Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  Simultaneously, German infantry attacking Bridge 3 with two Mark IV tanks in the lead threatened to overrun Fox Company. Again British artillery from the far bank disrupted the attack. The shells splashed viciously into the German columns; shrapnel whizzed through the ranks of infantry and sent the tanks scurrying in retreat. Thank God for the artillery, but the troopers’ relief was temporary. They figured it was just a question of time before the Nazis would try again. After the dust settled, both George and Fox Companies radioed Balish to report they’d lost contact with their forward squads at Bridges 1, 2, and 3.

  While the line companies sweated out the status of their missing men, farther to the rear the executive officer of a glider field artillery battalion ordered those men not manning howitzers to take care of the livestock of the farm they’d occupied: twenty-five cows were milked, while eleven pigs and two horses were fed. They also dispatched scrounging parties to canvas the LZ in search of ammunition. From crashed gliders and supply bundles dropped from the B-24s, the artillerymen obtained an additional seven hundred 75mm shells, bringing their inventory up to 1,000 rounds.

  In an attempt to reach the cut-off squads, George Company sent a patrol across Bridge 2 to maneuver along the east side of the canal down to Bridge 1. But stout, well-armed German defenders stopped them cold.

  Next up was Lieutenant Thomas Wittig, whose platoon had been whittled down to nine men. He volunteered to lead them along the west side of the canal in a second attempt to reach Bridge 1 and hopefully the British Commandos in Wesel as well.

  Unfortunately, Wittig didn’t have any better luck. As the sun dipped below the horizon and a light mist formed over the canal, a breathless runner from Wittig’s patrol stumbled back into Balish’s command post: the patrol was taking fire and were all pinned down. He’d escaped only because he was the last man in the file and could crawl away.

  With the situation at the far end of Bridge 1 uncertain, Balish flung in another of his reserve platoons. They were to set up a blocking position on the west side of the railroad bridge, and if they could, extract Wittig’s patrol. Lieutenant John Robinson eyed the graying sky and organized his men to depart as soon as it was fully dark.

  The isolated troopers at Bridge 1 caught fleeting glimpses of green berets in the fading light as the Commandos attempted to flush out a group of Germans occupying a redoubt near the railroad bridge. The glider riders couldn’t raise the Commandos over the radio despite being just 400 yards apart, nor did they have the numbers to overwhelm the defenders’ strongpoints and force a linkup.

  A group of approximately 300 obstinate German youngsters held the area east of the railroad bridge. Those troopers who’d been trading shots and flicking grenades at them estimated that none were over twenty years old. Regardless of their age, the Germans took advantage of the rubble and their numerous machine guns to keep the Americans at bay. With the Commandos’ location uncertain, the glider riders couldn’t yet rain down artillery on the holdouts.

  * * *

  Not long after dark, Miley’s radio operator received a message that nine British infantry battalions had crossed the Rhine, clustering along the riverbank near the British airborne’s sector of the bridgehead. There was still no word, however, on the disposition of the British airborne troops themselves. Had they secured the left flank? Had they seized their bridges near Hamminkeln? At 20:00 Ridgway and Miley departed Coutts’ command post to find the answers.

  Coutts warned the generals to “be careful.” There were still plenty of Germans running around out there. They declined Coutts’ offer to lead them back, and the column of jeeps nosed through the gloom and out into no-man’s-land.

  While the two generals made their way northwest to find the British, Miley’s intelligence section sifted through reports and radio logs to stitch together an overview of the day’s battle. All of the division’s objectives had been taken—except that of the Thirteeners’ 2nd Battalion. The Ruffians were in full possession of the western defensive line but running low on ammunition. Raff had a battalion arrayed to block the sporadic enemy units squirting up from the river. The glider riders’ stalemate along the canal was still touch and go, with Kampfgruppe Karst actively probing and attacking to gain possession of a bridge. Thus far, the division had collected prisoners from a number of German units, including infantrymen, Fusiliers, Grenadiers, engineers, signalers, anti-tank gunners, medics, Fallschirmjäger, staff officers, artillery gunners, Volkssturm, and several hostile civilians.

  * * *

  John Chester’s artillery crew was hungry. With the task of relocating their howitzer completed, their rumbling stomachs reminded them that they hadn’t eaten since before dawn. Their dining options were limited, since they’d elected to carry ammunition and grenades in lieu of rations. Chester gestured at a farmhouse and suggested it be searched for gun cleaning material. His message understood, two of the crew sauntered over to see what they could find.

  The scroungers returned with two bulging gunnysacks. The kitchen had been well stocked, yielding two smoked hams, bread, fresh eggs, milk, cans of fruit, and a skillet. In short order they were enjoying fried ham sandwiches.

  Their final order of business was to dig in for the night. Before sending their prisoners to the holding area, Chester’s crew made the Germans dig them foxholes. The troopers then lined the holes with parachutes to make their stay a little more pleasant. Commo wire had been laid from the gun position to the fire direction center, and each man took a turn on watch, keeping his eyes peeled and his ear to the field phone, waiting for the call that would spring the crew into action.

  CHAPTER 18

  “WE HAD LUCK WITH US”

  20:00. Ridgway’s jeep convoy. Saturday, March 24, 1945.

  The convoy of blacked-out jeeps inched their way through the dark. For the two American generals navigating to the British airborne’s command post, the veil of night added another dimension of complexity to the still-active battlefield. Ridgway later confessed, “We didn’t know where our own people were, much less the enemy, so we had to move with a moderate degree of caution.”

  The glow from the moon’s nearly full orb combined with the still-lingering haze to blanket the landscape in an eerie monochromatic palette of silver and deep shadow. Winding along dirt roads flanked by wrecked aircraft and burning farmhouses, every man in the small convoy squinted into the dark for signs of trouble. It was still very much a 360-degree battlefield. Sporadic gunfire and the crumping of grenades echoed from unexpected quarters as bands of Germans bumbled around the battlefield trying to find a gap in the Allied lines to escape the bridgehead.

  It took the generals almost three hours to creep their way the two and a half miles to the 6th Airborne’s command post. The Americans finally arrived at 22:45, having passed through a cordon of sentries and roadblocks.

  The command post—established in the single-story brick farmhouse owned by the Köpenhof family—served as a headquarters, communications center, aid station, and mortuary. Cows and chickens wandered past foxholes and the dark hulks of splintered Horsa gliders. A group of civilians huddled together under a large chestnut tree; in their company were a few Soldats stripped down to their underwear to discourage escape. Signs of the fighting lay all around. In the pig barn was a dead American parachutist hung up in the rafters where he’d broken his neck; in the cowshed was the graying body of ten-year-old Heini Quartsteg, a victim of crossfire.

  A small bulldozer, brought in by glider, had dug a large trench for the division’s signal unit just outside the front door; it was deep enough to leave nothing but a few antennas sticking out aboveground. The signalers had lined it with cargo chutes to make it more luxurious. Their hushed whispers could be heard as they made inquiries for status out on the perimeter.

  The kitchen had been converted into a surgery; blood stained the dining table and dripped onto the floor. Wounded troopers, lying on stretchers, lined the walls of every room. A British officer, attempting to get a few minute
s of sleep, stretched out next to another napping figure in a dimly lit hallway. Only later would he discover he’d been snoozing next to a dead American paratrooper. The farm complex had initially been conquered by the Thirteeners, and many of their dead and wounded had been left behind.

  British General Eric Bols greeted Ridgway and Miley in the front room. Since Ridgway was the first emissary to arrive from the west bank of the Rhine, he was particularly welcome.

  The forty-year-old Bols wore the distinct red beret and camouflage smock unique to the British airborne troops; like the two visiting American generals he dressed the same as any soldier under his command. Bols briefed the Americans on the disposition of his own division. Between drags on his cigarette and pointing to a map for reference, he explained how he’d anticipated his men would be “fighting like stink for the first day.” The Germans hadn’t let him down. His division of 7,000-odd troops had landed on two DZs and four LZs. Bols himself had landed by glider, touching down within a hundred yards of the farm.

  Within four hours of their landing, the three bridges over the Issel River had been seized by glider troops and the village of Hamminkeln cleared as per their plan. The Germans were relentlessly attacking the bridges, desperate to seize a crossing point. Bols’ men had repelled multiple German counterattacks—so far. Close air support had been a great help in staving off German counterattacks. A Forward Visual Control Party landed via Horsa glider and radioed in four air strikes from RAF fighters circling overhead. The British fighters would be credited with destroying sixteen German tanks within the first two days of the operation.

  Reports were incomplete, but it appeared that Bols’ division had suffered almost a thousand casualties with another 300 still missing.

  The three generals crowded over the map to coordinate tying up the two divisions’ perimeter along the Issel. Ridgway issued his orders for the next day’s expansion of the bridgehead: Bols would hold his current positions another twenty-four hours to await his relief by Montgomery’s ground forces; Miley’s 17th Airborne would move east to secure Phase Line LONDON, which was the first in a series of predetermined phase lines radiating out from the airborne perimeter.

  • • •

  All told, Montgomery’s 21 Army Group had established their crossing on a twenty-two-mile-wide front. There was still heavy German resistance on the left flank, but engineers had commenced bridging the Rhine. In turn, German engineers farther upstream floated several large mines down the river in an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the effort. Allied engineers strung chains across the river to stymie a repeat attempt.

  For General der Fallschirmtruppen Alfred Schlemm, the commander of the I Fallschirmjäger-Armee, little had gone right that day. Still feeling the effects of the concussion he’d suffered earlier in the week, he’d been bedridden for the last three days drifting in and out of consciousness. His vision had returned just that morning, and his first action was to immediately load into the back of his staff car for a tour of the front. As per his custom, he wanted to appraise the situation firsthand.

  Montgomery’s staggered attacks throughout the night had thrown Schlemm’s commanders off-balance, and he was concerned the British were about to drive a wedge between the seam of his two Korps—II Fallschirmjäger and LXXXVI Infanterie.

  While Schlemm had been unconscious, his boss, Johannes Blaskowitz, had ordered their reserves into the fray: the 15 Panzer-Grenadier-Division against what they thought was Montgomery’s main attack at Rees, and the 116 Panzer-Division to destroy the airborne troops at Wesel.

  Schlemm’s luck remained horrible. Allied fighters strafed his staff car off the road multiple times. To the general it seemed that his driver was careening into a ditch every 200 meters to dodge another air attack. Indeed, the Allies’ patrolling of the road networks was so aggressive that General Eugen Meindl, commander of Schlemm’s II Fallschirmjäger Korps, later complained that he could only maintain contact with his divisions by motorcycle couriers traveling over back roads or cross country.

  Once Schlemm had confirmed that Montgomery’s attack was not a feint, he returned to his HQ, where his condition continued to deteriorate. He spent the next two days feebly coordinating the battle from his bed before a temperature of 104 degrees forced him to relinquish command.

  • • •

  Ridgway and Miley, with their plan set, departed the British command post at midnight. The column of jeeps nudged their way over dirt roads, picking their way forward with only enough moonlight to see a hundred yards. Artillery whistled overhead and they could hear the sound of distant gunfights—the deep chug, chug, chug of heavy American machine guns resonated from multiple directions.

  Riding in the lead jeep, Ridgway peered ahead as his driver detoured off-road to navigate around the charred remains of a German truck. Once he bumped back onto the road, Ridgway noticed a scurried movement twenty yards in front of them just as a burst from a German machine pistol cracked overhead.

  Ridgway jumped from the jeep to fire a few shots over the hood from his bolt-action Springfield. He hit at least one man, who squealed before falling. Meanwhile, Miley, who was lying off to the side of the road, aimed at muzzle flashes and fired his carbine into the mass of shadows. The bodyguards in the security jeep held their fire for fear of hitting the generals in front of them.

  Each side hurled profanities as well as bullets and grenades. Ridgway flopped down beside the jeep’s passenger-side front wheel for cover while reloading. An explosion shook the jeep with an earsplitting roar. Ridgway caught some of the burning grenade shrapnel in his shoulder, but his jeep was the main casualty—the cracked crankcase bled oil.

  The Germans took advantage of the grenade blast to melt into the darkness. After the sudden pandemonium of the skirmish, the silence was uncanny.

  Ridgway still wasn’t sure who was where; he heard movement all around him. Then he spotted the vague silhouette of a man concealed in a clump of vegetation and yelled, “Put up your hands, you son of a bitch!”

  A distinctly American voice answered, “Aaah, go sit in your hat.”

  Ridgway later complimented the concealed paratrooper’s sangfroid: “The man in the willows could have killed me easily. . . . But the paratrooper is not trigger-happy. He’s so used to being alone and surrounded, not knowing where his friends are, nor the enemy, that he’s very, very careful about firing until he’s sure he knows whom he’s shooting at.”

  The group picked themselves up to assess the damage. Ridgway’s wound would need attention, but it was nothing serious. One of the bodyguards got behind the wheel of the damaged vehicle while the other jeep pushed it back to Miley’s command post.

  • • •

  As per their assembly plan, the LZ S glider pilots had organized themselves into four infantry companies, with flight and squadron commanders assuming the role of platoon and squad leaders. Three of the pilot companies fanned out to establish roadblocks along the southwest perimeter of the LZ while a fourth dug in around the howitzers of the 681st Glider Field Artillery to bolster their defenses.

  The four platoons of the 435th Troop Carrier Group dug in around the intersection of Holzweg and Hessenweg Roads, the latter of which led down to Bridge 2. The seventy-odd pilots of the 77th Platoon centered themselves on the intersection, blocking Holzweg, while the 76th Platoon took the right flank and the 75th the left. The 78th was located to the rear, near the group command post, where they’d be on standby as the reserve platoon.

  The four corners of the intersection were vacant lots, giving the glider pilots clear fields of fire. A few troopers lugging a 57mm anti-tank gun and a heavy, belt-fed .50-caliber machine gun joined them. They were welcome company to the lightly armed pilots.

  Several of the “volunteer” power pilots grumbled that they hadn’t been trained for this type of work, but they grudgingly grabbed shovels to help dig foxholes. Many of the pilots lined their foxholes with straw or blankets, and at least one pilot dragged a feather mattress out of
a nearby house to make himself more comfortable. The pilots quickly realized that the qualities of a senior aviator didn’t necessarily translate into being a competent ground combat leader.

  “The rank didn’t necessarily denote leaders,” recalled Flight Officer Richard Barthelemy. “Lieutenant [Floyd] Hand was good; Lieutenant [John] Love was good; they both took orders willingly from Flight Officer Robert Campbell who is a soldier’s soldier.” Campbell, though junior in rank to the lieutenants, had landed in enemy territory multiple times and had served in the Marine Corps before the war; he was comfortable on the ground and knew his weapons. The trouble, as Barthelemy saw it, was that the more experienced man could only make suggestions. Fortunately for the pilots of the 77th, common sense prevailed and the senior ranks heeded Campbell’s advice.

  Upon arrival at the intersection, the squads fanned out to clear the handful of surrounding houses. Civilians were ushered out of their homes without incident, and several wounded Soldats were found hiding in the houses. In one house a squad of pilots rescued four members of a downed C-47 crew, bagging the nine Volkssturm who’d been their captors. Other pilots strung communication wire back to the group command post since field telephones and runners would be their primary forms of communication.

  A few German stragglers approached the roadblock to surrender. A pilot escorted two of them back to the command post but was told by an airborne sergeant not to bother with taking prisoners. With the sun setting and the cacophony of tanks, mortars, and heavy machine guns drifting back from Bridge 2 to fray nerves, the pilot heeded the advice. He ushered the Germans a little farther down the road before executing both prisoners with his pistol.

  • • •

  At 23:15, a snub-nosed German JU-88 night fighter, festooned with an array of radar antenna and six machine guns, buzzed in low over the battlefield. It was chased by tracer fire and apparently hit the same power line that had claimed multiple gliders earlier in the day.