Sons and Soldiers

by Bruce Henderson

  He was silent for a moment, then looked at his watch.

  “Gentlemen, we’re surrendering at 1600 hours.”

  At that same hour and a mile away, Descheneaux of the 422nd, which was also outnumbered and ringed by enemy tanks, was reaching the same decision.

  Cavender gave his men thirty minutes to smash their weapons and get rid of any German souvenirs. Then a staff officer stood atop a vehicle waving a white flag, yelling, “We surrender! We surrender!”

  Before sunset, approximately three thousand U.S. soldiers from the two regiments assigned days earlier to a “very quiet” area in the Ardennes just across the German border became prisoners of war.* The next day, columns of U.S. prisoners trudged deeper into Germany, bound for POW camps. They were passed in the opposite direction by countless Panzer tanks, artillery batteries pulled by vehicles and horses, and nonstop columns of fresh Wehrmacht reinforcements.

  That morning, a group of three hundred GIs from the 423rd, prisoners of the 2nd Battalion, 293rd Regiment, 18th Volksgrenadier, marched under armed guard down the Schönberg road toward Bleialf. Ritchie Boys Jacobs and Zappler were among them, along with the thirty Germans, also of the 2nd Battalion, whom they had interrogated after their capture in Bleialf on December 16. Now liberated, the ex-POWs walked in front of the group of Americans, heading back to rejoin their units.

  Not far from the border and still more than a mile north of Bleialf, the group came to a customs house where for many years routine inspections of goods passing in and out of Germany had been conducted. Wehrmacht Hauptmann (captain) Curt Bruns, commander of the 2nd Battalion, had his command post there. A stocky twenty-nine-year-old redhead, Bruns was born on Juist, an island in the southern North Sea off the northern coast of Germany. He had commanded the battalion for nearly a year.

  Spotting their battalion commander, two of the liberated German prisoners who had been interrogated by Jacobs and Zappler rushed over to Bruns and reported they had been interrogated by a pair of “Jews from Berlin.” Bruns told them to bring the Jews to him.

  Jacobs and Zappler were separated from the other Americans, who continued moving down the road toward Bleialf with their hands over their heads. When the interrogators were brought to Bruns, he stood them against the wall of the customs house as he questioned them. Had they interrogated his men in German? They confirmed they had. How was it possible they spoke such good German?

  Jacobs explained that he had been a law student in Berlin.

  Bruns asked a few more questions. Then, in front of his men, several of whom had been held captive by the Americans, Bruns said: “Juden haben kein Recht, in Deutschland zu leben.” (The Jews have no right to live in Germany.)

  Bruns huddled with one of his sergeants, Werner Hoffman, who commanded a platoon in the 2nd Battalion and was known among his men as an ardent Nazi. Then Hoffman went off to round up four other corporals and sergeants and brought them over to where the interrogators were still standing with their backs to the wall.

  Jacobs now pleaded their case like the trial lawyer he had once hoped to be, beseeching that he and Zappler be treated as prisoners of war under the terms of the Geneva Conventions, as the captured German soldiers had been treated in Bleialf. The two Ritchie Boys were escorted down the road toward Bleialf, but any hope they may have had of being taken to rejoin the other American prisoners, who were now out of sight, was dashed. After two hundred yards they were directed to step off the road into an open field. They walked another thirty paces and were then told to halt.

  Kurt Jacobs and Murray Zappler were ordered to keep their backs to the Germans now lining up abreast of one another. The two men stood facing a meandering stream a short distance in front of them, behind it a forest of evergreens that blanketed rolling hills covered in a fresh snowfall during the night.

  They were then cut down by a thundering volley of rifle fire.

  Werner Angress and the other paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne rested after the campaign in Holland and were reequipped at Camp Sissonne, a former French artillery base in northern France. They all waited expectantly for their promised Christmas leave, with most of them hoping they could enjoy themselves in Paris. A lucky few got leave in late November, but Werner was not one of them.

  On the night of December 17, he was having a beer in the base canteen talking with buddies about what they were planning to do in Paris when a duty officer rushed in and said the division had been put on alert.

  “Everyone report to your quarters immediately!”

  Back at the barracks, they were told to pack for combat.

  “Airborne?” someone asked.

  “Not airborne. Infantry operation.”

  Anything not needed for combat, such as dress uniforms and shoes, went into duffel bags that were stored at the base. Ammunition and rations were distributed along with other supplies.

  By dawn and minus a night’s sleep, the men of the 82nd were ready, even if they were in no mood to return to action so soon. Big-rig tractor-trailers had pulled onto the base during the night, and the men, loaded down with weapons and equipment, climbed into the open trucks for a thirteen-hour ride to the Ardennes.

  By December 18, the third day of the enemy offensive that would become known as the Battle of the Bulge, the entire center of VIII Corps had collapsed. Into this gap the Germans threw hundreds of thousands of fighting men and many hundreds of Panzer tanks to achieve a “bulge” sixty miles deep and forty-five miles wide that split the Allies’ armies.

  It was a freezing ride for the troopers of the 82nd. With no room to sit, they stood and swayed in the trucks like cattle going to the auction yard. They did not know exactly where they were going, having been told only that the Germans had broken through into Belgium. They also did not know until later that the last of their convoy cleared a crossroads in Belgium just minutes ahead of a fast-moving Panzer armored division. Suddenly they heard a rumbling, and the men in their rearguard jeep looked back to see Tiger and Panther tanks rolling through the intersection toward Bastogne, which had been the convoy’s destination until it was changed en route to Werbomont, thirty miles farther north. Jammed shoulder to shoulder in the trucks, the paratroopers would have been in no position to fight enemy tanks.

  The GIs didn’t know this at the time, but U.S. infantry and armored divisions were hurrying to eastern Belgium to halt the German advance before it reached Antwerp. If they failed in this mission, it would delay the invasion of the German homeland and extend the war. As for the airborne divisions, the 101st had been sent to Bastogne to hold the southern shoulder against the enemy penetration, and the 82nd was to pinch in from the north.

  Arriving at Werbomont, located at a vital junction along the Bastogne-Liège line, the 82nd fanned out in the dark to take up positions on high ground. The dull boom of artillery from the east was the only indication of the enemy’s close proximity.

  Werner hurried for the nearby headquarters of the 106th Infantry, the division the 82nd was reinforcing that had just relocated its headquarters from Wiltz after being pushed out of Luxembourg by the surprise German attack. He hoped that there he would be brought up to speed on the enemy forces and could mark their positions on a map for General Gavin and his staff. Along the way, Werner passed defensive positions that were being held by clerks, cooks, bakers, and others who clearly were not combat trained, manning antitank guns, mortars, and other weapons they did not know how to use. Some, he saw, were bent over trying to read instruction manuals.

  Werner found the headquarters, a farmhouse, and stepped into the dimly lit room. In his nearly four years in the army, he had never witnessed such a wild scene. Officers who were supposed to stay calm and controlled were panicked and confused. There were fragmented reports about two Allied regiments on the other side of the German border having gone missing, amid countless sightings of German infantry and tanks that had pushed through Luxembourg and were advancing farther into Belgium. The air corps was adamant that the weather was still below
minimums, thus keeping their aircraft grounded and the German attackers immune from air strikes.

  Werner approached a colonel who seemed to be at the center of things, and said he was with the intelligence staff of the 82nd Airborne and had been sent to gather intelligence about enemy forces. Obviously shocked by his accent, the colonel stared wide-eyed at Werner, then bellowed: “He’s a damn German! Arrest him!”

  Werner pointed to the U.S. flag sewed onto the shoulder of his jumpsuit jacket, forgetting it had faded to white from so many washings.

  “We’re finding Germans in American uniforms,” said the colonel, convinced that he had nabbed a spy.

  Werner knew he was in a bind because the 82nd was not yet on the local communications net, so he couldn’t have the colonel call his superiors. For half an hour, when they both should have been attending to more pressing matters, he tried reasoning with the officer, explaining his background and duties as a German-born U.S. Army interrogator of German prisoners of war.

  “Colonel, if I was really the enemy, it would make very little sense for me to come in here asking for information about the enemy. And to brazenly walk into a divisional headquarters? Alone?”

  Several junior officers seemed to be enjoying the confrontation, smiling and winking at Werner, indicating that the colonel was crazy and that Werner shouldn’t be overly concerned. Still, it wasn’t sorted out until Werner convinced the colonel to send someone to find the 82nd Airborne. Soon an airborne staff officer arrived to vouch for Werner.

  Early the next morning, the enemy attacked the newly arrived paratroopers with armor thrusts by thirty to forty tanks supported by infantry. Over the next several days, the 82nd stalled the enemy assault, then began advancing eastward against the German front lines. They moved on foot, like infantrymen, dragging behind them in the foot-high snow sleds packed with extra ammunition and supplies.

  When they came across a badly wounded paratrooper lying in the snow at the edge of a road, Werner saw that a medic was giving the man first aid. Just then, an artillery round whistled overhead. Like everyone around him, Werner hit the ground. When he stood up after the nearby explosion, which sent snow and dirt flying in all directions, Werner saw that the medic and his patient lay dead.

  Such were the dangers around them; they spent most of the time in the open, subject to nearly constant enemy artillery fire. At night they dug foxholes in the frozen earth, unless they were lucky enough to find some previously dug by retreating Germans, which they used, giving thanks for the unintended hospitality. Fir tree branches served as mattresses.

  The IPW teams often had the freedom to operate independently, and one night Werner decided to join one of the regiment’s battalions in the hope that they would take some new prisoners he could interrogate. The 82nd was fighting units of the 6th Panzer Army, and General Gavin and his staff officers needed good, timely intelligence about the enemy’s strength, weaponry, and capabilities.

  When he found no new prisoners waiting at the battalion command post, Werner moved even closer to the front lines, where he knew it was often easier to get information from newly captured prisoners while they were still in shock. He also liked the camaraderie of being with smaller units that were closer to the front because there wasn’t all the saluting and formality of headquarters. Many officers close to the action didn’t want to be saluted for fear of being picked off by enemy snipers. He found the battalion’s machine gun company dug in at the top of a hill. Locating an unoccupied foxhole, he settled in for the night. Shortly after midnight, Werner witnessed his first nighttime German infantry attack by the light of rocket-launched flares. Cheering and shouting encouragement to one another, SS soldiers charged uphill like zealots, straight into the machine gun fire of the paratroopers. Even as the German bodies began to stack up, the SS kept coming, trying frantically to crest the hill and overwhelm the U.S. company.

  Suddenly, two Americans ran past Werner, headed to the rear. He recognized them as the captain, who was the company commander, and his top sergeant. They were fleeing to safety! This meant the machine gunners were now leaderless. Werner, who was firing his own weapon at the shadowy figures charging up the hill, knew he had no business taking over the company. But who else would do it? Just then, he heard a young Jewish lieutenant he knew, a platoon leader in the company who was in the foxhole next to him, yell in an authoritative voice: “I have command!”

  In the face of the enemy’s fanatical charge, the lieutenant issued all the right commands. Under his steady hand, none of the Americans broke from their positions and the attack was thwarted. At dawn, Werner climbed from the foxhole and crept from one dead German to the next, searching their pockets for documents that might contain important information. While dead enemy soldiers were less valuable than live ones, they served a purpose, too.

  Werner never again saw the company commander or the sergeant who had deserted their men. He later learned they had both been court-martialed and convicted of cowardice under enemy fire.

  New Year’s found Werner and his IPW team in an abandoned farmhouse in Haute Bordeaux, a village thirty miles south of Liège. Together with the regimental intelligence section, they spent several days there, enjoying the heat from a wood-burning stove.

  One day, a tough-looking German sergeant was brought in for questioning. He was no longer youthful looking, and the numerous decorations on his tunic showed that he had fought in many battles. He acknowledged Werner curtly, then started telling his young interrogator that he knew his rights under the Geneva Conventions and would provide only his name, rank, and serial number. As Werner began to question him, the prisoner kept his word.

  Werner had found that few prisoners invoked the international treaties when facing an interrogator’s questions. In most cases, they talked freely, either out of plain fear or in the hope that if they cooperated they would somehow be rewarded. But this veteran warrior was having none of that.

  Werner shrugged and sat back. Addressing the prisoner as Spiess (First Sergeant), he inquired in German just how such an experienced old bird like him was taken prisoner by a bunch of young Yankees. Offended, the prisoner began to stutter in response, then exploded in indignation. As the sergeant spewed an angry torrent of words, Werner interrupted with brief tactical questions, all of which were promptly answered before the sergeant continued his diatribe. In this way, Werner soon knew the identity and strength of the sergeant’s unit, the names of his commanders, and other information.

  All the while, Werner looked terribly bored, even yawning occasionally. He always wanted a prisoner to think the information he was providing was routine and unimportant and that it was nothing the Americans didn’t already know. For the same reason, Werner never took notes during an interrogation. He had found that these techniques tended to put prisoners at ease and keep them talking.

  Finally, Werner had another stroke of insight and he challenged the sergeant again, saying he no doubt was unable to read a U.S. military map.

  “Natürlich kann ich das!” the prisoner shouted. (Of course I can!)

  Werner pulled out a map, and soon he knew where the sergeant’s regimental headquarters was located, where their machine guns were placed, and even where the German soldiers lined up to get their chow.

  Once Werner had run out of questions, he stood, wished the sergeant well, gave him a few cigarettes, and they shook hands. As soon as the prisoner was taken away by an MP, Werner grabbed a notebook and wrote down everything the sergeant had told him. Then he typed up his report, which provided valuable new targeting information for the regiment’s artillery batteries, and sent it straight to headquarters.

  At Camp Ritchie, Werner had been graded down for interrogations because he refused to scream and act abusively, which the pig-headed examiner insisted was the only way to treat prisoners of war. Without being boastful, Werner felt as though his own approach had been validated, and he knew he had become a good interrogator. His efforts in the field had earned him two promotio
ns in three months, the final one that winter in the Ardennes, when he sewed on master sergeant stripes. However, there was one interrogation during the Battle of the Bulge of which he was not proud.

  In early January, Werner was with the First Battalion of the 508th as they advanced slowly eastward in ice and snow against stiff German resistance. After one very long day, they had stopped late at night, and Werner was trying to find a dry place to sleep when he was summoned to the command post in a farmhouse. The intelligence officer said they were surrounded by Germans and had lost contact with the rest of the regiment. Being surrounded was nothing new to an airborne unit, because they regularly parachuted behind enemy lines, but the officer said it was vital they find out which enemy units had them encircled. Some recently captured prisoners were being brought in, he told Werner, and they needed to quickly extract from them any valuable intelligence they had about the strength and capabilities of the German forces that had them surrounded.

  Shortly, Werner was facing three German enlisted men. From their Soldbücher—pay books—he saw they had previously served in the Luftwaffe as ground troops. But their pay records didn’t indicate to which infantry unit the men had been transferred, so that’s where Werner started. To speed things up, he decided to interrogate them all at once, which was not something he or other interrogators normally did because it could give them a sense of solidarity and safety, and they could support one another in refusing to say anything.

  He started asking his questions, but none of them said a word. He tried everything that had worked in the past for him, but they remained silent. A few troopers who had brought in the prisoners were crowded into the kitchen where Werner was conducting the interrogations. Seeing the trouble he was having, they offered to beat up the prisoners. Werner said no to that, but in a sudden moment of recklessness, he turned to the prisoners and said the GIs would shoot them if they didn’t talk. Still nothing. When Werner told the troopers what he had threatened to do, they grinned. One said he would gladly take care of that for Werner.