Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  Chester’s attention was drawn to the sudden eruption of German anti-aircraft guns. The B-24 Liberators were coming in low for their supply run.

  CHAPTER 14

  “NOW IS WHEN YOU PRAY”

  10:26–13:00. Glider Landing Zones, Germany. Saturday, March 24, 1945.

  Trailing the paratroopers were the glider riders of Miley’s 194th Combat Team on their way into the northern landing zones. The first eight serials of 592 gliders headed to Landing Zone S, while another 314 gliders in seven serials navigated to the second landing zone, LZ N.

  For three hours the gliders had pitched and yawed behind the tow planes as the pilots strained to keep them steady against the turbulence. Despite the pilots’ efforts, the fully loaded—and in some cases overloaded—gliders were nevertheless buffeted about in the armada’s agitated prop wash. It was exhausting work with pilots and copilots swapping turns at the controls to reduce fatigue. Many veteran pilots complained it was the worst turbulence they’d ever experienced.

  In the back, passengers braced themselves against unpredictable updrafts and downdrafts. Private Jim Lauria had tied a rope the length of the cargo area to give himself a handhold as he periodically worked his way around his 75mm howitzer to inspect its tie-downs during the bumpy flight.

  Another gun crew hadn’t been so diligent, and their 105mm howitzer worked itself loose. Staff Sergeant Jimmie Taylor screamed over the racket of the wind slapping at the canvas fuselage to get his crew into action. As the big gun threatened to upset their center of gravity, Taylor and another trooper muscled it back into place. Vomit all over the plywood floor made their work more precarious; they kept slipping in it.

  In addition to holding their gliders steady, pilots on double tow had the added responsibility of preventing their towrope from drifting into the neighboring glider. There was little in the way of instrumentation to help a pilot prevent drift. The rudimentary instrument panel consisted of an altimeter, a compass, and indicators for airspeed, rate of climb, and bank and turn. The instruments were designed for use in powered aircraft where the engine vibrations prevented the gauges from sticking. Many a glider pilot developed an obsessive tic of tapping the instruments’ glass to ensure they registered correctly.

  Pilot George Buckley focused on the glider in front of him, keeping well to the right of it. Without warning, a wing snapped off of it and the glider whirled down through the sky like a wounded bird, spilling a jeep and several men as it tumbled. Buckley glanced back, hoping his passengers—most of whom were replacements experiencing their first glider ride—hadn’t seen the tragedy. He was shaken by the sight and, in a cold sweat, asked his copilot to take over for a few minutes so he could collect himself.

  All told, twenty-one gliders were lost on the way over the Rhine. Some succumbed to poorly balanced loads, others to towrope entanglements, and a few, like the one in front of Buckley, to “structural weaknesses.” Most managed to land safely while others fell out of the sky like olive-drab comets. The accidents reduced the glider riders’ strength by a hundred men, several jeeps, and seventeen tons of equipment, including six mortars and howitzers.

  • • •

  Troopers spotted hints of what lay ahead as they neared the Rhine. Major Carl Peterson caught a glimpse of the war correspondents’ damaged B-17 as it limped by in the opposite direction, left wing on fire and reporters bailing out. Several glider riders in trailing serials made note of the big silver bomber’s crash site as they passed overhead.

  First across the Rhine was glider “Kansas City Kitty-Mary Lou,” named after pilot Hugh Nevins’ hometown and wife.

  In his glider, Lieutenant Colonel John Paddock popped the cork on a bottle of champagne he’d smuggled aboard. He passed it around to his troopers and then made a small ceremony of tossing it into the Rhine as they officially crossed into Nazi Germany. “I figured the dice were cast, might as well enjoy ourselves,” he recalled.

  • • •

  The route from the banks of the Rhine to LZ S was about six miles and passed over the southern edge of the Thirteeners’ DZ. Despite the murky fog from Montgomery’s smoke screen, the tow pilots’ slower speed gave them time to pick out landmarks and, for the most part, stay on course.

  The serials going into LZ S consisted of thirty-six to forty transports each, all double towing gliders. The plan called for them to split on their way into the LZ. The first serials veered south while the rest headed north, creating two distinct landing patterns to prevent congestion. It was an ambitious plan. Unlike previous missions, where success had been defined as simply landing in the designated zone, the VARSITY planners had assigned pilots specific sectors within the two-mile-long, one-mile-wide LZ.

  The gliders in the lead serial were to land in the southeastern portion of the LZ; their troops would seize the bridges along the Issel Canal. The second serial was to land along the LZ’s eastern boundary so their troopers could seize and hold the crossing points over the Issel River. The third serial of infantry, along with supporting artillery and anti-tank guns, would aim for the center of the LZ.

  Pandemonium struck when the aircraft of the middle serial came in too fast and overran those ahead of them. To avoid collision the serial of thirty-six tow planes and seventy-two gliders climbed to over 1,000 feet and slowed down. The stack-up caused the following serial to climb even higher, up to 2,000 feet. The whole SNAFU was subjected to profane verbal abuse from the glider pilots who were helplessly dragged up to a more exposed altitude. They were supposed to be released at 600 feet.

  • • •

  The ack-ack started as they crossed the Rhine. It would take four more minutes to cover the six miles to the LZ. Red lights flashed from the navigator’s glass astrodome, signaling back to the gliders that they were almost there. Stand by.

  Normal procedure for aircrews flying into anti-aircraft fire was to start evasive maneuvers three minutes out, but that wasn’t an option for the transport pilots. There could be no twenty-degree changes of course or shifts of 500 feet in altitude to frustrate enemy gunners. The transports had to hold a steady heading and stay in formation. The Germans’ heavier guns, the big 88s and 105s, got the range first. The coal-black clouds of bursting flak exploded and drifted past as the gliders were towed relentlessly onward. In their fabric-covered gliders the pilots could smell the “rotten egg stench” of exploding ack-ack shells.

  To the German gunners, whose weapons were designed to engage Allied bombers flying 5 miles up at 300 mph, the lumbering transports coming in at a thousand feet on a predictable course at 110 mph were easy targets. The heavier guns just had to get their shells close; the bursts of shrapnel would do the rest. They were very effective against the thin-skinned tow planes and fabric-covered gliders.

  The two lead aircraft were shot down a mile short of the LZ; the glider pilots cut loose to avoid being pulled into the ground. Out of the first 40 aircraft, 36 were hit. In the next sixty minutes German gunners would down 10 more C-47s and damage another 140.

  As the serial reached the edge of LZ S, green lights blinked from the planes’ astrodomes, replacing the red stand-by signal. Once over the LZ the glider pilot determined when best to release. It was this decision that earned them the “G” on their flight wings. They preferred to release later rather than too soon. Overshooting their landing point could be corrected by the judicious use of flaps, spoilers, or the arresting chute; there was no way to compensate for not having enough altitude. Ideally they’d approach into the wind from a ninety-degree turn to dissipate speed, which for a glider was a major nemesis. A pilot had very little control once he committed to landing. Momentum, weight, and ground conditions determined the distance the glider traveled. Reducing speed before touching down was critical. Arresting chutes helped; pilots deployed them at a hundred feet to reduce their speed by almost half, then cut them away before landing.

  Pilots on double tow had to coordinate their release with the other pilot. Protocol called for the short tow pilot
to dive, while the long tow pilot allowed the first to clear the area before following. Rarely did that plan work in combat.

  The first glider pilot released at 10:36, sending the towrope snapping forward and his glider into descent. In the space of the next hour, 591 gliders did the same at the rate of almost one every six seconds.

  The reporter Howard Cowan had his eyes glued on his pilot. He wanted to cast off as soon as possible; the flak was loud and close.

  After what seemed like hours the pilot shouted over his shoulder, “Going down!” With a flick of the release toggle the glider pitched forward into a steep dive. No longer under tow, the passengers heard the howl of the wind decrease, only to be replaced by the din of the raging battle. Seconds later, Cowan was startled by the POP-POP of shrapnel puncturing the taut canvas skin of the glider on one side and slicing its way out the other.

  The sergeant sitting across from Cowan advised, “Now is when you pray.”

  Their pilot banked hard right to avoid another glider. The troopers racked a round into the chambers of their rifles and braced for landing. Not wanting to waste time or worry about a crash jamming the exit door closed, troopers pushed them open and let them fall away; others waited for the exact moment of impact before chucking them.

  In at least one case a pilot, unaware that a fouled towrope had damaged the glider’s wing, went into a nosedive as soon as they cast off—killing everyone on board.

  Inadvertently, a number of pilots released above other serials, forcing the gliders below to cut loose early to avoid collisions. Soon the sky filled with gliders trimming their flaps to spill as much air as possible so they could get on the ground as fast as possible. Pilots threaded their gliders through a congested airspace and jockeyed for a landing spot.

  • • •

  Down on the ground, Kanonier Peter Emmerich’s three-gun battery of 883rd Flakabteilung had been finishing their breakfast when the unmistakable rumbling of aircraft filled the sky. There appeared to be no end to the staggered formations; they stretched as far back to the horizon as Emmerich could see. As he stared for a few dread-filled moments at the spectacle, his gunners swiveled their 20mm Flak-38s into action. The Flakvierling, a vicious quad-barreled anti-aircraft gun capable of firing over 800 rounds a minute, could traverse 360 degrees and elevate in excess of 100 degrees, allowing it to easily track the lumbering aircraft. Its effective range of over 7,000 feet put the transports and gliders well within reach.

  The rapid booming of the guns snapped Emmerich back to reality. He followed the trajectory of tracer fire as the rounds chewed through the wing of a C-47, vaporizing its left engine.

  There were so many aircraft, Emmerich recalled, “We did not have to aim anymore; just point our guns in the air and fire. We would have always hit something.”

  The crews hustled. At the gunner’s command of “Laden!” they swapped out the empty magazines for four fresh twenty-rounders. Emmerich’s battery commander liked to stagger the types of ammunition for maximum damage: armor-piercing, incendiary, high-explosive. Repeat.

  When the gliders released overhead, section chief Unterfeldwebel Bosse ordered the gunners to ignore the tugs. “Aim for the gliders!”

  As the first glider neared Emmerich’s position, the gunner gave it a full burst, emptying all four barrels into it. The right side of the glider shattered, losing the wing and rear stabilizer. It crumpled into the ground.

  All three guns in the battery were firing at their full cyclic rate of 1,000 rounds a minute. At such sustained rates of fire, the crews rotated barrels frequently to prevent them from melting. At the command of “Den Lauf wechseln!” Emmerich put on his asbestos gloves, removed the smoking barrels, and replaced them with cold ones.

  “I can no longer turn the gun!” yelled the gunner.

  Emmerich spotted the issue: empty shell casings had blocked the traversing mechanism. Together he and the crew threw the empty 20mm shell cases over the side of their gun pit to clear the jam.

  The surrounding field was littered with dropped towropes and heaps of twisted metal-framed gliders on fire. Two dead bodies, presumably pilots, lay nearby; the air was heavy with a sick burning smell.

  During a lull the crew swapped barrels again and oiled each gun’s bolt. The battery commander, an officer named Kruckenberg, was in a panic; Emmerich thought he’d gone mad. As Kruckenberg moved between gun positions, he shot at anything that moved, not bothering to verify if his target was friend or foe.

  Unterfeldwebel Bosse told Emmerich to go get more ammunition. As he scurried the thirty yards to the ammo point, Emmerich hoped he didn’t get shot by his own commander.

  While Emmerich was grabbing ammo cans, a Kanonier from another battery told him that a call to one of their gun pits, via the landline telephone, had been answered by a man speaking English. The Amerikanisches were getting close.

  • • •

  In the opinion of nineteen-year-old pilot George Buckley, a veteran of multiple combat operations, the flak was the heaviest he’d seen yet.

  “A C-47 in front of us with one engine out and with flames streaming back over its wing held to a steady course, determined to get its two gliders to the LZ,” he recalled. “All through this hell in the air, formation discipline was fantastic. They all tucked in closer and bored straight on towards the landing zones with no attempt at taking evasive action.”

  When Buckley and his copilot scanned the terrain below, they were horrified by the lack of visibility. The ground was bathed in a murky fog; landing in it would be tricky; obstacles would be hard to spot. Some pilots reported that the haze reduced visibility to as little as an eighth of a mile. Many hoped it also degraded the Germans’ accuracy, but others were afraid it silhouetted their gliders against the bright sky.

  • • •

  In Lieutenant Colonel John Paddock’s glider any residual buzz from champagne would have evaporated with the first burst of machine gun fire ripping through both their cockpit and their pilot. Copilot Lieutenant Harry Dunhoft took over, yelling for help, urging one of the troopers in back to hold the wounded pilot away from the controls so that he could bring the glider in to land. The German gunner had them in his sites, riddling the cockpit twice more but missing Dunhoft.

  Dunhoft managed to land the glider in one piece. He dragged the wounded pilot from the cockpit while Paddock and his men fanned out after, throwing themselves out of the exit doors. Dunhoft bandaged the pilot’s wounds as best he could and injected him with morphine.

  • • •

  The four-man OSS team sat in the back of the first serial’s last glider. Two of the agents, “Easy” Steltermann and Robert Staub, had removed their GI coveralls to reveal their German uniforms. Of concern to both men was getting shot by their own troops. The glider riders had been briefed about them, and their pilot planned to get them as close to the edge of the LZ as possible. But when lead was flying, two Germans racing a Kübelwagen off the LZ could easily become the victims of trigger-happy GIs. They’d already survived one close call when a dozen bullets sailed through the glider—startling all, but injuring none.

  They were hit again fifty feet off the ground. Shells from a 20mm shredded the tail’s starboard elevator and cut through the cargo bay. Captain Vinciguerra, Steltermann, and the copilot were all hit. The team’s Kübelwagen was mortally wounded: three punctured tires and a damaged radio. Their mission was over before it started.

  The pilot managed to keep the glider in one piece as they plowed to a stop. More bursts of machine gun fire punched through the back of the glider. Steltermann and Staub wanted out, but dressed in German uniforms, they hesitated. Realizing their plight, Leo Jungen, the fourth member of the team, scrambled through the blood-splattered interior to toss them their coveralls. After they were dressed, Jungen covered their escape.

  Steltermann, dazed and clutching his German submachine gun, made it to a ditch before passing out. Coming to, he could only see out his right eye; the left was filled with blood. H
e’d been hit multiple times by shrapnel—twice in the left thigh, once in the right knee—a laceration on his chin revealed the bone, and blood poured from a wound above his eye; he also had a bullet in his left shoulder. As a medic worked on dressing his wounds, Steltermann watched dozens of gliders from the second serial swoop out of the sky one after another.

  • • •

  In one of those gliders, copilot Zane Winters, the well-armed “volunteer” power pilot, felt like a sitting duck. He and the pilot, Smokey, had divided the labor: Smokey was responsible for getting the glider down while Winters called out flak and monitored airspeed.

  “Four birds at three o’clock!” yelled Winters as several bursts of 88mm shells blossomed off the right wing.

  Smokey jerked left and sent the glider into a diving turn. Winters cautioned him that the airspeed indicator was needling into the red.

  Smokey growled that he’d “rather chance the wings coming off, over being shot down.” As a more experienced glider pilot, Smokey knew the position of the glider’s pitot tube exaggerated their speed by at least eight miles per hour.

  Seconds into the diving turn a burst of 20mm tracer fire arched past the right wing. Winters credited Smokey’s quick action with saving their lives: “If we had been in a normal turn, they would have had us dead center.”

  The pilot in front of them wasn’t as fast. His glider took several rounds from a high-velocity 88—the glider was there one moment, and then just a big ball of lingering smoke.

  The airspeed indicator read 120 mph: too fast. Smokey, using a combination of the flaps and the arresting chute, got it down to 70 mph as they careened across the LZ, coming to a stop only when they hit a fence post. Winters kicked his way out of the cockpit through the side window.