Schwerpunkt: From D-Day to the Fall of the Third Reich (10 page)

But the “All American” 82
^nd
wasn’t the only division slugging it out with the goddamn Jerries on DDay. General Maxwell Taylor’s “Screaming Eagles” of the 101
^st
U.S. Airborne landed with almost as much confusion and disarray as the 82
^nd
but they landed closer to their objective which was the town of Carentan. They were marginally luckier than the 82
^nd
in that they at least were reported to have landed within their designated drop zones. They apparently didn’t have to march for hours and days to meet up with one another like the 82
^nd
did but they too experienced scattered drops that left many men alone and vulnerable to enemy attacks. One report that came in from General Maxwell Taylor said that he and another general, about 15 officers, and just about 50 enlisted men met up initially. He reported to us that, “Never have so few been commanded by so many.”

The Order for the 101
^st
was to capture and hold the town of Carentan because until that burg was in our hands, the Krauts could still fire on Utah Beach with their heavy artillery and we had more and more guys to land on that beach. And unfortunately, we later found out that the Kraut bastards who left Ste. Mere Eglise went to Carentan which made our task there so much the harder.

Before getting to Carentan, the 101
^st
was ordered to take and hold a specific cross road because until we controlled it, there would be no road which the tanks and trucks coming off Omaha Beach could use to reach and secure Carentan. There just wasn’t any other way for the tanks to get to Carentan without it. But protecting that objective was a crack German parachute unit dug in at one of the next towns over on the road leading to Carentan. The reports sent by the 101
^st
initially gave us hope but then, on their way to Carentan the day after DDay, they met an attack by the Kraut parachute unit which was positioned in a house standing on the high ground. The Krauts held not only the high ground around there, but also the cross roads and the house. But as badly as we wanted to take all that, the Krauts wanted as badly to keep it.

We received reports that the fighting was intense. As our men moved up the only road to the town, they were spotted and relentlessly fired upon from the high ground. Tanks were involved and it was reported that as one of our leading tanks reached the main intersection of the roads, the Krauts fired a goddamn rocket into it. The crew was killed and one tanker was hanging out of the tank turret. Nothing could get that tank out of the intersection though attempt after attempt was made. Since he’s been there for a long time and no one could get to that tank, I heard they first named that cross road, “the corner with the dead man in the tank” but then they shortened it to “Dead Man’s Corner.” They named the road leading up to the corner, “Purple Heart Lane.” Jesus…

That battle to get the road to Carentan lasted from June 8
^th
to June 12
^th
. Air cover from our planes and bravery and balls on the part of the paratroopers who eventually fought with bayonet charges finally turned the trick and soon Carentan fell into our waiting hands. Now WE controlled the high ground and the roads. We turned the house that gave us so much trouble into an Allied Aid Station.

It’s mail call and I got a letter. I always heave a sigh of relief when I see Harold’s goofy handwriting on the back of an envelope but this one looks like it’s from my cousin Paul. He’s in the 82
^nd
Airborne Division, Parachute Infantry Regiment.

June 7, 1944

Hiya Cuz,

I’m pretty sure you know all about where my unit was and what we did so I just wanted to let you know I didn’t buy the farm yesterday though there sure were times I thought I was a goner, let me tell you. In case you weren’t keeping minute by minute track of me, I landed where the pathfinders who went out earlier than us told us to drop. Well, that was the plan anyway. They put down orange recognition panels and that was where we were supposed to be dropped. And boy oh boy. If you think us Airborne guys are tough, you should see those Pathfinder guys. I saw some of them shave their head leaving only a tuft of hair running over their bald head. They looked like Chief Iroquois or something.

So we loaded up and took off in the middle of the night. At first, everyone was joking around but then it got kind of quiet, each man probably alone with his thoughts and prayers, I think. As we were reaching our destination, me and the other guys stood up and when we saw the red light come on, I heard some wisenheimer say, “It’s show time, Ladies!” which broke some of the tension.

It probably took me a minute or less to hit the ground but in those quick seconds I thought a lifetime of thoughts as I met the devil’s own resistance. I caught a scratch or two but was basically of sound body. (Notice I didn’t say mind because there were plenty of times I thought to myself, “What in the hell are you doing?”). Once I hit the ground though, and I verified that I was still alive and whole, I set out. What I saw around me was nothing like what the reconnaissance photos looked like. I wandered around a bit until I met up with some of the other guys and that’s when we set off to our objective which is a small town which, I’m gonna be proud to say, is going to be the first town in France to be liberated from the Germans, at least by the Americans, and I’m going to be there to make that happen. Being in Ridgeway’s army doesn’t give you a whole lot of other options. How many times did I hear: “There’s a right way, a wrong way and a Ridgeway.” Truthfully though, I would follow him anywhere and when he says jump, my only question would be “where?” We were taught that no one is bigger or stronger than a paratrooper and seeing what we all went through, I’m beginning to believe there may be some truth to that bullshit. Plus, the extra $50 a month I earn in jump pay makes me think I picked the right job.

Now that the drop is over and I’m still in one piece, I gotta tell you the thrill of a jump is like none other though it sure goes better when the pilot dropping you stays on course and doesn’t panic just because some Kraut sons of bitches are trying to shoot his plane out from under him. So I landed in water that wasn’t too deep but it scared the shit out of me because I could barely keep my face above it while I was trying to get my gear off. After about 2 hours (or maybe it was just 2 or 3 minutes), I got my stuff off, gathered what I needed and moved to drier ground. I landed next to some buddies so we moved to the roadway to figure out where we were. Turns out we were way the hell off course and had to high tail it to where we were supposed to be in the first place which was by what they were calling “Utah Beach.” Every once in a while, we’d hear these clicking noises and which we came to find out were toy crickets that the guys in the 101st were given as recognition devices. We had a pass word and a response which if we didn’t get it immediately, we were to start shooting.

We got to our meet up place ok, though we had to shoot plenty of Krauts to do it. (They clearly didn’t know the password.) Had to bayonet plenty too. There’s a small town right there and we had to secure it and all the roads by the exit off Utah Beach. We also were ordered to clear all Germans from that area as well as prevent them from bringing reinforcements into that area via any means. We will meet up with the grunts coming off the beach whenever they feel like getting here. In the meantime, I’m in a house with some food and apple cider. So now we wait.

Till then, take her easy, Frank.      Paul

The Allied invasion of the Normandy beaches was the largest seaborne assault ever attempted in the history of the world. In the dark of night during the early hours of June 6, 1944, approximately 150,000 fighting ground troops were brought to designated sites in the English Channel where they left their larger ships and boarded smaller boats which brought them to the five Normandy beaches covering more than a 50 mile stretch of land. Just this seaborne aspect of Operation Overlord involved more than 4000 ships and boats. As the sun was about to rise, the Germans would find themselves facing nearly 3,000 men as the first wave of invaders entered France. By the end of the day, between the Airborne and ground troops, just about 170,000 men were ashore ready to continue fighting. All the landing beaches except Omaha took casualties less than expected but within the 24 hour period bringing DDay to an end, there were still more than 10,000 Allied soldiers killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. While almost none of the planned objectives were met that first day and in spite of the high number of casualties, the invasion was nevertheless considered a total success. Within the first 18 hours of the remaining 11 months of World War II, infantry troops from Utah Beach linked up with the airborne troops. The Allieds gained a 24 mile front approximately four to six miles deep and men and supplies continued to stream ashore.

DDay was nothing if not meticulously planned. There were plans for soldiers, sailors, paratroopers and probably even plans for the planners. We had to breach the German’s Atlantic Wall which, where we were focused, ran longer than 50 miles. To overcome it, we had 7000 sea craft, 13,000 air craft, 170,000 men, 20,000 land vehicles and all the supplies a fighting army would need. Two American beaches, Utah on the west closest to the Cotentin Peninsula and Omaha several miles to the east of it, along with three British beaches to the east of Omaha, formed the landing zone. Before our men landed on the beaches, we raked the whole area with bombs to knock out as many Krauts and Kraut defenses as we could. Besides bombs, though, our aircraft dropped aluminum foil which we called “chaff” to deceive the Kraut radars. Payloads of chaff were thrown out of the planes around Calais so that this area would especially be picked up as blips on the Jerry radar screens. We also sent “radio messages” to and from our “hotspots.” These chaff drops and the fake radio transmissions were all undertaken to deceive. We used jamming systems which were installed on many of our ships and I’m happy to report that they apparently left the coasts of England relatively undetected. We have to keep the Krauts on their toes in the Calais area so that they will ignore, to the extent possible, the landing sites we are using in the Seine Bay area of Normandy. As the guy who jumped from the Empire State Building said, “So far so good…so far so good…”

After the planes dropped their bomb loads, the ships we had sent to the area opened up with terrific amounts of naval fire. There were 34 cruisers and battleships and 100 destroyers all finishing off what the planes had started. When our bombers got back, I heard that they said Normandy now looked like the surface of the moon. I can believe that, what with the tons of bombs being dropped on it.

Overlord called for about 3,000 Americans in the first wave of sea-borne landings on the far western beaches codenamed Utah and Omaha. British and Canadian troops were to land on the beaches farther to the east code named Gold, Juno and Sword. The landing plan for each beach was to have the assigned men land in continuous waves only minutes apart and, utilizing specified beach exits, they were to move off the beach and enter specified towns, road intersections or inland bridgeheads to seize control of them and thereby deny their use by the enemy. These men were brought up to the beaches in something like 4,300 troop carriers but before that, we had sent 300 minesweepers in to remove the obstacles and clear the way for the soldiers who’d be running up and over the beaches. Frogmen were also deployed to disarm what the minesweepers missed. These heroes neutralized as many of the obstacles that guarded the shorelines as they could in the short amount of time they had available. Two mini submarines were positioned so they could beam light signals to the approaching vessels sort of like floating lighthouses. We also sent in battleships to bombard the shore and the shoreline defenses with as much heavy shit as they could.

Our infantry troops embarked in England, where they were loaded onto ships and taken to Zone “Z” in the English Channel which was nicknamed “Picadilly Circus” because of all the ship traffic. Troop transport ships took the men to the zone where they met up with the landing crafts which would then take them to the shores of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches. Off loaded from these transports, the men then climbed onto smaller boats, mostly Higgins boats designed by and named after an Irishman named, of all things, Andrew Jackson Higgins out of New Orleans. The Higgins boat was small but big enough to carry a fully loaded 36-man platoon. From what I heard, it had a shallow draft which would allow it to run right up onto the shoreline but I’m guessing the ride over had to be as choppy as hell. These Higgins Boats were fast and easy enough to pilot, I suppose, and its best feature was that the front end opened, which created a ramp that the men were supposed to climb down to get onto the beaches. This ramp could be dropped and raised so quickly that it was supposed to be possible for one of these boats to unload its men and supplies, back itself off the beach, and race back to the supply ship to pick up another load within less than four minutes. We heard, though that not too many of the Higgins boats made it up to the beaches so the men mostly had to wade or swim in the water to get to the beaches.