“Why do you suppose they did that?” asked J.P. He was planning to order another bottle of wine.
Frank poked his near empty wine glass up in the air. “I suppose it was because we were aggressive, reliable and tough soldiers. But we were light infantry and poorly equipped for long campaigns. We were highly trained troops with a unique specialty. It took two years to train most of us. There had to be other airborne operations we could have been saved for. Instead, they wasted us as regular infantry when so many others could have done that job.” He gulped the last of the wine in his glass. “This wine is good.”
J.P. nodded and took a long sip from his glass.
Frank wiped his mouth and continued. “And of course there was the Bulge when the Germans counterattacked through the Ardennes and punched a huge hole through our lines. Both American airborne divisions were sent in as regular infantry to stop the Krauts.”
“Bad idea?” asked J.P. He signaled to Andrew for another bottle of wine. If Frank intended to relive the entire War then J.P. would furnish him with plenty of wine and patiently wait for him to slip up.
Frank thought a moment and answered. “In Ike’s defense we were getting our butts kicked. He had no choice but to use us to plug the hole. But after the Bulge we were just a shadow of what we once were. The replacements weren’t as good as the original guys, not nearly as well trained and never fully accepted.”
“What about that other airborne division?” J.P. asked.
“That was the last combat jump for Sky and the boys. He borrowed your father and Jake, called in a few favors, to help train some of his green paratroopers and somehow they wound up making that jump too. I never quite understood how they got involved with Operation Varsity and the Seventeenth Airborne but that made five combat jumps for the three of them. After the surrender Sky transferred back to the All-Americans.”
J.P. considered what Frank had just told him. “I had a feeling Sky had more to tell.”
“Call him,” Frank suggested. “He gave you his number. I know they met in London before D-Day and Jake ran into Sky on D-Day and in Holland. They both saw Sky again at the Bulge and…” Frank hesitated.
“And?” J.P. asked.
“And Sky saw your dad at the victory parade through Manhattan’s ‘Canyon of Heroes’. The entire Eighty-second marched. That was back in forty-six when America was still fiercely proud of its heroes and honored them.”
J.P. reflected a moment. “I have to call him. He definitely has more to tell and I’m pretty sure he’ll talk to me some more.”
“He won’t tell you anything about what you want to know,” Frank warned.
Andrew came over, uncorked the bottle and poured wine into both glasses. J.P. took a sip and looked over the rim of his glass. “It’s just a matter of time before I figure it out.” J.P. smiled. “In the meantime, these are great stories and I’m learning a lot about my father.”
“You may not have as much time as you think.” Frank smiled back. “But I will confess there are two reasons that many of us are talking about our experiences.”
“And they are?”
“Well, first, we’re dying. About a thousand a day, I’m told. We were too humble to talk about the War when we were younger but now I think we fear dying without telling our story. That would dishonor our fallen brothers.”
“That’s a good reason. The other?”
“I fear we’re not teaching our young people enough about the War. They don’t seem to know that much and what they do know appears to be distorted.” Frank took a long pull on his wine and continued. “There is too much revisionist history circulating out there. That’s why I volunteer to visit schools, make speeches, contributed my oral history to the Library of Congress Project.” Frank leaned back in his chair. “I do anything I can so people will remember.”
“Remember the victory?” J.P. asked.
“No, remember the struggle. Remember the price of victory. Remember what our generation had to sacrifice and how we endured it in order to claim victory. Otherwise, without that knowledge and the blueprint for winning, we will collapse as a nation.”
“Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?” J.P. asked.
“I fear for my country, Mister Kilroy.”
“Why is that?”
“We’re losing our greatness. We’re turning to mush. We are going to fall.”
“Really? I don’t agree.”
Frank took a deep breath and sighed. “Throughout history, after a nation rises up to defeat a great threat posed by a powerful enemy, they lose that sense of community sacrifice for the common good. They get selfish and greedy. When the people of a nation demand more from their country than they are willing to give, the nation crumbles.”
“I’m not sure I follow. I don’t think this country will ever fall.”
“I’m sure the Athenians thought the same after they defeated the Persians. They were free, enlightened, contributed much to mankind in government and the arts and sciences. And they fell in less than a hundred years. It took Rome a bit more time to lose their Republic after they defeated the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars. They held on as an empire for many more years but there was little benefit to the people as emperor after emperor drained the treasury trying to placate the masses with public works and entertainment. It took Rome a long time to rot from the inside but they got corrupt and went broke. Other great nations have fallen after their people abandoned the notion of service for the common good and started looking for handouts instead. The Egyptians, Persians, Chinese and most recently the British who at the beginning of this century effectively ruled the world. Today they are just another second rate, socialist country. All the greatness in all these great nations was squeezed out by a sense of greed and entitlement.”
“But those were different times,” J.P. objected although impressed by Frank’s command of history.
“The times were different, Mister Kilroy, but human nature remains the same.” Frank reflected for a moment. “The greatness comes from the giving, from the service, from the sacrifice. It never comes from the taking. Today we are an impatient nation of takers. ‘What can the government do for me?’ We no longer have the stomach for sacrifice and we look down on those who serve.” Frank choked up a little bit. “No, Mister Kilroy, our greatest days are behind us. I’m afraid my generation reached that pinnacle of greatness for this country during the War. We just bought America a little more time. It won’t be long before we fall, less than fifty years. I’m just happy I won’t be around to see it happen.”
“Whew,” J.P. breathed out loud. “That’s still pretty cynical.”
“Look around and pay attention. We’ve kicked God out of our schools and replaced him with feel-good teachers and bullshit history. We’ve become a permissive society without discipline. Personal accountability is gone and we find blame with everyone else for our misfortune. Everything has to be politically correct. Heaven help us if we offend anyone.”
J.P. stared at Frank without responding. There was more than just a little truth in what he was saying. However, in order to learn what he wanted to know, J.P. would have to keep Frank talking in the hope he might get careless and let something slip. That would be the plan for today. He would figure out how to approach Lincoln, Sky and Harley tomorrow.
“How about a nice hot pot of Espresso coffee? We’ll order Sambuca and some biscotti and chat a little while longer?” J.P. had a warm smile on his face. He made the offer sound tempting and inviting.
Frank looked at his watch. “That sounds good to me.”
J.P. signaled Andrew and ordered. The second white wine bottle was still half full. Andrew placed it back into the ice bucket and brought two clean wine glasses. Frank had calmed down by then and seemed a bit less anxious. He was deep in thought. Then his eyes opened wide.
“Mildred Gillars,” he said.
J.P. looked at Frank curiously. “Who?”
“Mildred Gillars. She was Axis Sally. American born. A
rrested after the War and convicted of treason. Served twelve years in prison if I remember right.” Frank seemed pleased with himself for digging that name out of his deep memory. “If that happened today we’d give her a Hollywood contract…if she didn’t already have one.”
“All right then, Frank,” J.P. began, getting back on point. “Tell me some more about dad and his buddy. Let’s start with that bar fight in London that got them both busted.”
Chapter Forty-Three
London, England - May 2, 1944
“The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.”
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)
The official name of the pub was The Queen’s Bazaar but it didn’t take long for the cocky young Americans to corrupt the name to the Queen’s Brassiere. It was a popular watering hole on Archer Street for GIs in London, due to its proximity to Piccadilly Circus. It was just one of the dozens of pubs within walking distance of the famous London Underground.
Nighttime in blacked-out London was always a busy and vibrant place with reckless young people continuously seeking fun and comfort. If they looked to dance the night away, there were favorites such as the Bow and Arrow, Charing Cross, The Cove and Gardens and the huge USO Club. If it was a special meal and ice-cold beer they sought, The American Bar in the Savoy Hotel was the best place in town.
Piccadilly Circus, the Times Square of London’s West End, was not a circus in the conventional sense and the name confused many GIs. Rather, having been derived from the Latin word for circle, it represented a large circular open space at a multiple road junction. The many roads that led into Piccadilly Circus made it one of the busiest intersections in the world. It was a main center for commerce, shopping, sightseeing, pubs and prostitution. The girls of the night were called Piccadilly Lilies or Piccadilly Commandos, depending on one’s experience with them.
With four tube entrances from the London Underground nearby, it was an easy place to get to. It regularly attracted the troops of many nations for the entertainment and distractions it provided. Troops who were massing for the invasion of Europe and who generally behaved as if there were no tomorrow, regularly swarmed Piccadilly Circus. The Queen’s Bazaar, along with the Windsor Dive, were paratrooper favorites.
Jake and Johnny hopped on a two-and-a-half-ton truck, called a “deuce-and-a-half”, for the nine-mile trip from Aldbourne to the nearest rail station in Swindon. From there it was a reasonably comfortable eighty-mile train ride on the Great Western Railway through the English countryside. When they reached London, they saw uniforms from many nations prowling the streets looking for fun or trouble, whichever came first. There were servicemen from the Allied navies of the world, infantry soldiers, tankers, rear echelon clerks, pilots and crewmen from the air forces and stevedores and drivers from the Service of Supply. Almost every branch from every Allied nation was suitably represented in the masses.
The two young paratroopers found the Queen’s Bazaar without difficulty. It was a large pub, crowded with mostly American GIs. Johnny saw shoulder patches from the 1st, 4th and 29th Infantry Divisions as well as the 82nd and 101st. Young English women carted warm pints of Guinness ale in and around the tables through the smoke-filled, loud and boisterous pub. The smell of cigarette smoke and beer made Jake instantly thirsty.
“Hey, Kilroys!” The loud voice from the back of the pub was distinctively Schuyler Johnson. He was standing on a chair waving his arms. The two men picked their way through the crowd and reached the table in a corner near the entrance to the kitchen. Danny Peregory was standing next to Sky. All four men grabbed each other by the shoulders in turn. There were handshakes, bear hugs and gentle slaps. They greeted one another warmly through broad smiles as they examined each other.
“Wow, you’re a sergeant now,” Johnny touched Sky’s new stripes.
“And corporals, you two,” Sky replied. “Just like Danny Boy here.” Sky pointed to Danny’s chevrons. “We must really be getting hard up in this man’s army.” They all laughed and took seats around the table. There were four air crewmen from the 8th Air Force at the next table and two colored soldiers at a small table beyond that one. The colored soldiers were wearing square blue shoulder flashes containing two white interlocking squares that identified them as part of the 2nd Service Command.
Jake sat next to Danny and slapped him again on the shoulder. His memory of sitting next to an enthusiastic Danny Peregory at Fort A.P. Hill evoked a nostalgic feeling of a time before he knew death. It seemed like so long ago.
Jake grabbed Danny by the scruff of the neck and shook him good-naturedly. “It’s great to see you, Danny Boy. How the hell are you?”
Before he could answer a big soldier walked up to the table and put Danny in a light headlock. The soldier looked at Jake and said, “He looks great, don’t he, kid?”
“Harley!” Jake yelled.
Harley let go and Danny popped up out of his seat to hug him. “I thought I recognized you sitting here,” Harley chided Danny. “I wasn’t sure. You looked bigger, older. But when I saw Jake come over, I knew it was you.”
Sky and Johnny watched in amusement as the cousins and friends reunited. Jake introduced Harley and he shook hands all around as they sat down. A fat middle-aged English waitress in a dirty white apron took their orders for pints of ale and some fish and chips and the five young men engaged in conversation.
“What do you hear?” Johnny whispered to Sky.
“Same as you. Normandy or Calais. It doesn’t matter because we’ve been really practicing hard with the Fifty-second Troop Carrier Wing and with our Pathfinders for months. So wherever we drop, we’ll definitely have a tight drop.” Sky cocked his head toward Danny. “Our Danny Boy is a Pathfinder now.”
Everyone at the table looked at Danny. He shrugged his shoulders, a bit embarrassed. “Somebody has to be the first one in.” He leaned forward and whispered, “We have this great equipment, a Krypton light and a Rebecca-Eureka radar transponder system. We set up the Eureka beacon in the drop zone and it tells the Rebecca receiver in the cockpit which way to go. That guides the planes right to the drop zone. Easy peasy. Piece of cake.”
“Right. Assuming they drop you in the right place,” Jake joked.
“We get the best pilots,” Danny responded. “If we can’t find the right drop zone then nobody can and we’re all screwed anyway.”
“How are the boys?” Jake looked at Sky referring to the members of their original squad.
“Well, you know Dom and Boots didn’t make it. Lieutenant Klee got it too. Teddy is doing fine. He was promoted and transferred to Dog Company I think.” Sky was squinting, thinking. “Oh, and Captain Wolff is back from the hospital and is leading Golf Company now. Came back in February.” Sky paused. “We got two new green regiments, Five-oh-seven and Five-oh-eight. The Five-oh-four just got in from Italy. They’re pretty worn down and beat up. The word is they’ll probably sit the big one out. They’re really pissed about that. Looks like the Oh-five will be the only veteran combat regiment to make the big jump.”
Sky paused. A thought seemed to pop into his head. “Say, what the hell happened to you guys in Italy?”
The two men shook their heads. Johnny was the first to speak. “Can’t talk about it, sorry.”
“And you should have two combat stars on your wings, like us.” Sky pointed to Danny and himself. “What’s going on?” Sky was persistent.
“Just another Mickey Mouse army foul-up, Sky,” Jake answered this time. “Someday I’m sure we’ll tell you. But for now, just let it go, please?”
Sky cuffed Jake on the forearm. “So, you guys got nothing to tell us? I guess I can live with that.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” answered Johnny. “I have some news. Rose is in family way. I’m gonna be a father.”
“When is she due?” Harley asked.
“June.”
Sky thought for a moment. “So, you guys got home after Italy?”
“We did, Sky,” Jake answ
ered. “And that’s all you need to know right now.”
Sky flashed a devilish smile. “I can wait to hear the story someday. I’m sure it’s good.”
Just then the waitress brought their pints. Sky picked up a mug and held it high. “Congratulations. Johnny’s gonna be a freakin’ father. Here’s to you.”
The boys clinked their mugs and each took a huge gulp.
Harley looked to Jake. “How’s your new outfit? The Five-oh…what?”
“The Five-oh-six.” Jake paused. “You know how it is, Cuz, they’ve all been together for nearly two years. Same CO. They took basic and jump school together. They call themselves “Toccoa Men”, after the place they trained at. They’re like one huge family. It’s rough for outsiders to break in. We’ll never be as close to them as they are to each other, but that’s all right by us.” Jake looked at Johnny and nodded. “We’re doing all right.”
“What are you doing?” Harley asked.
“Right now we’re jeep drivers. We ferry the brass around since we’re spread out all over Wiltshire County.”
“Jeep drivers?” Harley was surprised.
“Yeah, it’s crazy,” Johnny acknowledged. “But we figure we’ll be plain old infantry when we jump since there won’t be any jeeps waiting for us.” Johnny chuckled at his sarcasm.
Danny touched Harley’s sleeve. “How are the Stonewallers doing?”
“Lotta’ changes,” Harley confessed. “Especially the officers. We got a new commanding general last year. General Gerhardt. Put old Gerow out to pasture somewhere.”
“We got a new CO too.” Jake interjected. “We had a General Lee, which made me feel good,” Jake smiled at Johnny. “Then he gets a heart attack and now we got General Taylor, used to be Eighty-second. He’s got combat experience in Sicily but I’d still rather have a Lee.”
The Last Jump: A Novel of World War II Page 37