McAuliffe was pissed and sent back a message: “Nuts!” The Germans didn’t understand what “Nuts!” meant, so McAuliffe sent another message telling them, “It means go to hell!” The American colonel that delivered the message saluted the German general—that’s the protocol—and he wished him luck. He should have said, “I hope we kill all you German SOBs,” but he wished him luck. He regretted saying that, but it was proper under the circumstances.
If our general would have said, “Drop your weapons,” I don’t think a man in the 101st would have surrendered. Wouldn’t have happened. I think they would have gone against his orders. As bad off as we were, as cold as we were, as hungry as we were, as sick as we were, I don’t think an American Airborne soldier could throw down his gun.
True. To a man I don’t think anyone would have surrendered. The Germans had more men than we had. They figured they’d blow Bastogne off the map. And we said, “Nuts!” They thought, These guys must be crazy.
I’d have thrown my gun down if I’d seen a broad there.
You wouldn’t have shot her, I know that.
Every day you got a little smarter about covering your foxhole. We always put wood across the top, put all kinds of branches, heavy stuff. But when it got to the point where the shelling knocked that off, we started looking for dead Germans and put them on top of the foxholes. They were frozen like bricks. They were heavy and we would drag them to our foxholes, and help the other guys drag them. When the shells came in, the treebursts didn’t hit you, they hit the bodies. It’s true. We had to stay alive, that’s all, you used everything you could get your hands on. No matter what it was you used it. Everything served a purpose.
We held our lines almost ten days. December 26, some of Patton’s Third Army, from the south, under Gen. Creighton Abrams—he was lieutenant colonel at the time, they broke the German lines and came through. We were no longer surrounded. Trucks were able to bring up supplies. They were able to get the wounded out of Bastogne and back to England.
When they broke through, we hoped for some relief, but there was no time for them to get help to the troops. We still had to push the Germans back, so the battles got worse instead of better. Their goal, the higher-ups, was to get the Air Force in again and hit the Germans. Some supplies came in and that was a bonus.
The guys from the armored divisions are under the impression that they saved our asses when they got to Bastogne, that they relieved us. Let me tell you, anyone in the 101st or 82nd Airborne gets burned up when we hear that. It’s absolutely wrong. The word isn’t “relieved.” We never got relieved. The armored forces can only say they broke the siege. They did break the siege, took the pressure off us, allowed some supplies to get through, but definitely no, they did not relieve us. We held the line before they came, and we stayed on the front lines during and after, and the fighting and casualties got worse. We lost so many men in the days following Patton’s Army breaking the siege that you could never call it “relieved,” or “saving our asses.” In fact, Patton’s tanks drew more fire for us. But we needed them. We went on to spearhead the Army all the way through to the 17th of January, for a full twenty-two days after we supposedly got “relieved.” It ain’t fair to read something that’s not the truth. I hear these armored guys walking around telling people they relieved us, and I say, “Relieved who?” I’m ready to go fist city.
Communications were getting through, so we found out the 101st was famous back home. Imagine, no info was released like it is today. It was all censored. When the Germans broke through and created the bulge and surrounded us, they identified the 101st Airborne as the ones surrounded. They thought we were goners I guess, so it was news. The 101st is surrounded! That’s not news for a paratrooper. But that’s how the 101st Airborne got so famous, even though many other great outfits were fighting the war, too. The 82nd Airborne was to the north of us, they were fighting just as hard as we were. The reply “Nuts” got famous, too. Another reason people came to know the 101st. Now you’re getting too educated!
After Christmas, General Taylor came back and took over as commander, but nobody wanted to see Taylor. Here, the guy’s the commander of the 101st Airborne, and he took time off to go and have Christmas dinner in Virginia. When we found out he was in Virginia, we couldn’t believe our general left us in a spot like that, and we didn’t want to hear no excuses. The guys resented it. Oh, they did, too! Nobody liked Taylor after that.
A day or two later, Mike McMann got hit with shrapnel. Roe sent him to get treated, and he came back a couple hours later, three or four in the morning. I was in my foxhole and he said, “I got something to make you laugh. When I was getting treated they brought a badly wounded kid in, a sergeant. He was lying on a homemade stretcher and he had a 45 on him, and the radio was on and Bing Crosby was singing “White Christmas.” The wounded sergeant took out his 45 and blew the radio to pieces. He said, “Come over here, you son of a bitch, I’ll give you a white Christmas!’”
As good as Bing Crosby was, that soldier was in no mood to listen to that. We had snow up to our eardrums. It was one hell of a Christmas. Mike’s story made everyone’s day. At least we all got a laugh.
Around that time, the officers had a lottery for a thirty-day leave. They gave it to Peacock because Nixon won, but turned it down. He wouldn’t leave the men on the front line. That’s the kind of officer Nixon was. Peacock was more than happy to take it. We all told him, “Couldn’t happen to a better guy.” He thought everyone was happy for him, but he took it the opposite of how we meant it. We meant good riddance! Lieutenant Foley took over the platoon. We all liked Foley. He was a good leader, a good soldier. One of the best in Easy Company. And a real Pennsylvanian. He was from Pittsburgh.
I told you about Shifty’s observation skills, and how he could use a gun. The kid was a crack shot. In Bastogne, everything looked the same every day. One day, Shifty told Lipton, “I think that tree wasn’t there yesterday.” The tree he saw was a mile away, and there was a whole bunch of trees there. How the hell did he concentrate on one tree? You tried looking at what he was looking at and your eyes get cockeyed. Then the tree moved. It had Germans hiding behind it with artillery. The tree gradually moved up, up, up. Lipton had to look with binoculars. Shifty saw it with his own eyes. Finally Lipton saw it move, too, and they got the forward artillery observer on it. Shifty said, “It’s going to be his last move.” And it was.
Brad Freeman and Buck Taylor also had skills like that, they were also outdoorsmen, but not like Shifty. The kids who grew up in the mountains and farms with guns in their hands had talents we city slickers didn’t have. All we knew was robbing, stealing, going to jail, wreaking havoc. But that came in handy, too! Each man had their individual talents. When you meshed them together, that’s what made us good. A good sergeant utilized those talents, knew who’s gonna get the job done.
When New Year’s Eve came, I was in a foxhole with Joe Toye. We got a phone call. Joe picks up the phone, and whoever was on the other end said, “We’re going to give the Germans a little New Year’s Eve greeting.” At exactly midnight, all our artillery up and down the line was getting together to blast the Germans with a ton of ammo. When the clock hit twelve, they let loose, except the shells started to fall short, short rounds, and they were hitting right in front of us! Toye got on the phone, “Get those shells up, get ’em up! Jesus Christ, they’re hitting over here!” We almost bought the farm that night. They really did give the Germans a working over, but they almost gave us one, too.
The next day, the Germans beat the hell out of us with an air raid. The sky was filled with Luftwaffe, they were hitting everything. We were lucky we didn’t get the worst of it. Joe Toye got hit in the arm with a piece of shrapnel and was sent to the aid station. That was his third time hit. Toye just couldn’t catch a break.
We figured we were going to be relieved any day, since Patton broke through, at least get taken off the front line for a little while. We were exhausted. We were short
of men. We needed a break, a warm room, a shower, hot food, then you can rearm us and we don’t care what you give us. But that’s not what the higher-ups had in mind. They took care of the other units instead. I guess they figured the Airborne can take it; we’ll give the other guys the ammo, we’ll give them the supplies.
Instead of relief, Eisenhower wanted us to launch an offensive on Foy and Noville. Everybody was looking at one another, saying, “Jesus Christ, they got to be kidding.” I remember Johnny Martin saying, “We’re staying here? Are they kidding?” Nobody could believe it. We looked at the foxholes, we thought, Oh my God. Nobody could believe it, nobody. It took a little bit out of us. Nobody needed to get out of the cold more than we did. And to get away from seventy-some days on the line in Holland, and to put up with this, and they knew it, and still they wouldn’t take us off the line. The guys were really burned up. The problem was, they had nobody else to send. They had the best up there and they’re gonna leave the best up there. Do you know in Holland, Montgomery wouldn’t let Eisenhower take the 101st or 82nd off the line because he’d have to replenish with other troops, and he didn’t want to lose the best he had? A lot of men died because of it; we were exhausted. It was a mistake from the beginning. Lots of mistakes were made by guys that never once heard a shot fired.
In Bastogne, we were lucky that the Germans didn’t know what they were facing; they only knew they were facing airborne troops. It kind of slowed them down a bit. They didn’t want to get too aggressive because they knew they’d have to fight to the finish, too. They didn’t know what we had or didn’t have. If they knew, we wouldn’t be sitting here today, that’s for sure.
No matter what we thought about our orders, we stayed focused on what we had to do. Everybody in the company gave 100 percent.
The same day, January 1, I was on my machine gun in the woods. I heard Johnny Martin hollering that John Julian got hit. I said, “No, not Julian.” My best buddy from jump school. Guys in his squad came and told me about it, and they said nobody can get to him, the krauts got him zeroed in. I left my foxhole and my squad and went to where he was. I couldn’t believe it. He was shot through the throat. The kids in his squad said, “Don’t try to get him, we tried and we can’t.” I wanted to get him away from the Germans. I also wanted to get his class ring, his wallet, his wristwatch and get them back to his family. We’d made that pact with each other in jump school. We said, “Look, if anything happens to me, make sure you get my things back to my family, make sure you call them, and make sure you do this or that.” I had that pact with Julian and Henderson. The three of us had a pact.
But anytime anyone tried to go near Julian, the Germans opened up. They had a machine gun nest there and they could easily throw mortars. You can’t sacrifice three, four, five men to bring back one man you know is dead.
What happened was 1st Platoon had gone out on a patrol. It was a single patrol of seven to eight men, and they went out just to reconnoiter the position and see what was out there. It was routine, but it happened that the krauts were well dug in and they had a machine gun nest at the railroad tracks. Julian was the forward point for his squad—you had guys on the right and left flank and the point is front and center—and that’s what he ran into.
I couldn’t get to Julian. It was an ambush. We all tried to get him. We couldn’t. I was lying behind a big rock and a big mound of dirt. I was trying to get him from all angles. Sure enough, every time I tried, they fired on me. Any movement toward him, they opened up. Later one of our platoons pushed the Germans back, and Julian’s squad went back and got him. They came over to me and said, “We got John’s body over there if you want to see him.” I said, Nah, I couldn’t handle that. I didn’t want to see him that way. I was shaking, we were all shaking. It was nighttime, and we just lay there in our foxholes. I never thought it was gonna be him. I guess he thought the same thing about me. We didn’t imagine we’d ever buy the farm. You never get over something like that. I’m only glad he didn’t suffer long. I’m glad it happened that way instead of taking one in the belly or something. It could have been a lot worse. Julian was a good kid. We took care of each other, and I knew what I had to do when I got home.
The next day, Joe Toye came back from the aid station with a sling on his arm. Winters told him to go back, but he wouldn’t. Now he was a hero. He had his ticket out, but he wouldn’t leave the men. No matter how bad he got hurt, he just kept at it. A hell of a soldier. I had the utmost respect for him. He thanked me once for carrying him back to the aid station in Holland the day Campbell was killed, and it was one of the greatest compliments I ever got, because it came from Joe Toye, one of the greatest soldiers I ever knew. (Bill adds: “Finest Irishman I ever knew.” Babe adds: “Toughest SOB I ever knew.”)
Our orders were to move out and get the Germans out of the Bois Jacques woods. We had over a foot of snow, you could barely move, you had no visibility, and the Germans knew we were there. We were still fighting from every side. The biggest challenge for the sergeants was keeping contact with each other in the snow. You couldn’t see a damn thing. But if you didn’t maintain contact, you were done. And once the krauts break through, they’ll send everything they have right through. They tried like hell to push us back with mortars and 88s, but we stood our ground and had to dig new foxholes for the night. The sergeants didn’t dig foxholes, I was sharing a foxhole with Bain, and he dug it for us. It wasn’t an easy job. The ground was frozen solid. Your hands are frozen solid.
That night, I was leaning on a tree, waiting to go on outpost, talking to some of the guys. Don Hoobler was in a great mood. He killed four krauts that day and was bragging about killing a kraut on horseback and looting his Belgian 32 pistol. He was showing off his new souvenir to all the guys. It was just a little bigger than your hand, and they were arguing over whether it was a Belgian 32 or a Czechoslovakian 32. I said it was Czech; the other guys said it was a Belgian 32. It ended up it was a Belgian 32.
I continued on to outpost, and about two or three o’clock in the morning, in the pitch black, I heard some artillery and small-arms fire in the distance. Then I heard a shot less than three to four yards away. I walked back to the woods to check it out and saw Hoobler lying on the ground with some troopers frantically working on him. He was saturated in blood, yelling, “Help me, help me, I’m dying!” They were trying like hell to stop the bleeding, but it was too dark to see anything. One of the guys wanted to light a light, and somebody said, “You light a light, I’ll blow your goddamn head off.” You couldn’t—there were German tanks all around they would have annihilated everyone. It’s one man or the whole company.
What happened was that Hoobler and a few of the guys were standing around talking, holding canvas shelters over their heads because the snow was falling heavily. Hoobler went to shake the snow off his canvas and the gun went off in his pocket. This pistol didn’t have a safety, and Hoobler didn’t have a holster. The bullet hit his leg in the main artery, so he never had a chance. He knew he was dying. He kept saying it. Before they got him out of the woods he was gone.
Makes you realize how fragile life is. A lousy accident, and a good soldier gone. I thought about the telegram that would go home to Hoobler’s family in Illinois, saying “Killed in Action,” no explanation, no mention of some crazy accident. Hoobler was the most gung-ho out of all of us. Guess that kraut got his revenge all the way from hell.
The next day, January 3, after a few clear days, the sky turned white and it started snowing again. We came back to our old spots in the Bois Jacques woods, and just as we reached our old foxholes, they started shelling the hell out of us. There was another company, I think Fox Company, in our foxholes while we were gone and by the time they left, the woods looked like a bunch of toothpicks. The trees were shredded. The Germans must have been watching the area. They knew as soon as we got there, and had us zeroed in.
The Germans started pounding us with artillery. When you got an artillery bombardment, shells went
screaming over your head, you dove into a foxhole and crouched down as low as you could. The shelling was unbearable. Never saw so many shells in my life. It was Boom! Boom! Boom! The ground, dirt, snow, body parts, blood, goes shooting up all around you. The ground shook like an earthquake, worse than an earthquake. The noise made you deaf. You can’t believe you’re still alive. If you’re a sergeant, you have to make sure the men are in their holes, and then you take cover. I can tell you this: When shells were flying over your head, and you didn’t know where they would land, you started making promises to the man upstairs. I said, “God, if you get me out of this place alive, I’ll do anything you want.” I did that probably a million times. “Get me out of here, Lord, and I’ll do this or that.” You make all kinds of promises. We had a guy named Matson, he prayed if he got out he was going to become a priest. He became a priest as soon as the war was over, made up for all us scallywags that didn’t keep our promises.
The Germans had us zeroed in. It was horrendous, there’s no way to describe it. Shells were hitting all over the place and everybody was running to get into a foxhole, anybody’s foxhole. Guys were getting hit, screaming, hollering for medics all over the woods, and there were very few medics around, you understand? Joe Toye was running around trying to get everyone to take cover. Next thing I know, Joe Toye is hollering, “I’m hit, I’m hit!” I looked up and he was lying on the ground about six to eight feet away from me. His leg was blown to bits, hanging off his body, all mangled, he was bleeding all over—from the chest, back, head, arms, legs. I thought he was dead. I ran out to try and get him to safety. As soon as I got to him, Wham! A treeburst exploded above our heads. I was hit. I fell next to Joe. I felt like I was on fire, like someone took a sizzling hot poker and was burning me. I thought I was dead. My right leg was blown off, and the snow was red from all the blood. I went from burning hot to freezing. Me and Joe lay there freezing in the snow, shivering, bleeding, both of us were full of shrapnel. He said, “Jesus Christ, what the hell do I have to do to die?!” It was Joe’s fifth time hit. Lipton, Malarkey, and Babe came running over to help, I was half out of it. Doc Roe was right there, trying to patch us up. Without him, we wouldn’t be alive. Roe was the best medic we ever had. He was born to be a medic. You could always depend on him. You hollered, “Medic!” he was right there come hell or high water, he knew what he was doing. He was compassionate, took care of you mentally, physically, every way. They put me on a stretcher before Joe, I said, “I told you I’d beat you back to the States,” and then I passed out.
Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends Page 18