Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  21:35. Ruffians’ Sector. Saturday, March 24, 1945.

  Formal contact had yet to be made with the Commandos in Wesel. Radio communication was finally established, but there were still several pockets of resistance keeping the Yanks and Tommies apart. The Commandos had been fighting house-to-house all day, pushing the Germans around Wesel. They’d killed the garrison commander, Generalmajor Friedrich-Wilhelm Deutsch. Deutsch had vowed to fight to the last man, and in a display of fanatical leadership he charged out of his bunker spraying lead. He was promptly cut down by a burst from an unimpressed Commando machine gunner.

  Because Ridgway was concerned about the inability to contact the Commandos in Wesel, he ordered Raff to dispatch a combat patrol to probe east, skirting the riverbank to determine if that route was open. Fifteen minutes later the command was relayed to Lieutenant Joseph Kormylo.

  Planning and coordination took several hours since Kormylo had to pick his patrol’s route wisely. He took several factors into consideration, including that they’d have to stay south of the railroad tracks to avoid the unfriendly fire of the glider riders’ perimeter. This put them out in the open moving east across flat farmland, the same spit of land that undoubtedly concealed enemy units bumping around to find a way out of the bridgehead. Twenty minutes before midnight Kormylo’s lead scouts walked out of the perimeter and led the way east.

  Kormylo was a Normandy veteran and knew to take his time. There was no need to rush into anything, and the Commandos weren’t going anywhere. The patrol snaked its way through no-man’s-land, taking over two hours to traverse the two and a half miles and reach the rubble-strewn outskirts of Wesel. The scouts stumbled on a lone German hoping to go unnoticed in an abandoned trench. He surrendered, but the commotion attracted attention. Shots erupted from Wesel, and Kormylo went down, hit in the gut. The Ruffians spread out, snapping off rounds at the hostile muzzle flashes.

  Private Richard Boe launched rifle grenades at the enemy from the bottom of a muddy shell crater and yelled for his squad to pull back. The enemy firing stopped.

  “It’s OK Yank, it’s OK Yank, come on in.”

  Hearing the Americans shouting orders, the Commandos had realized their mistake. They’d fired at a friendly patrol. Because Kormylo’s scouts had flushed several Germans in front of them as they moved, the Commandos mistook the Ruffians for another group of befuddled Germans.

  Kormylo was rushed into the Commandos’ perimeter for medical treatment. He survived and was later awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Contact with the Commandos was officially made at 02:00.

  • • •

  The moon dropped below the horizon a little after 04:00, taking what visibility it provided with it. The fighting along the canal petered out as the belligerents, bathed in almost complete darkness, settled in to wait for sunrise. Sentries stared into the blackness for the smallest hint of movement. The temporary peace, which allowed men on both sides of the canal to ponder the fate of their missing comrades, was broken at 04:45 when the Commandos radioed the glider riders to let them know they were attacking. They should expect escaping enemy troops to drift their way.

  CHAPTER 19

  “ORGANIZED RESISTANCE HAS NOW CEASED”

  Dawn. Issel Canal: Bridges 1 and 2. Sunday, March 25, 1945.

  The sun began its climb out of darkness on that Palm Sunday at 05:45. The gray of early dawn revealed the toll of the night’s work. Scattered around the glider riders’ positions were hundreds of dead and maimed Germans. Black smoke curled up from still-smoldering tanks and gutted half-tracks. Competing smells wafted over the battlefield: the fresh earth of churned artillery craters and the acrid odor of gunpowder.

  Daylight brought a sigh of relief but also the need for each trooper to swallow his fear once more and rediscover his courage. What a man did one day was no guarantee for the next. No one knew when his fount might run dry, and he hoped he had enough to keep going.

  A lone, weary messenger made his way back from Bridge 1, picking his way through the rubble and dead bodies. A survivor from one of George Company’s lost platoons, he panted into Balish’s command post with welcome news: despite being cut off and sustaining heavy casualties, two platoons had held their positions on the far side of the canal. Efforts to reach them had failed because they’d unknowingly fought 400 yards past the bridge and had gotten trapped on the outskirts of Wesel.

  The two platoons had launched an attack at first light to secure their sector and retake Bridge 1. Lieutenant John Robinson’s patrol joined them. Having hunkered down during the night near the canal’s railroad bridge, his platoon joined the beleaguered troopers in their attack. Thirty minutes later they’d beaten down what remained of the enemy’s will to fight, adding 200 more POWs to the regiment’s growing tally.

  Lieutenant Thomas Wittig, who’d been given up for lost, also wandered in with seven of his men and a British guest. Wittig’s men had wiggled their way into Wesel and spent the night with a group of Commandos, one of whom Wittig brought back with him to coordinate the day’s mopping-up.

  Despite the successful counterattack, the situation around Bridge 1 was still very fluid. While the bridge itself had been secured, the surrounding area was not. German shells streaked in randomly; snipers and machine gunners dug in like ticks, hampering any attempt at movement. Balish was still unable to coordinate attacks with the Commandos. It wouldn’t be until mid-afternoon that commo men would be able to get wire laid between positions, giving the two units a reliable field phone connection.

  • • •

  Farther up the Issel, twenty-six-year-old Private Ben Roberson stood up in his foxhole to ditch the flak jacket he’d obtained from a dead glider pilot. Having appreciated its snug protection through the night, he now found it heavy and cumbersome. A German corpse lay a few feet from Roberson’s foxhole. “I don’t know who killed him,” Roberson said, “but he was wearing an Iron Cross that I wanted so I took it off him.” A practical man, Roberson understood that the dead were beyond caring for such trinkets.

  Daylight also revealed the toll on the bridges themselves. A number had fallen victim to the back-and-forth contests for possession. While Bridges 1 through 4 remained intact, Bridge 5 had been badly shelled, knocking out the far abutment and its center section. The thirty-foot span of Bridge 6 was still intact and capable of supporting armored vehicles. But Bridges 7 through 9 had been damaged by artillery, making them either impassable or limited to foot traffic. Bridge 10 was still intact. Combat engineers found and defused previously unnoticed demolition charges on its forty-foot span.

  Gene Herrmann’s crew was instructed to grab their 81mm heavy mortar and move into position near Bridge 5. The troopers in that sector needed their help. There was a stubborn enemy machine gun set up in a house about 900 yards away, and its harassing fire needed to be dealt with. Fixing their aim on the house, they dropped a round down the tube, and it sailed over the Issel to explode a hundred yards behind the target. They adjusted their site—and the second round exploded with a geyser of mud just short of the house. One more tweak and they sent four accurate rounds raining down. The explosions threw roof tiles everywhere and silenced the machine gun.

  For the glider riders at Bridge 10, the morning’s tranquility evaporated almost instantly. The Germans still wanted their bridge. Its ability to support the weight of armored vehicles made it particularly attractive. A company of gray-clad infantry and two tanks advanced with the rising sun to their backs. A lone unarmed woman was in the vanguard. Her presence in the front rank had its desired effect: the glider riders hesitated.

  Medic Joseph Moscar witnessed the drama from his foxhole. One of his officers, clearly wrestling with his conscience, aimed and lowered his rifle multiple times. As the assault drew near, the officer raised his rifle, squeezed the trigger, and killed the woman with a single shot. She pitched into the dirt, and the previously squeamish banged away, unleashing a blistering volley. Supporting artillery helped swat the German attac
k aside. More bodies littered the riverbank, and two more smoldering enemy tanks gushed greasy smoke like funeral pyres.

  If the Germans had had any hope of breaking into the bridgehead, it would have been the previous night. Forward observers now had the visibility to call down a wall of steel anywhere along the perimeter, and Allied fighters darted overhead, greedy for something to shoot.

  • • •

  Miley’s plan for the operation’s second day called for securing and expanding the bridgehead. From the division command post he radioed his combat teams their orders for the day: spend the morning mopping up their sectors and prepare to seize positions along Phase Line LONDON at 15:00. LONDON started in the Thirteeners’ sector and roughly followed the under-construction, 150-foot-wide autobahn until it dropped due south approximately two miles east of Wesel where the Lippe River flowed into the Rhine.

  As those closest to LONDON, the Thirteeners would hold their positions in the morning and send a few companies across the Issel River toward the autobahn later in the day. The Ruffians would have the longest trek since they needed to move over four miles east, cutting across the Rhine’s floodplains and pushing through Wesel to relieve the glider riders at Bridges 1 and 2.

  Dawn. Burp Gun Corner. Sunday, March 25, 1945.

  Half a mile northwest of Bridge 2 the glider pilots at Burp Gun Corner counted over a dozen enemy dead strewn in the street; scores more lay wounded. Moving among them was a lone German medic, easily identified by his white tunic with a large red cross emblazoned across the front and back. He ignored the Americans, and they left him to carry out his work, some even giving him their first-aid kits.

  “I still remember today very vividly how this fellow worked to save his wounded comrades,” recalled one of the pilots. “He struck me as a very compassionate attendant and went about his task in a very professional and caring manner.”

  While the medic treated the suffering, several of the pilots dragged the dead over to one of the vacant lots for burial. Shallow pits would do for now as Graves Registration teams would collect them later. The pilots weren’t sure how long they’d be there and opted to clean up before the bodies started to smell.

  Since the pilots realized the Germans hadn’t retreated far, they searched nearby dwellings and rousted another thirty-odd wounded.

  A four-pilot patrol party left in search of two missing comrades. They scoured all of LZ S for them, stopping at aid stations and hoping to discover them among the wounded, but found no trace.

  Those pilots not patrolling or rousting out prisoners improved their position and prepared to stay another night. The undamaged 20mm anti-aircraft gun now supplemented their defenses, and a few pilots added German 9mm machine pistols to their personal arsenal. Many pilots dug their foxholes a bit deeper, having learned their lesson from the previous night’s excitement.

  At 14:00 word came down from the group command post that they’d start for the Rhine shortly since they were being evacuated. They got the order to move out three hours later.

  The Burp Gun Corner pilots joined an exodus of their peers heading back to France. Zane Winters and Smokey had been in the middle of a gunfight when they were ordered to pack up.

  “I only used fifteen rounds from my M-1 carbine, plus two grenades, trying to get some Germans out of a house,” recalled Winters. They departed leaving a group of troopers to deal with the barricaded Germans. “I don’t know how it turned out,” he added. When he left, they “were telling them they were going to burn the house down if they didn’t come out.”

  • • •

  The glider pilots evacuated against a continuous stream of personnel and vehicles surging into the bridgehead. The pilots made their way down the congested lanes, frequently jumping to the side of the road so advancing convoys could pass. In the vanguard of the supply columns were seventeen amphibious trucks loaded with 38 tons of ammunition. They formed part of a larger effort organized by Miley’s ordnance company, which, all told, would move 157 tons of ammunition over the Rhine.

  Dozens of pilots riding bicycles with rifles and tommy guns slung across their backs weaved in and out of the traffic. Apparently, the bikes had originally been confiscated from the locals by Wehrmacht flak troops, who’d abandoned them in a warehouse near Burp Gun Corner.

  As Miley’s troops prepared to attack, they handed over their POWs to the evacuating pilots for escort to the Rhine. There they’d be corralled by MPs for formal processing. The herds of shuffling prisoners were a menagerie of defeat: unbuttoned gray overcoats splattered with mud, torn camouflage smocks, and the faded black tunics of panzer crewmen. Their headgear also varied wildly: field caps, visors, sometimes nothing at all. To a man they’d ditched their helmets. They were drained and dirty. For every stoic Nazi attempting to retain his delusional dignity, there were many more smiles. For the rational, the war was finally over.

  The prisoners were herded into fields and made to sit or lie down. Just one or two well-armed glider pilots wielding their tommy guns in a breezy manner was enough to control large groups.

  Once they handed off their prisoners, the pilots would await transportation back across the Rhine via amphibious vehicles. The pontoon bridges over the Rhine were still only open to one-way traffic. From a reception station on the far bank the pilots would be trucked the remaining forty miles to an airfield in Holland. Cots and rations were provided while they waited for the trucks.

  Flight Officer Howard Schultz was impressed with the organization. It contrasted with his experience in MARKET GARDEN where pilots had been left to their own ingenuity to find a way back to England. But not everyone appreciated the Army’s bureaucratic attempt to wrangle them back so soon. Schultz overheard one of his peers lamenting, “These missions are no longer any fun when we have to come back by the numbers.” The sentiment was practically unanimous; the pilots’ sense of wanderlust remained strong.

  A few still tried to buck the system. Taking leave of their comrades, Flight Officers Wes Hare and Tom Lochard slipped out to hitchhike to Brussels. Their glee at having made a successful escape was dampened by a sign on the outskirts of town: “Any Glider Pilots picked up in Brussels will be subject to Court Martial.” They arrived back at their airbase in Poix one day after everybody else.

  Despite transportation delays and evasion attempts, within seventy-two hours close to 500 glider pilots had returned. And within six days, almost all who were fit for travel were back.

  Bill Knickerbocker returned to his unit in record time but found little had changed in regard to the lack of respect his profession garnered from his superiors. His first post-mission paycheck contained a $25.00 debit for his combat uniform and boots and an insulting fine of $75.00 for being AWOL.

  • • •

  In the wake of the glider pilot migration Miley’s troops readied themselves for the push. Salvage teams picked through wrecked gliders for unclaimed supplies and ammunition. Jeep teams raced to DZ W, where the division’s quartermaster troops stockpiled supplies from the B-24 drop. Combat engineers tinkered with captured vehicles to get them running. Idle squads collected the dead—both friend and foe—and separated them into grim piles for easier recovery.

  09:05. Drop Zone X—The Thirteeners. Sunday, March 25, 1945.

  Generals Ridgway and Miley returned to Coutts’ command post at 09:05 to check in on the Thirteeners’ readiness for the day’s mission.

  Coutts’ men had already been busy that morning. The Thirteeners’ 2nd Battalion, led by Colonel “Ace” Miller, had moved out before dawn to finally seize their objective. In hushed tones Miller had ordered his men to advance through the woods in a single column.

  Stepping carefully to avoid snapping twigs, the lead scouts dove for cover as rifle and machine gun fire cracked through the still air. The enemy muzzle flashes set the machine in motion: squads bounded forward, forming loose skirmish lines. The POP! POP! POP! of suppressing rifle fire was quickly drowned out by the steady bursts of belt-fed machine guns. T
he Americans’ superior firepower swelled, overwhelming the Germans, who, faced with the inevitable, gave up. Two platoons of Grenadiers were added to the division’s cages, and the Thirteeners’ final D-Day objective fell at 07:30.

  Miller’s battalion would stay in place to link up with British airborne troops—a task he should have completed eighteen hours before. While Miller awaited the Tommies with a flask of whiskey brought to celebrate the occasion, Coutts’ other two battalions along the Issel would mop up any remaining resistance within the combat team’s sector.

  The clearing operation netted sixty-three more prisoners and a battery of 105mm howitzers. The paratroopers also rescued a group of C-47 and B-24 crewmen who’d barricaded themselves in a farmhouse. Numerous liberated vehicles were duly pressed into service. Bicycles and horses became popular means of individual conveyance, and several troopers pushed their mortar ammunition down the road in captured baby carriages.

  Personal trophy taking was rife as many paratroopers accessorized their combat uniform with fashionable accoutrements such as formal top hats, stylish monocles, and flashy striped ties. The pirates did little to hide their plunder. Embracing one of history’s most pervasive rules, “to the victor go the spoils,” they took what they wanted.

  For all the frivolous pillaging, there was still work to do. That morning Tom Funk’s platoon leader asked him to volunteer for a six-man patrol.

  “I didn’t want to go,” Funk admitted. “But I also didn’t want to be thought of as being afraid, so I agreed to go.” Funk had worked hard to overcome the stigma of being a replacement and didn’t want to jeopardize his growing status as a veteran trooper, so he pulled himself out of his foxhole to join the others.

  Crossing an open field, he admired the beautiful weather, thinking that back home it would have been a perfect day for a picnic. The daydream shattered as six Germans leapt up and dashed into a house under covering fire from the windows. The first shots killed Funk’s friend Frank Burton instantly, and the other five paratroopers flopped to the ground.