfire could be heard.

  Krause cleared his throat. “I’m not exactly sure, Colonel, but I have scouts and an OP out that way. There’s a German force down the road but I haven’t been able to determine its size yet. There weren’t supposed to be any Krauts on the island, sir.”

  Gavin ignored the news while glowering at Krause. “Get your men ready to move out, Major. I’m taking a patrol to scout the road west. Move up as soon as you can.”

  Gavin took a platoon of paratrooper engineers west on the Vittoria-Gela Road. Continuing toward the increasingly louder gunfire, the patrol soon rounded a bend and came upon a railroad crossing with a small stone gatehouse.

  The ground rose gradually ahead for half a mile to a ridge about one hundred feet high. On both sides of the road were olive trees and beneath them tall burnt brown grass that provided some concealment but little cover. Through his field glasses Gavin could see Germans dug in on the ridge and firing in their direction. He reached into his map case and studied the map. Directly on the other side of the ridge was the north-south road from Biscari. If the Germans attacked down that road they would drive a wedge between the 1st and 45th Infantry Divisions and split the American forces. This was a golden opportunity for them to d
estroy the two American divisions and defeat the landings. Gavin knew intuitively he had to take and hold that ridge to interdict any German force heading toward the beach. Biazza Ridge suddenly became a commanding piece of terrain and critical to the success of the invasion. What he didn’t know was that a potent German armored column was already attacking southward from Biscari toward the beaches. Gavin was about to unknowingly attack the flank of this powerful force with a handful of light infantry.

  It was mid morning before the remaining paratroopers of the 3rd Battalion joined his small patrol of engineers and they assaulted the ridge with the fire and maneuver tactics they had so often practiced. A few hundred paratroopers attacked through the stands of olive trees across a broad front in the face of withering machine gun fire. The ripping sound of the German Maschinengewehr 42 machine gun, called the MG-42 by the GIs, was as distinctive as it was deadly. The rate of fire was so high, 1,200 rounds per minute, that it was impossible to distinguish one shot from the next. The German machine-gunners spewed their deadly waves of bullets at the advancing paratroopers, shredding tree limbs and cutting leaves from their branches. Paratroopers eventually moved around the flanks forcing the Germans on the ridge to withdraw.

  Although the enemy withdrew in good order, Gavin’s small force gave chase. While he believed he was spoiling a German attack by pricking at the column’s flanks, he actually ran head on into a frontal attack by a German battle group called a Kampfgruppe. The German commander had felt the pressure on his left flank and changed his attack plan. Instead of continuing toward the beach, he turned to face the new threat. This new plan of attack would aim his heavily armored tank column directly at the lightly armed paratroopers on Biazza Ridge.

  Captain Wolff summoned Lieutenant Klee on the afternoon of 10 July. He ordered Klee to take a small patrol east to find Major Krause and the rest of the 3rd Battalion

  Klee set out with Johnny and Jake Kilroy, Joe Boothe, Dominic Angelo, Danny Peregory, Sky Johnson and Sergeant Bruce Copping. The small patrol made it to a supply depot. There Jake replenished his B-A-R ammo with two twelve magazine belts. The extra thirty-six pounds on top of his eighteen-pound weapon convinced him he would have to rid himself of the B-A-R at his first opportunity. Let someone else haul the squad automatic weapon around next time.

  The men stocked up on water and K-rations. Each K-ration box came with one day’s supply of 3,000 calories broken into three meals. The main food for each meal was sealed in a small metal can. The variety was sparse and men quickly tired of meat and vegetables, meat and beans or meat and eggs. Canned cheese, a fruit bar and some candy were also included along with drink packets of lemonade or instant coffee. Some toilet paper, waterproof matches, a flat spoon, dried biscuits, cigarettes, gum, sugar and a can opener rounded out the package.

  The patrol moved out along the railroad tracks in single file and in silence until nightfall. After they crossed the Acate River on the railroad bridge, Klee ordered the men to catch a few hours sleep in shifts. Most had been awake for over forty hours and were bone-tired. They continued their eastbound search before dawn on 11 July but were pushed south toward the coast by the sounds of a battle straight ahead. A German force heading south from Biscari was pressing the 45th Division. Klee found a company CP. The officers told him about a group of paratroopers assembling west of Vittoria on the east-west Vittoria-Gela road. Klee headed southeast toward Scoglitti and then turned northeast to intersect the road.

  The patrol approached the road by mid-afternoon. The closer they got, the louder the sound of battle. They had stumbled upon a full-fledged firefight. They ran into Major William Hagan, 3rd Battalion XO, conferring with Colonel Gavin. They were summarily ordered to join the skirmish line. The men took positions just off of the Vittoria-Gela road that bisected the eastern and western slopes of Biazza Ridge. They would take part in the last desperate counterattack Gavin was planning to avoid losing the ridge and the beachhead.

  All during the day, the force Gavin had sent over the ridge in the morning had been in a wild fight. Their initial charge had removed the Germans from the top of the ridge but as the paratroopers swept down the western side they were exposed to heavy mortar and artillery fire. They went to ground and tried to dig in but the hard shale was unforgiving and the earth surrendered only shallow holes. Despite these challenges, the paratroopers fought hard and kept pressing the Germans with fire and movement. It was a seesaw battle for most of the day, both sides giving and taking as circumstances created opportunities that were both seized and lost. Casualties began streaming back over the ridge to the hastily established aid station near the gatehouse. Minor wounds were quickly treated and the men were sent back into action. The more seriously wounded were hauled back to the field hospital in Vittoria.

  On the western side of the ridge the battle began to go badly. German Mark VI Tiger tanks had arrived on the scene in force and were making their presence felt. The high-pitched supersonic fire from their 88-millimeter guns echoed across the battlefield. They shredded the stone walls of farmhouses and the trees in the olive groves and kept the infantrymen hugging the dirt in their shallow holes. Occasionally, small teams of men maneuvered their M1A1 Rocket Launchers into firing position only to see their 2.36-inch bazooka rockets bounce harmlessly off the frontal armor of the Tigers. Some bazooka teams maneuvered to the rear of the tanks to score effective hits but were vulnerable to German infantry when they did so. Other troopers disabled the tanks with hits on the treads or bogey wheels. But once they gave away their position with the bazooka’s large back blast and smoke signature, German infantry and armor pounced on them. They became the most hunted men on the battlefield with Tigers firing both their machine guns and main guns at individual soldiers. It was raw flesh against cold steel and only the continued forceful attacks and fire and movement of the paratroopers kept the superior enemy force from overrunning their position. The aggressiveness of the paratroopers confused the superior German force. On more than one occasion during that hot day, the Tigers actually retreated to regroup and re-arm giving the besieged paratroopers a brief respite.

  Casualties continued to mount. As more reinforcements trickled in, Gavin committed them to the battle. Two crews from the 456th PFAB, each with a 75-millimeter M1A1 Pack Howitzer, struggled to drag their cannons up the long sloping ridge. Gavin positioned them on the flanks of the ridge where they were able to lay direct fire on the Tiger tanks. The paratrooper artillery crews would disappear from the enemy’s sight by pulling their guns below the crest of the ridge only to emerge in a different place. This grueling cat and mouse game went on for hours until a German 88 knocked out one of the guns. As the remaining artillery piece ran low on shells, the Germans began making grudging headway up the long western slope.

  By late afternoon Gavin was in danger of losing the ridge. He called up an artillery spotter from the navy to secure gunfire support from the ships offshore. At the same time he assembled a force just beneath the crest of the ridge to counterattack the Germans if they made it to the top. The lone remaining towed 75-millimeter cannon was positioned in the center of the line. Gavin’s small force was hanging on by a slim thread.

  Klee and his squad came upon the scene just as Gavin was deploying his last-ditch counterattacking force and were immediately ordered to take positions in the ranks. The boys wished each other luck with pats on the backs and taps on the helmets and slipped into the line.

  Gavin then called for his men on the western slope to withdraw in good order and called in naval gunfire. The five and six inch shells began landing on the western slope. The able-bodied did an about face and joined the skirmish line. There were perhaps a hundred paratroopers across a ninety-yard front preparing to charge. They were all that stood between victory and defeat.

  Gavin paced up and down the center of the line, shouting at the top of his voice, hoping to be heard above the din of the battlefield. “If the tanks break through, we take on the infantry. We do not withdraw. We go in one
direction only. Forward!”

  His officers and NCOs repeated the order up and down the line of grim and determined troopers. For most of these reinforcements, this would be their first combat. Their strong desire to prove themselves and not let each other down overcame their fear. The adrenaline was flowing and their senses were in overdrive. Most of these young boys would never again be as brave as they would be this day. Some would die. Others would suffer devastating injuries. The remaining, having witnessed the wanton and random destruction of their brothers around them, would forever see the world differently. They would become more thoughtful and more careful before they risked their lives again. But on this day they swallowed hard through dry mouths and gripped their rifles with sweaty palms. On this day they would stand tall, grit their teeth, lean into the fire and charge. On this day, boys would become men!

  Johnny stood up with his rifle at port arms and awaited the order. “I didn’t think wars were fought this way anymore,” he shouted to Jake thinking of the long lines of British soldiers and American militiamen in the Revolution.

  “Helluva’ way to fight a war,” Jake agreed as he loosened the sling on his B-A-R and looped it over his shoulder to take some of the weight. Without a bayonet he would move forward firing his B-A-R from the hip.

  The noise was deafening as smoke and dust swirled everywhere near the ridge. Suddenly the artillery barrage stopped. Someone yelled, “Ready, men!”

  The drone of a diesel tank engine and the clanking noise of tank treads could be heard just below the crown of the ridge. The long barrel of the 88-millimeter high velocity gun of a Mark VI Tiger poked its way menacingly over the crest. The airborne artillerymen quickly muscled their howitzer to bore-sight it at the emerging tank. Holding their ears, the crew fired at the vulnerable underbelly and scored a direct hit. The explosion was enormous. The men cheered as the turret flew off and flames and smoke belched from the view slits. The tank seemed to rise in the air a few inches and drop dead in its tracks at the pinnacle of the ridge. Thick black smoke and brilliant flames gushed from the mangled and lifeless vehicle like some slain dragon-monster.