The Men of World War II

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  • • •

  The pilots were now into the last days of Deadstick. Calling on the British movie industry for help, the Air Ministry had put together a film. By flipping through thousands of photographs, each ever so slightly different, the producers made a “moving picture” that depicted the actual flight the pilots would make on D-Day. There was a running commentary.

  “The viewer felt as if he were in the cockpit and flying the thing,” Wallwork recalls. The commentary told altitude, airspeed, location. When the glider cast off, “You got the whole sensation of diving a thousand feet and seeing the fields of France coming up toward you.” Level off, turn, turn again, then the bridges were in view. “You come into this fly-in,” as Wallwork describes the film, “and you are still on this bearing and the next thing you saw was the tower of the bridge getting nearer and nearer and then the film cuts out as you crash.” The pilots could see the film whenever they wanted, and they watched it often. “It was absolutely fantastic,” Wallwork declares. “Invaluable.”

  Howard briefed the men over and over, by sections and by platoons. He encouraged them to go into the hut whenever they wished, examine the maps and the photographs and the model, and talk among themselves about their particular tasks.

  On May 29, he called the reinforced company together and issued the escape aids. “Very Boy Scoutish things,” Howard says, including a metal file to be sewed into the battle smock, a brass pants button that contained a tiny compass, a silk scarf with the map of France on it, water-purifying tablets, and French francs. “These sorts of things absolutely thrilled the troops to bits,” Howard recalls. “I have never seen such enthusiasm about a simple thing like that.” Billy Gray remembers that all the French money was gambled away in two hours.

  • • •

  That night, in Normandy, von Luck was conducting exercises designed to counter any landing, even commando, by an immediate counterattack. Von Luck recalls, “The idea was absolutely clear, if there would be any landing, you had to start immediately to counterattack to throw the enemy back into the sea.”

  That day, Major Schmidt received a shipment of slave laborers from the Todt Organization, and put them to work digging holes for antiglider poles, in what he figured were the most likely LZs for gliders. He began with the areas around his bridges. The poles themselves had not yet arrived, but were expected daily.

  • • •

  When, on May 30, Howard and all of D Company saw the photographic evidence of the holes, their first reaction was that somehow the great secret had escaped, that the Germans knew where they were coming. Kindersley came down to visit Howard, guessing correctly that Howard would be in a blue mood.

  “I know about those photographs, John,” he began, “but there is nothing to worry about.” Howard voiced his fear: all those photographs taken by the RAF for the movie for the pilots, all those photographs each morning, surely the Germans must have figured out that because of all that reconnaissance activity D Company was coming to the bridges. Kindersley laughed. “John,” he said, “we’re taking similar photographs of every bridge or target between the Bay of Biscay and Dunkirk.”

  That relieved one worry. Howard went to Wallwork with the other worry. “Supposing the poles are put into the holes before we land? What will be our chances?”

  “That’s just what we want, sir,” Wallwork answered.

  “What do you mean? What can you mean?” Howard asked.

  “Well, you know we are kinda overloaded into that field; it’s very narrow and what makes things worse is right at the end, where the road is, there’s an embankment. Well, if we hit that, you know, we are going out in a hell of a crash; this is the thing that is worrying me more than anything. Now, those poles will take something off one wing and something off the other wing—it’s just damned cheap plywood, you know—and those poles will pull us up absolutely beautifully.”

  Howard’s face brightened. “Right,” he said “Well, let’s get the company on parade.” He called the men together, let them mumble and rumble awhile, mostly about those holes, then explained to them what Kindersley had told him about photographing everywhere, not just their bridges. Next he asked Wallwork to tell the company what he had just said about the poles being exactly what was needed. Wallwork did so, and the men were satisfied.

  “Put it down to ignorance,” Wally Parr explains, “call it what you like, we could see the situation. But Johnny Howard said it could be done and Wallwork said we could do it and that was the end of the subject. If Johnny Howard said we could do it, we could do it.”

  Besides the poles, Wallwork had to worry about Howard’s request that he break down the barbed wire with the nose of his Horsa, a difficult enough task with an unloaded glider in daylight on a runway. And his glider and all the others were grossly overloaded, with thirty or thirty-one men in each, plus ammunition. There were two assault boats per glider. The sappers had heavy equipment. The men were carrying up to twenty pounds more ammunition each than had been allotted, and still were trying to add more to their load.

  Wallwork told Howard that the extra weight might make the Horsa unmanageable, and certainly would increase the airspeed, and thus landing speed, requiring a longer landing area than was available. Howard told Captain Neilson of the Royal Engineers to get rid of some weight by dropping off one sapper per glider, but Neilson convinced Howard that he absolutely had to have all his sappers. Howard removed one boat from each glider. Not enough, Wallwork told him. Six hundred more pounds per glider had to go.

  Howard reluctantly made his decision. Two privates from each platoon would have to drop out. It was a “terrible decision,” he recalls. He gave it to his platoon commanders and told them to select the men to be left behind. In Brotheridge’s platoon, Billy Gray says, “We all started shouting, ‘Parr’s married, let Parr drop out. Let’s get rid of Parr!’ And Wally immediately did his nut, and he was allowed to stay.”

  The lieutenants made the choices. The next day, Howard says, “I had men asking to see me at company office and crying their eyes out; a big, tough, bloody airborne soldier crying his eyes out asking to be left on the team. It was a very touching moment, I tell you, to weed out those people at that time; it was an awful moment for them.”

  At one of his briefings, Howard had asked for questions. “Sir,” someone piped up, “can’t we have a doctor? We are going in on our own and all.” Howard thought that an excellent idea, asked Poett if he could get a volunteer from the division medical staff, and Dr. John Vaughan came to join D Company. That meant another private had to be bumped. Fortunately, a soldier in Smith’s platoon sprained his ankle playing soccer.

  Vaughan has a nice anecdote to illustrate Howard’s exuberance in the last days before the invasion. On May 31, Vaughan and Howard drove to Broadmore, Howard driving much too fast, as he always did. When they arrived, who should be standing there as Howard screeched the brakes but Brigadier Poett. Howard jumped out of the jeep, leapt high in the air, came down directly in front of Poett, snapped to attention, gave a full and quite grand salute, and shouted, “Sir!”

  That same night, Smith and Fox sneaked out of Tarrent Rushton (neither of them can recall how they managed it) to have dinner in a local hotel with their girl friends (both remember the meal and the girls vividly).

  That evening, Wallwork and the other pilots were given a special set of orders. These said that the bearer was not responsible to anyone, that he was to be returned to the U.K. by the most expeditious means, and that this order overruled all other orders. It was signed “Bernard Law Montgomery.” Poett also told Howard privately, “Whatever you do, John, don’t let those pilots get into combat. They are much too valuable to be wasted. Get them back here.”

  • • •

  On June 3, Howard got his last intelligence report. Major Schmidt had completed his defenses; his trenches along the canal banks were done, as was the pillbox, and the antitank gun was in place. The garrison consisted of about fifty men armed with six li
ght machine guns, one antiaircraft machine gun, an antitank gun, and a heavy machine gun in its own pillbox. A maze of tunnels connected the underground bunkers and the fighting posts. More buildings had been torn down to open fields of fire. The antiglider poles appeared to have arrived but were not in place yet.

  That same day, Monty himself came through Tarrent Rushton. He asked to see the gliders and John Howard. He wanted to know if Major Howard thought he could pull off the coup de main, and he was obviously acquainted with details of the operation. Howard assured him that the job would be done. Monty’s parting remark was quiet but moving. “Get as many of the chaps back as you can.”

  General Gale paid a visit. He gathered his airborne troops around him and gave them his version of an inspirational talk. Jack Bailey can recall only one line: Gale said that “the German today is like the June bride. He knows he is going to get it, but he doesn’t know how big it is going to be.”

  • • •

  June 4 was to be the day, or rather the evening, to go. D Company was primed for it, aching to get going. Everyone got into battle dress in the afternoon, prepared to go to the gliders. Word came down that the mission was off. Cancellation had been expected, what with the high winds and heavy rains sweeping the countryside, but was still a major disappointment. John Howard wrote in his diary, “The weather’s broken—what cruel luck. I’m more downhearted than I dare show. Wind and rain, how long will it last? The longer it goes on, the more prepared the Huns will be, the greater the chance of obstacles on the LZ. Please God it’ll clear up tomorrow.”

  Parr and his gang went to the movies. They saw Stormy Weather, featuring Lena Horne and Fats Waller, and rather liked it. The officers gathered in David Wood’s room and polished off two bottles of whiskey. Twice Den Brotheridge fell into a depressed mood, and Wood could hear him reciting a poem that began, “If I should die I must . . .” But his spirits soon recovered.

  • • •

  The following morning, June 5, the officers and men checked and rechecked their weapons. At noon, they were told that it was on, that they should rest, eat, and then dress for battle. The meal was fatless, to cut down on airsickness. Not much of it was eaten. Wally Parr explains why: “I think everybody had gone off of grub for the first time possibly in years.” Then they sat around, according to Parr, “trying to look so keen, but not too keen like.”

  Toward evening the men got into their trucks to drive to their gliders. They were a fearsome sight. They each had a rifle or a Sten gun or a Bren gun, six to nine grenades, four Bren-gun magazines. Some had mortars; one in each platoon had a wireless set strapped to his chest. They had all used black cork or burned coke to blacken their faces. (Darky Baines, as he was called, one of the two black men in the company, looked at Parr when Parr handed him some cork and said, “I don’t think I’ll bother.”) Wood remarked that they all, officers and men, were so fully loaded that “if you fell over it was impossible to get up without help.” (Each infantryman weighed 250 pounds, instead of the allotted 210.) Parr called out that the sight of them alone would be enough to scare the Germans out of their wits.

  As the trucks drove toward the gliders, Billy Gray can remember “the WAFS and the NAAFI girls along the runway, crying their eyes out.” On the trucks, the men were given their code words. The recognition signal was “V,” to be answered by “for Victory.” Code word for the successful capture of the canal bridge was “Ham,” for the river bridge “Jam.” “Jack” meant the canal bridge had been captured but destroyed; “Lard” meant the same for the river bridge. Ham and Jam. D Company liked the sound of it, and as the men got out of their trucks they began shaking hands and saying, “Ham and Jam, Ham and Jam.”

  Howard called them together. “It was an amazing sight,” he remembers. “The smaller chaps were visibly sagging at the knees under the amount of kit they had to carry.” He tried to give an inspiring talk, but as he confesses, “I am a sentimental man at heart, for which reason I don’t think I am a good soldier. I found offering my thanks to these chaps a devil of a job. My voice just wasn’t my own.”

  Howard gave up the attempt at inspiration and told the men to load up. The officers shepherded them aboard, although not before every man, except Billy Gray, took a last-minute leak. Wally Parr chalked “Lady Irene” on the side of Wallwork’s glider. As the officers fussed over the men outside, those inside their gliders began settling in.

  A private bolted out of his glider and ran off into the night. Later, at his court-martial, the private explained that he had had an unshakable premonition of his own death in a glider crash.

  The officers got in last. Before climbing aboard, Brotheridge went back to Smith’s glider, shook Smith’s hand, and said, “See you on the bridge.”

  Howard went around to each glider, shook hands with the platoon leader, then called out some words of cheer. He had just spoken to the commander of the Halifax squadron, he said, who had told him, “John, don’t worry about flak; we are going through a flak gap over Cabourg, one that we have been using to fly supplies in to the Resistance and to bring information and agents out.”

  Finally Howard, wearing a pistol and carrying a Sten gun, climbed into his own glider, closed the door, and nodded to Wallwork. Wallwork told the Halifax pilot that everything was go. At 2256 hours, June 5, they took off, the other gliders following at one-minute intervals.

  • • •

  At Vimont, east of Caen, Colonel von Luck had just come in from an exercise, and after a bite to eat sat down to do paper work. In Ranville, Major Schmidt enjoyed his wine and his companion. At the canal bridge, Private Bonck thought with relief that there was only an hour to go and he was finished for the night. In the bunker, Private Romer groaned in his sleep, aware that he would have to get up soon to go on duty.

  Sergeant Heinz Hickman drove over the bridge, identifying himself to Bonck. He was setting off for the coast to pick up the four young soldiers. As he passed the Gondrée café, he regretted that the curfew was in force. He had stopped in at the place the other day and rather liked it.

  At the café, the Gondrées went to bed. In Oxford, Joy Howard did the same. In London’s East End, Irene Parr stayed up. She could hear planes gathering, and what she heard sounded bigger than anything she had ever heard before.

  CHAPTER 5

  D-Day:

  0016 to 0026 Hours

  Wallwork struggled with his great wooden bird, swooping silently alongside the canal, below the horizon, unseen, unheard. He was trying to control the exact instant at which the Horsa lost its contest with gravity. Wally Parr glanced out the open door and “God Almighty, the trees were doing ninety miles an hour. I just closed my eyes and went up in my guts.” Wallwork could see the bridge looming ahead of him, the ground rushing up, trees to his left, a soft, marshy pond to his right. He could see the barbed wire, straight ahead. He was going too fast, and was in danger of plowing up against the road embankment. He was going to have to use the chute, a prospect he dreaded: “We didn’t fancy those things at all. We knew they were highly dangerous, nothing but gadgets really, never tested.” But if he was to stop in time, he would have to use the chute.

  Simultaneously, he was worried about the chute stopping him too quickly and leaving him short of his objective. He wanted to get as far up the LZ as possible, into the barbed wire if he could, “not because Howard wanted me to, not because I was particularly brave or awfully skilled, but because I didn’t want to be rear-rammed by number two or number three coming in behind me.”

  As the wheels touched ground, Wallwork yelled at Ainsworth, “Stream!” Ainsworth pushed the button, the chute billowed out, “and by golly it lifted the tail and shoved the nose wheel down.” The whole glider then bounced back up into the air, all three wheels now torn off. “But the chute drew us back, knocked the speed down tremendously, so in two seconds or less I told Ainsworth, ‘Jettison,’ so Ainsworth pressed the tit and away went the parachutes and we were only going along possibly at sixty mil
es an hour.”

  The Horsa hit the ground again, this time on its skids. They threw up hundreds of friction sparks from the rocks; Howard and the other passengers thought these were tracer bullets, that they had been seen and were being fired upon. Suddenly, Howard recalls, “There was the most hellish din imaginable, the most God Almighty crash.”

  The nose had buried into the barbed wire, and crumbled. The crash sent Wallwork and Ainsworth flying forward, still strapped into their seats, which had broken loose. They went right out the cockpit and onto the ground beneath it. They were thus the first Allied troops to touch French soil on D-Day. Both were, however, unconscious.

  Inside the glider, the troops, the sappers, and the company commander were also all unconscious. Howard had broken through his seat belt and was thrown against the roof beams, which jammed his helmet down over his ears and knocked him out.

  Save for an occasional low moan, there was complete silence. Private Romer, pacing on the bridge, heard the crash, but assumed it was a piece of wing or tail from a crippled British bomber, a not-unusual occurrence, and went on pacing.

  D Company had achieved complete surprise. Wallwork and Ainsworth had taken #1 platoon and set it down where it was supposed to be. Theirs had been a magnificent performance.1

  But all their passengers were knocked out. Romer was turning at the west end of the bridge, beginning to pace toward the east. If he noticed the glider sitting there, not fifty yards from the east end of the bridge, and if he gave the alarm, and if the men in the machine-gun pillbox woke quickly enough, #1 platoon would be wiped out inside the Horsa.