“Thank you, sir. But I’m afraid I might have made of mess of things.”
“How’s that, son?” West was barely older than most of his men but often used that term.
“Well, sir, technically I’m AWOL. I just packed up my stuff, and walked out of the hospital last night. Hitched a ride here. Heard rumors you were about to leave this beautiful island and make another jump. I didn’t want to be left behind. I’d rather be with the fellas.”
There was no official policy to return soldiers to their original units after they recovered from wounds. They were sent to a replacement depot, called a “repple depple” by the GIs. Once there, they would be assigned to any outfit that had a need. This misguided policy was a huge morale-killer. It irritated and aggravated every soldier who wanted to rejoin his old outfit. The instances of paratroopers going AWOL from army hospitals to rejoin their units were epidemic in the weeks immediately following the invasion.
“I’ll take care of it,” West smiled. There were other cases and he had orders from Colonel Sink to protect those paratroopers who went AWOL to return to their unit and make it right with the army. “No firing squad for you, Johnny. You’ll just have to face Jerry like the rest of us.”
“Thank you, sir,” Johnny replied with sincere appreciation.
The group dispersed, West heading immediately to the company headquarters to administratively rescue yet another faux deserter from the clutches of the Provost Marshal.
Johnny carefully lay down on the bunk on his stomach.
Johnny looked at Jake. “I saw Sky. He came to visit in the hospital.”
“How’s he doing? I ran into him and the old outfit at Sainte-Mere-Eglise on D-Day.”
“He’s doing fine. They want to make him an officer.”
“Good for him. He’ll make a great officer.” Jake reflected for a moment. “Remember back in jump school when he jumped in between us and saved your life?” Jake joked.
“Yeah, took a lot of guts. He could have gotten you and him killed.” Johnny smiled at the exaggeration. “Good man. Wish he was with us.”
They sat quietly for a few moments, Jake arranging his gear and Johnny trying to get comfortable on the cot. Jake broke the silence.
“Jeez, Yank! Why’d you come back? You had a ticket home.”
Johnny took a deep breath. “Couldn’t do it, brother. Not with you and the rest of the boys still fighting here.” Johnny put his head down. “I wanted to, believe me. My biggest fear is dying before I see my son and not being able to raise him and take care of him.” Johnny lifted his head. There were tears in his eyes. “But I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I left you and the boys. Besides, I have to make sure my son’s godfather gets home,” Johnny smiled.
“Well, you don’t look like you’re in such good shape to me,” Jake chided.
Johnny jerked his thumb over his prone shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I just need a little time to heal.” He broke into a big grin. “It’s painful to sit down.”
Jake laughed. “Well, I guess if I want to make sure I have a best man when we get home, I’ll just have to take care of your sorry ass.”
“No pun intended,” Johnny added.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Newport News, Virginia - September 1, 1944
“The heart has its reason of which the mind knows nothing.”
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
Nora Lee stepped off the bus and into the inky black fumes that spewed from its exhaust as it pulled away. No need to be annoyed, she thought. She was coming home from work, after a double shift on the drill press and was wearing her scrubby denims and wrinkled shirt. It was only when she was all decked out and perfumed up for a date that those bus fumes really drove her crazy. She began to walk toward the apartment.
Nora Lee loved Hilton Village and always enjoyed the walk from the bus stop. The village was built in World War I to provide housing for the shipbuilders and their families. It was modeled after a typical early-English village. The houses were styled after the Jacobethan and Colonial revival designs of the time. There were over a dozen variations of size, color and style randomly scattered. Some of the houses were sheathed with stucco and others with shingles or clapboards. The steeply pitched slate roofs were styled in both gambrel and gable. It never ceased to amaze Nora that she would notice something new about the houses of the quaint village each time she walked to and from the bus stop. She was thoroughly enjoying her stroll home on this cool, brisk late summer afternoon.
The Western Union bike rider broke her daydream. He was coming in her direction. The other women on the steps of the houses were familiar with him. They kept shouting as he passed by. “Keep on going!” “Don’t stop here you little shit!” “Move along!” The solemn rider always had a grim look on his face as he peddled his bike, head down with the brim of his policeman-style cap pulled low over his eyes. The basket attached to the handlebars was full of dark yellow envelopes. His brownish tan uniform lent some official bearing to his rather undesirable job of delivering bad news to the families of fighting men. As he drew nearer to her, peddling furiously to the negative chants of angry citizens, Nora added her insults to the chorus.
“Keep on going that way, bastard!” Nora threw her thumb over her shoulder in a hitchhiker gesture.
He lifted his head ever so slightly to look at her as he churned his legs faster. His shoulders were hunched as if he expected to be hit with flying debris. There was a look of dread in his eyes. The volume of telegrams had increased considerably since D-Day. The paper torrent of heartbreak had hardly let up since the casualty reports started pouring in and the young delivery boy had been busy and stressed.
Nora immediately felt guilty and somewhat ashamed for adding to his anxiety. Poor Boy. He’s only doing his job. But there was something else about the look in his eyes. It was more than just anxiety. She studied the mental picture of his face and suddenly realized the look he gave her was dread mixed with recognition. He knew where she lived!
She immediately started running. The little bastard delivered a damn telegram to my apartment. She turned the corner, came to her apartment and bounded up the steps, tripping in her haste. She pushed through the outer door and up the stairs. The apartment door was ajar and she saw Macie sitting on a kitchen chair, her face in one hand and a tear stained crunch of telegram paper squashed in the other.
“Oh, no…Sweetie,” Nora moaned softly. “No!”
Nora dropped to her knees and embraced Macie who reached out and hugged her tightly. Macie was shaking and trying to catch her breath. They sobbed together silently for a few minutes until Macie finally stopped shaking. Nora pulled up a chair and put her arm around Macie’s neck in a soft embrace. She held her face cheek to cheek with Macie’s and tasted her bitter, salty tears.
After a few minutes Nora asked, “What’s it say?”
Macie held up her fist and Nora gently peeled back the fingers that had compacted the telegram. With one hand she struggled to flatten the crumpled paper on her knee while still holding Macie in her other arm. She finally spread it out enough to be able to read it. She blinked through her own tear filled eyes in an effort to focus.
The bold letters at the top read WESTERN UNION. Directly beneath the oversized letters read A. N. Williams, President. What am I reading? She scolded herself silently and ignored the instruction blocks on either side of the top of the telegram as well as the coding strip across the center of the page.
MISS MACIE VANCE
819 PALEN AVENUE HAMPTION, VA
THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO INFORM YOU THAT PRIVATE JOHN KILROY WAS REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION ON OR ABOUT 6 JUNE 1944 IN THE EUROPEAN THEATRE OF OPERATIONS. WHEN FURTHER INFORMATION IS RECEIVED YOU WILL BE INFORMED.
L MCNAIR COMMANDING GENERAL
ARMY GROUND FORCES
“Oh, God,” Nora murmured softly. She threw the telegram on the kitchen table and sniffled. “Macie, this is awful. I’m so sorry!”
�
�He’s gone, Nora. I know it.” Macie dried her tears with a soaked handkerchief. She was breathing better now, still labored but without the violent involuntary shakes and shudders.
Nora gathered herself “I’d love to give you some hope, Sweetie, but this is not good.” She waved the telegram. “Take it from me. False hope is the worst punishment you can put yourself through. I wish I would have moved on sooner.”
Macie nodded. She understood. Slowly, her breathing steadied and a strange calm settled over her. “I got a letter the other day from Mrs. Gillaspie in Bedford. She wrote that on a Sunday in July, the Western Union operator in Green’s Drug Store signed on and got a message from the regional office in Roanoke simply saying ‘We have casualties’. She then started receiving the telegrams addressed to the boys’ next of kin. Day after day more telegrams would come in with more names of the dead. Over twenty of our hometown boys killed on D-Day. She wrote me some of the names. I knew so many of them. Too many killed. D-Day was a nightmare for our small town.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “I haven’t received a letter from Jake since before the invasion. I know Jake didn’t survive. I just know it.”
“You’re probably right and I’m so sorry for you.” Nora hesitated. “This may sound cold, and I don’t mean it to be, but you have to be practical.” Nora paused, searching for the right words. “You still have Derek and I wouldn’t let him get away if I were you. Now let’s wash your face and clean you up. You’ve cried enough for one day.”
Macie had been in a confused state of panic until Nora came home. Nora’s advice made sense and pushed Macie over the edge. She called Derek and he arrived just as Macie finished cleaning herself up.
“We’re going for a walk,” Macie declared to both of them as she grabbed Derek’s arm and hustled him out the door.
They walked down to the street toward the waterfront in silence. All Derek knew was Macie had received bad news about Jake. He didn’t want to press her for information and judging by the grip she held on his arm, she needed someone to lean on at that moment. That was fine with him. He would gladly be there for her. Derek had long ago fallen hopelessly in love with Macie and would do whatever she needed him to do.
They walked quietly through Riverfront Park and along the waterfront. The sun was low and the sea breeze was soft and cool. The only sounds were the lapping of the waves, the caw of the seagulls and the distant warning gongs of the buoys.
She stopped at the railing and looked out over the busy river traffic. “Derek, I need to ask you something.”
“Sure, Macie.”
“Remember when you told me you would be there for me if anything happened to Jake?”
Derek stiffened. He certainly remembered that awkward conversation. For over a year he had buried that embarrassing moment in the deep recesses of his memory. He recalled feeling like a vulture circling over dead remains. She had given him a look of deep disappointment. Or maybe he just imagined it because he was so ashamed of himself. He never mentioned that conversation again and was delighted she never did either. And now it was she who brought it up again.
“Yes, I remember, Macie.”
“Did you mean it?” She turned from gazing out over the water and looked directly into his eyes. “I mean do you still feel that way?”
Derek nodded. “Yes, I meant it. And I still do.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. “Thanks, Derek. That's all I needed to know."
Chapter Fifty-Five
Zon, Holland - September 17, 1944
“The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.”
Lieutenant General George S. Patton (1885 - 1945)
“There it is!” First Lieutenant Frank West, CO of 2nd Platoon, Headquarters Company, held the binoculars to his eyes and aimed them along the Wilhelmina Canal toward the 150 foot highway bridge that spanned it. He was in a concealed position along the north bank and had a good view of the span. Jake was lying beside him in the shrubbery and Johnny was slightly behind both of them. The woods were silent save for the chirping of birds and the hum of insects and there was no enemy activity on or around the bridge. They just may have caught the Germans by surprise.
The main objective of the airborne invasion of Holland was to outflank the Siegfried Line and sneak into Germany through the back door. This opportunity presented itself during the latter stages of the battle of Normandy.
While the airborne forces were withdrawn to England to rest and refit, German resistance on the Continent stiffened. On 25 July, Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley’s United States Twelfth Army Group had finally succeeded in breaking out of the lodgment and cutting off the Cotentin Peninsula at Avranches. The Allies were finally moving after weeks of stalemate in hedgerow country. General Patton’s Third United States Army was activated on 1 August and he exploited the wide, flat plain to attack and push back German forces.
On 7 August, the Germans initiated an ill-advised counterattack intended to drive a wedge between the American and British armies. The assault was halted near the town of Mortain. This German force of twenty-one divisions, thrust deeply into Allied lines like a probing finger, was now vulnerable on both flanks. Bradley proposed an aggressive plan to surround them.
Patton’s Third Army attacked northward and the Canadian First Army attacked southward. They planned to meet near the town of Argentan. Patton reached his objective on 12 August but heavy resistance held up the Canadians near the town of Falaise. The Germans fought tenaciously to keep a small gap open at the eastern end of the Falaise Pocket, the name the Allies gave to the area of nearly encircled Germans. The Germans called it the Kessel, the Cauldron.
It was 20 August before the Falaise Gap was finally sealed shut. An estimated 50,000 German troops were captured and over 10,000 were killed in the pocket. In spite of the overwhelming victory, 30,000 German soldiers escaped to fight another day. They abandoned most of their equipment and made their way back to Germany using horses, carts, bicycles or on foot. Anyone seeing this raggedy column of dirty, dusty beaten soldiers might have concluded the War was over. They would have been wrong. This defeated rabble of an army would reconstitute into a stubborn fighting force. The Allies considered their escape from the Falaise Pocket a lost opportunity. The Germans called it the “Miracle of the West”.
As summer unfolded, the Allies experienced more remarkable victories. On 15 August, Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France on the Mediterranean coast, was successfully launched. On 25 August, Paris was liberated. On 3 September, Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group liberated Brussels, Belgium and Antwerp the next day. The successes were continuous and equally dizzying. The German army had lost over 500,000 men and 2,200 tanks and was on the verge of collapse. In all of this success, Eisenhower still had a significant problem. He had forty-nine divisions on the Continent organized into four Allied Armies and they had all out-distanced their supply lines. Feeding, fueling and arming a fighting force of this size would have been an extraordinary challenge under the best of circumstances. But the Allies had yet to capture a deep-water port and were forced to supply these armies primarily over the Normandy Beach more than 400 miles from the front lines. Despite the Herculean efforts of the Red Ball drivers, who operated their trucks around the clock, there simply was not enough transport to feed and fuel all of the armies. Eisenhower had to prioritize his offensive or it would stall along the entire front.
General Montgomery, promoted to Field Marshall on 1 September, presented an idea to Ike to end the War quickly. When they met on 10 September in Brussels, Monty explained his audacious plan to lay an airborne carpet of three divisions over Holland and seize five major river crossings. The British Second Army would thrust up this corridor and advance rapidly over the captured bridges. They would breach the lower Rhine at the city of Arnhem sixty-five miles away. Once over the last bridge, they would strike into the industrial Ruhr region of the Third Reich.
Eisenhower was intri
gued. He thought it might be the perfect time for such a bold and daring gamble. Allied forces were chasing the disorganized and dispirited remnants of the German army across France. The Wehrmacht chain of command seemed to be in chaos. Ike was also under pressure from Prime Minister Churchill to take out the launch sites for the new V-2 terror weapon. The Germans started launching the rockets at London on 8 September from western Holland and civilian casualties were high. General Marshall was also pressing Ike to use the newly formed First Allied Airborne Army.
Eisenhower approved the plan and gave Montgomery operational control of the First Allied Airborne Army. He shut down all the other offensives and diverted all air support and supplies to Montgomery. Operation Market-Garden was scheduled for Sunday, 17 September.
The Allies assigned 1,400 bombers to take out anti-aircraft sites along the route, 2,023 transports to haul 20,000 paratroopers and 1,500 fighters to protect them from Nazi interceptors.
The British 1st Airborne Division would be dropped at the end of the line at Arnhem. The “Red Devils” would be supported by the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade to be dropped a day later. Their assignment was to seize the road bridge at Arnhem.
Eleven miles further south the 82nd Airborne Division would seize two huge bridges near Nijmegan. The nine-span 1,500-foot bridge over the Maas River at the city of Grave was assigned to the veteran 504th PIR. The 508th PIR was responsible for capturing the highway and rail bridges over the Waal River. The All-Americans also had to secure a ten mile corridor for the single highway. This was particularly worrisome to Major General James M. Gavin as the road bordered on the Reichswald Forest in Germany proper. The forest was close to his flank and could hide menacing German forces. Gavin had to secure that flank near the town of Groesbeek on a high ridgeline known as Groesbeek Heights. If the Germans succeeded in gaining these heights, their artillery would stop the flow of traffic on the highway. The 505th PIR, Gavin’s most experienced regiment, was assigned the task of seizing and defending Groesbeek Heights.
The Last Jump: A Novel of World War II Page 50