Behind Hitler's Lines (12 page)

Duber cursed that he'd lost his bet—they hadn't come this
far to turn around and go back. Joe knew he'd won the larger wager because that sure as hell was Normandy coming up. At one thousand feet it looked as dark and still as it had for his paymaster jumps. Once again he would arrive in France a rich young man.

So as not to pass above Allied navies (nervous naval antiaircraft gunners had riddled the 82nd's jump into Sicily), the aerial armada approached the coast from the west, the opposite side of the peninsula from Utah and Omaha beaches. Upon landfall the pilots started a gradual descent to the planned jump altitude of seven hundred feet. Joe's stick sensed they were lower, much lower, around four hundred feet. The ever-calculating Duber did some calculations. He determined that at that height a reserve chute would be useless. McKnight agreed, so one by one his stick chucked the reserve packs to the back of the plane.
^*
Same thing with gas masks and life vests. The troopers were over land now, and poison gas was at the bottom of their fear list.

“Get ready!” McKnight shouted, a standard prejump command, quite unnecessary except for a few troopers coming out of a sleeping-pill stupor. Joe's thoughts flashed for a moment to the FFI. Here we come, Camille—you won't be disappointed! God had been away from Europe for five years, replaced by the Gestapo. Now He was back. Yet the Germans prayed to Him with a motto embossed on their belt buckles:
GOTT
MiT
UNS.
God is with us. It seemed impossible for God to receive so many short messages, from both sides, as D Night unfurled.

“Check your equipment” was McKnight's next command.

Even while descending to four hundred feet the C-47s applied full power, though they were supposed to throttle back to the maximum safe jump speed of 120 miles per hour. Evidently many pilots found that was too slow for safety as each
wave of transports felt more shocks from guns below. The German “88” artillery piece was originally designed for antiaircraft use and against the vertical invasion did much damage. Moreover, the armada was flying in formation. To slow down to one hundred miles per hour was to risk being rammed from behind. Thus the waves reached drop points at the speed of the fastest rather than the slowest planes among them.

Concussions from 88s multiplied, bouncing C-47s around like speedboats in a typhoon, as eight hundred of them— wingtips scant yards apart—struggled to hold formation and continue inland. Hunched on metal benches, troopers lurched against one another, helmets striking the fuselage as it whip-sawed from explosions that flashed and thundered like a lightning storm, first remote, then rolling by, then rumbling elsewhere, then returning as antiaircraft batteries ahead searched for new targets. Between thunderclaps a face would appear momentarily in the flare of a cigarette lighter. Otherwise the fuselage was a dark cave of prayerful impatience united in a single plea—Let us out!

But first the Germans broke in. Joe heard a scud of shrapnel pepper the left wing. Suddenly a long stitch of heavy-caliber machine-gun fire shrieked up through the belly of his plane, punching jagged mouths across the deck. As one, the stick shouted and pulled up their feet. Spent slugs rolled around on the pitching deck. A trooper bent over and picked one up, perhaps the first war souvenir on the Western Front. No one seemed to have been hit. A good omen, and a taunt from the Germans that had to be answered because several men exclaimed that their precious jump boots had been gouged. No one's going to get away with that! Let's jump!

Ground fire and concussions abated when the armada, its formations broken beyond reassembly, entered a belt of fog. Germans could shoot only at sound, which five hundred feet overhead was like elevated trains. In the fog McKnight and the pilot saw no landmarks, relying entirely on a luminous compass, a wristwatch, and dead reckoning. The fog opened. Once again tracers reached up. Most missed, some hit, one
with a huge flash and jolting explosion dead ahead. Lieutenant Johnston's ship—Jack, Orv—all aboard were consumed in a falling flame.

TWENTY FAMILIES LOST
their men in a moment. It would be days before Joe knew, weeks for them. The fireball superheated a fury to get at the antiaircraft gunners. Till then jaws were locked, but someone yelled at the pilot, “Lemme at 'em!” But it was not quite yet time.

Emerging from the fog bank the armada was scattered storm-tossed, its pilots confounded and confused at every altitude. Red lights went on, the alert to watch for green. McKnight yelled the long-awaited commands:

“Stand up!” Troopers struggled to rise amid flashes in darkness.

“Hook up!” Attach to the anchor line.

It was hardly an anchor, rolling, slanting down as if the plane had crested the ultimate dip of a roller coaster, the pilot as eager to disgorge the jumpers as they were to escape.

A trooper blurted that his boot was full of blood. The crew chief pulled him from the stick where he slumped against the pile of reserve chutes, fumbling for his first-aid pack. He'd been hit by the earlier stitch of machine-gun fire but didn't notice the wound till he tried to stand. No one said anything when he apologized for not going with them. His was just an early rendezvous, they'd think later, but not be able to remember his name.

Tracers streaked outside while in the black tube of the cabin Joe's stick swayed, groping for balance, every man bent by his load, which seemed welded to the deck. As the C-47 fishtailed, its crew chief manhandled cargo bundles to the door. Out they went.

“Shuffle to the door!” was McKnight's last command. Belly to butt, the stick jammed up behind him moments before a green light suddenly glowed in the fuselage: the signal to
go
from their pilot, from Wolverton, Sink and Taylor, Bradley and Ike. From America, to go do what had to be done.

Joe's stick was hell-bent to set a new record for sixteen men evacuating a C-47. They probably did so in under ten seconds. Photos were to show that many Screaming Eagles flung themselves out “ass over appetite,” as if they'd never received jump training. McKnight led, followed by Duber, then Joe, who took a firm grip on the door and exited professionally like a Toccoa trooper. He yelled, “Currahee Three!,” unheard by anyone else as the prop blast ripped his words away.

“Hup thousand, two thousand.” The overstressed harness wrenched his shoulders up to ear level, the opening shock estimated after analysis as the equivalent of several tons. Though Joe's didn't, leg bags burst like fountains of confetti because most planes were going so much faster than jump speed.

The correct and inculcated body position was to be tense above the waist, chin down on the reserve chute. By choice Joe had no reserve, but in other sticks jumpers were knocked unconscious when metal rip-cord handles hit chins with unprecedented force. These jumpers did not revive, if at all, till they crumpled in trees or on fields. It was as if astronauts, seconds after pulling incomparable Gs, had to strip off then-space suits and immediately fight with ferocious aliens. All this happened for D Night paratroopers within less than a minute between exit in the sky and combat on the ground.

The uproar of war was all around, yet the night was cool and clear, the air rising from farmland fragrant of long grasses that descending jumpers were surprised they could smell. There were muzzle flashes but no Germans to be seen below, the only movement from disturbed shadows of horses and cows. With neurons still vibrating from the ultimate opening shock, Joe gaped and gawked from sensory contrasts. The night glowed as if God had lit the lamps of heaven to watch.

Thus commenced by far the largest and most sudden scattering of a major force in military history. Twenty thousand (counting British paratroopers) rendezvous with destiny began with a green light. For some men the rendezvous would end before they reached the ground, for many as soon as they
did. The rest would start savage battles to control the ground and remember that nothing was nearly the same thereafter. Not for them, not for the Germans, not for the world.

THERE WERE ONLY SECONDS
for Joe to realize that he was drifting toward a steeple coruscating with rifle flashes. From briefings he felt pretty sure it was the steeple of the church, the only church, in St. Come-du-Mont—unless his C-47 had been way off course, and conscientious McKnight never indicated that it was. If Joe was right, he was also lucky because the village of St. Come-du-Mont was only about a half mile from Third Battalion's drop zone and less than three miles from their objective, two wooden bridges across the smallish Douve River. Seizing the bridges and defending them would foil a German drive against Utah Beach. The intense briefings, the pictures and sand tables, had embedded that big picture in his mind.

Tracers perforated his canopy, leaving circular glows in the silk. Joe climbed the risers to side slip, at the same time releasing his tethered leg bag. In free fall it hit the church roof like a wrecking ball. Two seconds later so did Joe, with a force that buckled his knees. The roof sloped sharply. He tumbled and slid down it till boot soles and fingernails stopped him spread-eagled at the eaves.

For his second jump of the night, Joe rolled off the roof, grabbed the eaves to slow his fall, and dropped about fifteen feet to the ground, landing on his side and carbine. Even with the wind knocked out of him, earth never felt so good. The shadow of the church provided some concealment as he unharnessed, retrieved his leg bag, and for a few moments took stock. All the while tracers crisscrossed in the night, with no counterfire from the hundreds of Blues who must already be on the ground. That amazed and perplexed him. Here at last, after the desperate flight to reach them, were Germans as targets, the enemy to kill. Why aren't we doing it?!

The Germans had torched a house nearby. It was burning like a bonfire at a football rally. Snipers in the steeple were using the illumination to shoot at planes and jumpers. Joe, as
the Most Obvious Temper in his class, began planning how to climb up to the belfry and tommy-gun those snipers. It was an infuriating and nearly irresistible impulse; then it dawned on him why Blues had not attacked the church and snuffed its antiaircraft fire. Where were they? Well, they must have already set off for the objective—the Douve bridges—and the objective came first, as had been repeated in every briefing. It was for him to join them, all the more important because he was carrying I Company's most vital radio.

Where were they, his single-minded buddies? Another briefing point came to him. Wolverton had said over and over, “Remember, men, our objectives are
east
of the DZ. That's the direction the C-47s will all be flying. If you get disoriented, just look up and follow the planes.” They were still roaring overhead, still fired upon from the steeple. Grinding his teeth, Joe concluded that eliminating that fire must be left to others. But he'd leave something for them. Gathering up his gear, Joe bequeathed the heaviest stuff like the land mine and machine-gun belt. When troopers from later sticks attacked the church, probably soon, they could use it.

Unburdened, he took off in a crawl through the cemetery, dragging the radio. It reminded him of Toccoa times when Currahees had to belly-crawl a quarter mile in under ten minutes. The tombstones were good protection, but when Joe reached the wall it had to be vaulted.

With a heave and walrus jump he did it. No fire was directed at him from the steeple, for the Germans were focused on planes and jumpers, exchanging yells when they scored a hit. That was more than Joe could bear. From a ditch he let loose tommy-gun bursts at the steeple some fifty yards away. Divots of plaster spouted where the few bullets hit, very satisfying for Joe, though the snipers paused just momentarily. Firing on the enemy was a rite of passage, whetting an edge to see them fall next time. That could wait till he had some Blues beside him.

His stick had dropped a half mile west of almost all the others in Third Battalion. Though he didn't know it while slinking toward the Douve bridges, Joe was bringing up the
rear. He'd seen aerial photos of the hedgerows for which Normandy is famous. Now he was encountering them in the dark. Thick mats of vegetation, they rose from solid earthen berms, marking off and walling in rectangular fields for crops or cattle. Hedgerows could not be crawled through or climbed over; neither could they be skirted except on cart lanes. Through hedgerows there were no more than two openings between fields, usually at a corner. At these corners were most of the clashes on D Night. Joe could see muzzle flashes flickering behind distant hedgerow shadows, hear burp guns versus tommy guns like dogs fighting.

Until he joined a pack, Joe could only come up to a hedgerow and listen for anything on the other side. Once or twice there seemed to be some kind of scuffling sound and he'd cricket, but never got a response. He was tempted to toss a grenade over but incapable of handling what might come back at him. Probably most of what he heard was cows.

So if the sound went one way, Joe went the other. Even with a compass, this back-and-forth disoriented him. He was playing a version of hide-and-seek that little resembled his childhood game. Am I the only guy by myself? Where's the rest of the company? he kept wondering. It seemed they had vanished, transplanted to another battlefield.

“Stand alone” was the Currahee motto, but to survive in the vast grid of hedgerows required at least two men, one listening for what might be in the next field and the other to watch his back because some Germans could be coming into their field from the other corner. A squad leader lucky enough to assemble his men could move right along like a king in checkers. Enter a square, and if unoccupied, it was his. If not, he had men to seize the corners, then, holding a hedgerow square, his squad could repel almost anything. The same was true for German squads, fewer in number but more intact because they had not been dispersed like the paratroopers. In general, on D Night, the Germans knew where they were but not what was happening, whereas the Allied paratroopers were positive about what was happening but uncertain where they were.