Pvt. John Thach (B/377PFA)
PFC. Andrew C. Thieneman (C/327)
Capt. Eber H. Thomas (Svc/501)
PFC. Walter W. Tibbets (B/377PFA)
Pvt. Stanley R. Tiller (DivHQ)
Pvt. Alden Todd (F/502)
Capt. Victor J. Tofany (F/463)
PFC. A. J. Tower (D/463)
Sgt. Joseph Toye (E/506)
F/O David H. Trexler (315/34)
PFC. John C. Trowbridge (HQ1/501)
Sgt. Louis Truax (D/506)
PFC. William True (F/506)
F/O David A. Truman (436TCG)
1Lt. Ernest Turner (439TCG)
Cpl. Richard Turner (B/506)
PFC. Newman L. Tuttle (HQ/502)
T/5 Arte Van Don (HQ/326Eng)
Capt. Charles Van Gorder (326Med)
Cpl. Edward Vetch (G/506)
Pvt. John Vlachos (HQ/506)
1Lt. Wally H. Wagner (435/75)
PFC. William Wakeland (B/907)
Cpl. E. B. Wallace (F/506)
Capt. Ted Wallace (Svc/502)
F/O Ben Ward (436/81)
1Lt. Jack Washishek (Div Arty)
Sgt. Elmer Weber (101Rcn)
1Lt. William Wedeking (HQ3/506)
PFC. Rudy Wedra (HQ/501)
T/5 David Weintraub (101Sig)
PFC. Paul West (A/401)
SSgt. Maurice C. White (I/501)
Capt. Thomas J. White (HQ/321)
T/5 George Whitfield (326Med)
Pvt. Robert M. Wiatt (C/506)
PFC. Robert I. Wickham (HQ1/501)
PFC. John J. Wielkopolan (G/502)
PFC. George E. Willey (E/501)
1Lt. Shrable D. Williams (Pfdr/506)
SSgt. Jack Williamson (A/327)
F/O Douglas Wilmar (438TCG)
1Lt. Robert Wing (C/326Eng)
SSgt. Ted Wingstrom (B/463PFA)
Capt. Richard D. Winters (HQ2/506)
1Lt. Albert J. Wise (A/502)
2Lt. Leonard Witkin (I/501)
1Lt. George B. Woldt (DivHQ)
PFC. Marvin C. Wolfe (I/501)
PFC. Crit B. Womack (HQ1/506)
Sgt. Donald J. Woodland (A/501)
Capt. Rufus Woody (31PhotoRcn)
1Lt. Ben F. Wright (HQ/463)
Cpl. Richard M. Wright (Pfdr/506)
T/4 Gordon Yates (H/506)
Col. Charles H. Young (439TCG)
1Lt. Harold E. Young (C/326Eng)
PFC. Raymond O. Zabriskie (C/81AT)
PFC. Walter Zagol (F/502)
T/4 Gerald Zimmerman (101Sig)
Pvt. Michael Zorich (I/501)
NOTES
CHAPTER 1
1McKenzie, Fred. The Men of Bastogne, David McKay Co., Inc. New York, 1968, p. 13.
2ibid.
3Hanlon, John. Is That All You Write: One Story a Day? The providence Journal Company R.I. 1983. 159–60.
4Taylor, Maxwell D. The Washington Post, “3,000 Miles to Bastogne.” op. ed. page, December 18, 1984.
5From a paper Capt. Thomas L. White wrote for Sarah Lyons, daughter of 1Lt. Joseph Lyons of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion as she was preparing a paper for her prep school assignment on the Battle of the Bulge in 1980.
CHAPTER 2
6ibid.
7Bernard J. Ryan’s recollections were sharpened with the rereading of a letter he wrote to regimental surgeon Major Louis Kent from a hospital bed in 1945 while recuperating from his wounds suffered in a battle east of Bastogne.
CHAPTER 3
8Sampson, Chaplain Francis L., Look Out Below! 101st Airborne Division Association, Sweetwater, TN. 1989. pp. 102–3.
9Sampson went on to say, “Each company in the regiment found a few band members in line with them later at Bastogne and, from all I heard, they gave an excellent account of themselves. Several of them were wounded, but none that I know of were killed. Thus, they regained in full measure the respect of the other men in the regiment.”
10A more complete description of the rescue of the Arnhem survivors, downed airmen and Dutch underground is found in Hell’s Highway on pages 419 to 424.
11Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division. Narrative—December 1944. March 16, 1945. Copy sent by Pratt Museum, Fort Campbell, KY.
12ibid.
13Sampson, op. cit.
14McKenzie, p. 21.
15ibid.
CHAPTER 4
16Rapport & Northwood, op. cit. 440.
17From a copy of a letter sent by Carl Cartledge who served with the S-2 Section of the 501st Parachute Regiment. The letter was translated by 1Lt. Werner J. Meier of the 501st Regimental PWI team on December 27, 1944.
18Sampson, op. cit. 105–106.
19Houston, Robert J. D-Day to Bastogne, Exposition Press, New York, 1979, p. 93.
20From a copy of a letter provided by Ruth Guzy, widow of Frank, written to Andre and Monique in Bullingen, Belgium in April of 1982.
21Houston, op. cit.
22Guzy, op. cit.
23Houston, op. cit.
24Guzy, op. cit.
25Walter E. Davis wrote a letter to me on April 20, 1966 at the time I was researching D-Day With The Screaming Eagles. Something in the roster I sent him triggered a flood of memories of the Bastogne conflict.
26Minick, Robert. Kilogram The Story of the 907th Glider Artillery Battalion. (Private Printing), Hobart, Indiana, 1979. pp. 166–167.
27From an interview of Gordon Geiger that appeared in The World War II Chronicle, P.O. Box 68079, Indianapolis, IN 46268-0079.
28ibid.
29Prior, John T. Onendaga County Medical Society Bulletin, “The Night before Christmas—Bastogne 1944,” December 1972. pp. 15–24.
30Astor, Gerald, A Blood-Dimmed Tide, Donald I. Fine, New York, 1992. p. 213.
31ibid.
32From an account, Christmas … for Real! written by Robert F. Harwick for the November–December, 1945 issue of The Magazine of the Gulf Companies, pp. 2–3.
33ibid.
34Straith, op. cit.
35From a story about Steve Polander which appeared in his home town newspaper, Berwick Press-Enterprise, dated August 9, 1985.
36Straith, op. cit.
37Straith, op. cit.
38Though the V-Mail letter had a December 30, 1944 date, it was not mailed until later when censorship was lifted for that period.
39In a letter to a Mr. Orton for a subscription renewal, Dr. Gordon L. Block wrote of his experiences with the 101st Airborne Division and the POW camps on May 19,1945 while the recollections were still fresh memories.
40From an oral tape I made with Robert E. Barger on January 29, 1990. He and I had parachuted from the same plane with General Maxwell D Taylor on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
41Recollections of PFC. Donald M. Dobbins as they appear in Rendezvous With Destiny, a History of the 101st Airbome Division. pp. 467–68.
CHAPTER 5
42Harwick, op. cit.
43Don Straith revisited that battle site about twenty years later.
44Polander, op. cit.
45Harwick, op. cit.
46Prior, op. cit.
47Small, Collie. “Bastogne: American Epic,” The Saturday Evening Post. February 17, 1945. pp. 18–19
48Harwick, op. cit.
49ibid.
50Small, op. cit.
51Prior, op. cit.
52Straith, op. cit.
53Harwick, op. cit.
54Several years later, officers and men who had served with “C” Company wrote up Sergeant Eugene Esquible for a Silver Star but it was lost somewhere in the Army channels—if ever a man deserved a medal, it was Sergeant Esquible whose actions saved many lives in “Charley” Company that day. (The author located a citation in which Sgt. Eugene Esquible was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism for that action—he deserved better.)
55Prior, op. cit.
56Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division, Office of Division Commander, G.O. #11,12 February 1945.
57The half-trac
k is most likely the vehicle which had made the attempt to evacuate wounded earlier as had been related by Capt. John T. Prior.
58Straith, op. cit.
59Hardwick, op. cit.
60From a copy of a letter sent to the author by Joe Powers of “A” Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The letter was written in 1945 while both Captain Melvin Davis and 2Lt. Ted Patching were recuperating from wounds received in Holland and Neville, respectively.
61On December 21st, they arrested 16 of the villagers and put them in a line alongside the highway. Round about noon, they forced them to remove from the highway all debris of American armored vehicles that had been destroyed during the action that had taken place the previous two days. Approximately an hour later, a German officer ordered that they be gathered again in one line. Facing the line, he took a paper out of his pocket and read eight names. Then he said, “These eight men may go back home.” Then the eight men left, including the local priest, were escorted, hands behind their Jacoby family’s home. There, three trenches had been hastily dug into the ground. Hands behind their heads, some thirty yards across the highway into a field located some distance away behind the Jacoby family’s home. There, three trenches had been hastily dug into the ground. Hands behind their heads, the eight men were lined up right along the edge of these rough graves and then shot down one by one, in cold blood. Father Delvaux, the priest, first! Eight Belgian civilians had just paid with their lives for expressing joy and happiness at their liberation, which they had shared with the Americans some three months before. There is a small monument to the martyrs who died by assassination at the site in Noville.
62PFC. Salvadore Ceniceros had originally been assigned to Regimental Headquarters Company for the Normandy and Holland campaigns. He had been a participant in Colonel Sink’s wild mid-day ride on D-Day in Normandy as a bodyguard.
63At Christmas time in 1951, while stationed in France, I (Fisher) returned to Bastogne, went out to Marvie and to the house where the above incident occurred. As I approached, an elderly woman was sweeping the steps to the house, which had been rebuilt. She looked up, saw me and her face turned pale. She recognized me and invited me in and, over a cup of coffee and cakes, with half the neighborhood present, we reminisced using my fractured French and hand and arm signals. She told me that when the medics moved out of the barn that morning, the German soldiers moved in. The civilians—family and friends—were gathered in one room of the house when they saw me look in the window. They tried to make me understand that the Germans were there and motioned for me to go away but I broke the window and crawled in. As I started down the hall, she grabbed my arm and tried to pull me back but I shook loose and continued. They then heard some shots and I came flying back through the room and out the window. She said her daughter ran over and closed the broken window to slow down the Germans who came running into the room, threw some grenades out of the window and fired at me.
64See comments of Pvt. Edward Carowick of “B” Company, 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion of page 236.
65A phone call to Msgr. Francis L.Sampson (ret) verified that he probably was the priest who visited with Dick Bostwick as he remembers getting out of the jeep and chatting with the troops at their foxholes.
66Bostwick, op. cit.
67Sampson, op.cit. 108–9.
68Minick, pp. 166–67.
69Rapport and Northwood. pp. 478–79.
70Headquarters 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalion, After-Action Report, December 1944, 7 March 1945.
71Several men have mentioned passing the decapitated soldier near the bridge while relating their stories. Some thought it was a German soldier; other failed to mention an identity.
72The staff or command car was probably that of General McAuliffe on his way to Neufchateau to meet with General Middleton of VIII Corps.
CHAPTER 6
73The soldier was Pvt. Nick Prato who died of his wounds on December 28th.
74Marshall, Gen. S.L.A., BASTOGNE, The First Eight Days. Infantry Journal Press, Washington, D.C., 1946. p. 113.
75Harwick, op. cit.
76ibid.
77Polander, op. cit.
78Taken from a long letter Richard Meason wrote in 1947 while still recuperating from his war wounds. Copy of letter sent by his widow, Norma. Also, see comments of Captain Barney Ryan, 3rd Battalion surgeon who describes the seriousness of Meason’s wounds on page 249.
79Zahh was formerly Harwick’s platoon sergeant in “H” Company.
80Harwick, op. cit.
81ibid.
82Polander, op. cit. (In a later action, Polander lost a leg.)
83Harwick, op.cit.
84Records indicate Private John W. Conn was KIA on December 21, 1944.
85In checking through a list of men who receive the Silver Star and Distinguished Service Cross awards in World War II while serving with the 101st Airborne Division, I noticed the name of C.C. McEwan as the recipient of the Silver Star. I called him in November, 1922 and asked if the award was made for the above action, which he affirmed. McEwan went out with frozen feet a week after the action and never returned to the Screaming Eagle Division. The award was mailed to him after the war.
CHAPTER 7
86From the History of the 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalion as prepared by Captain George McCormack in 1945.
87Hanlon, John, The Readers Digest, “A bell rings in Hemroulle,” December 1962, pp. 8–10.
88From a letter Peter J. K. Hendrikx received from Carl E. Dickinson dated July 13, 1985.
89Material gathered during a phone conversation with retired General Ned D. Moore on November 17, 1991.
90Whenever we returned to base camp from the combat zones, I would transcribe the notes in my regular diary. After the war, while enrolled in college, I received a request from the officers chosen to write the 101st history, for the loan of my wartime diary, which they used quite extensively in the preparation of Rendezvous With Destiny, the wartime account of the action of the Division from activation to deactivation.
CHAPTER 8
91From a report of Airborne Pathfinder Operation “NUTS”, to commanding general, XVIII Airborne Corps on January 7, 1945.
92ibid.
93ibid.
94From a copy of an account John Agnew sent to the editor of the newsletter of the 9th Troop Carrier Command Pathfinder Association, Vol. I, No. 4.
95Airborne Pathfinder Operation “NUTS,” op. cit.
96Wolfe, Martin. Green Light, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA.1989, p. 348.
97ibid.
98ibid.
99Gilmore, Maj. Lawrence J. and Lewis, Capt. Howard J., History of the 435th Troop Carrier Group. Greenville, S.C. 1946.
100From a wartime diary kept by ILt. Austin Buchanan at his home station at Greenham Common in England.
101From a newspaper clipping of a story written by Meyer Levin of the Overseas News Agency that appeared in a Staten Island, New York newspaper, January 2, 1945.Clipping sent by George Woldt.
102From citation for Silver Star awarded to 1Lt. Thomas J. Niland dated 27 October 1945.
103From a citation for an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Bronzes Star for PFC. Harry W. Bliss, awarded posthumously, dated 30 March 1945.
CHAPTER 9
104As mentioned in PFC. Carmen Gisi’s brief report, PFC. Norman “Blimp” Blimline managed to stagger into the command post under his own power.
105Prior, op. cit.
106That statement is in conflict with the 101st history, Rendezvous with Destiny, which states it was Major Martin Wiseley, surgeon of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, who made the proposal.
107From a letter Ted Goldmann wrote to the editors of Readers Digest on April 25,1947 while attending Texas A & M University on the G.I. Bill.
108Copy of the above letter was sent by Carl Cartledge of the S-2 Section of the 501stParachute Infantry Regiment. The letter was written at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve. It was translated by 1Lt. Werne
r. J. Meier. The notation at the bottom of the letter read:“This letter was written by a German soldier on Christmas Eve. It is believed that the soldier is dead as this letter was found among some other documents turned into PEW.”
109From a copy of a V-Mail letter Joseph Pangerl wrote to his parents from Chateau Rolle dated 29 December 1944.
110ibid.
111McKenzie, Fred. Correspondent for Buffalo Evening News, January 18, 1945 (delayed) column in The Detroit Free Press.
112Geiger, op. cit.
113Prior, op. cit.
114McKenzie, op. cit.
115Prior, op. cit.
CHAPTER 10
116Marshall, Colonel S. L. A. Armored Cavalry Journal, “Men Against Fire”. May–June, 1950, pp. 5–7.
117Martin, Darryl R. Military History, “Unexpected Trap for Panzers,” December1988. p. 51. Copy sent by Robert C. Bowen.
118Not so. Koskimaki is sure the tank Hansen is referring to is the one which was captured by T/4 “Booger” Childress and his tank stalking party from “B” Battery of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion.
119Martin, op. cit.
120ibid.
121ibid.
122ibid.
123ibid.
124S-2 Report of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion for December 25, 1944.
125See page 10.
126463rd S-2 Report.
127From a copy of a commendation letter written by Colonel Thomas Sherburne to LTC. John Cooper and the men of the 463rd on December 25, 1944.
128Koskimaki, Hell’s Highway, pp. 315–16.
129From a letter Albert. J. Wise wrote to Major Ivan G. Phillips at Fort Benning, Georgia on June 29, 1948.
130Privates John Ballard and Ted Goldmann had made a pact earlier that if one or the other survived the war to tell about it, the survivor would write to the other’s family, describing what life had been like for them in combat and the action in which the one had lost his life. This description is part of a letter which Ted Goldmann wrote to the father of his buddy, Johnny Ballard in June of 1945.
131Wise, op. cit.
132Rendezvous with Destiny, p. 550
133Ferretti, Fred. New York Times writer, interview of Schuyler Jackson is Stars and Stripes, August 8, 1984.
134Wise, op. cit.
135Goldmann, op. cit.
136Hanlon, op. cit.
137Pangerl, op. cit.
138Goldmann, op. cit.
139General Order Number 11 from Headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division dated 12 December 1945 cited 1Lt. James A Robinson for his actions with the award of the Silver Star.
Battered Bastards of Bastogne Page 63
