Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  The cover of darkness aided the element of surprise and robbed German anti-aircraft gunners of clear targets. But night operations were fraught with risk, and the Allied track record of dropping troops accurately in the dark ranged from a near disaster in Sicily to mediocrity in Normandy and Southern France. Ridgway had another concern: the poor condition and short runways of the French airfields made glider operations at night a hazardous proposition.

  Daylight provided maximum visibility for accurate navigation and thus tighter drop patterns, which allowed the troops to assemble faster. It also allowed the Allies to take advantage of their vast air superiority to protect the armada and suppress anti-aircraft positions. Conversely, Luftwaffe night fighters posed a legitimate threat; just a few could wreak absolute havoc on the formations of lumbering, unarmed transports.

  Dempsey had his own unique idea and proposed that the drop occur hours after PLUNDER kicked off. He wanted to launch his assault during the protective hours of darkness before dawn, which would hinder the accuracy of German artillery. By delaying VARSITY until after sunrise, his men would have several hours of supporting artillery as they established a foothold on the far banks. Once the inbound transport planes and gliders were on final approach, Allied artillery batteries would have to cease fire to avoid hitting the descending aircraft, leaving Dempsey’s men on their own. After the airborne landed, his artillery support would still be somewhat restricted by having to closely coordinate fire missions to prevent fratricide.

  Dempsey reasoned a later landing would also be perfectly timed to disrupt German forward observers just as they were attempting to call in accurate artillery on the bridging operations and assault craft chugging across the Rhine.

  Ridgway liked Dempsey’s plan. The sequence, while unorthodox when compared to previous operations, wherein the airborne exploited the element of surprise by dropping prior to the main assault, offered a number of advantages. It allowed more time for artillery and fighter-bombers to pound anti-aircraft positions, and flipping the traditional tactics might even catch the Germans off guard. Miley too conceded that the advantages outweighed the complexities of a night drop.

  It was thus settled that the main crossing, near Xanten, spearheaded by the 15th Scottish Division, would launch at three in morning. The Scots were to crack the Germans’ river defenses and push inland as soon as possible to link up with the airborne troops, who in turn would drop seven hours later, at 10:00.

  The agreed-upon mission statement called for Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne Corps to “disrupt the hostile defense of the Rhine in the Wesel Sector by the seizure of key terrain by airborne attack, in order to rapidly deepen the bridgehead to be seized in an assault crossing of the Rhine by British ground forces, in order to facilitate the further offensive operations of the Second Army.”

  • • •

  Meanwhile, Ridgway sought resolution to the unsettled matter of the 13th Airborne Division’s commitment to VARSITY. Montgomery and Dempsey still maintained that the best way to reinforce PLUNDER’s bridgehead was dropping in a third division. But Ridgway remained unconvinced.

  By Dempsey’s calculations, it would take forty-eight hours for his initial ground divisions to cross the Rhine via pontoon bridges. Dropping the 13th provided an attractive way to get thousands of additional troops onto the east bank quickly. His idea did have precedent. Ridgway himself had employed a similar tactic over a year ago in Italy when the 82nd Airborne dropped two regiments onto the Salerno beachhead. However, at Salerno, the Allies were on the verge of being thrown back into the sea by the Wehrmacht and the situation called for expediency over pedantic adherence to doctrine. Emergency action helped save the day in that case, but Ridgway viewed Dempsey’s river crossing quite differently. The Allied inventory contained dozens of readily available infantry units to support PLUNDER but only a handful of specialized airborne divisions.

  Responding to a communiqué requesting further explanation of “how it is intended to employ this additional division,” Montgomery’s chief of plans dispatched a snippy reply, “This question was discussed by Commander-in-Chief [Montgomery] with Supreme Commander [Eisenhower] and understand decision was firm.”

  Since Eisenhower had, in Montgomery’s eyes, designated PLUNDER to be “the main effort,” the British commander felt that all his requests should be approved without question.

  Ridgway wound up placating the British by agreeing to place the 13th Airborne officially in reserve for VARSITY. Meanwhile, Brereton, who was embroiled in yet another impasse with Montgomery, wired Eisenhower requesting permission to reassign the 13th to CHOKER II, a planned American crossing of the Rhine at Worms, currently scheduled for March.

  • • •

  With the 13th Airborne awaiting the call to arms in their billets south of Paris, Ridgway issued orders to the commanders of the two confirmed divisions.

  Outlining PLUNDER’s overall scheme, he focused on their specific roles in VARSITY. As Dempsey’s troops assaulted across the Rhine on a twenty-two-mile front, the airborne divisions would drop farther inland to seize key terrain and block enemy counterattacks.

  The 17th Airborne would drop on the right flank, while the British 6th Airborne, commanded by General Eric Bols, would drop west of Miley’s division to defend the northwest flank of the bridgehead. The forty-year-old Bols was relatively new to airborne warfare, but his experienced staff were veterans of the Normandy jump.

  The two divisions would tie their perimeters together to repel the expected German counterattacks. Underscoring the obvious, the orders concluded by reminding both commanders that their objectives were to be “held at all costs.” With their orders in hand, the division staffs commenced their detailed planning.

  • • •

  Looming over Miley and his staff’s planning was a shortage of transport aircraft. An assessment of MARKET GARDEN’s failure had resulted in new doctrine requiring the entire complement of airborne troops be delivered in a single lift. While the mandate prevented troops from being dropped piecemeal, with their follow-on serials subject to unexpected weather cancellations, it limited the number of troops Miley could bring in. The Air Force and RAF planners estimated they could muster enough aircraft to drop about 17,000 troops in a single lift. Together the two divisions totaled about 21,000 men.

  Miley streamlined his load, planning to prioritize combat units for aerial delivery while the division’s supporting units would cross the Rhine later in vehicle convoys.

  At a coordination meeting in late February, the Air Force told Miley they could give him 400 parachute aircraft and 588 glider tugs. Miley countered that he wanted fewer aircraft for his two parachute regiments and more to serve as tugs to bring in the glider troops.

  Two innovations radically shifted lift capacity in Miley’s favor. The first was the arrival of the new twin-engine C-46 Commando transport aircraft. The hulking Commandos flew faster and farther and doubled the cargo capacity of the C-47 Skytrain, the ubiquitous workhorse of the troop carrier squadrons.

  The Skytrain, built by Douglas and held together by over 500,000 rivets, was based on the prewar DC-3 airliner. With a reinforced floor and a widened cargo door, the C-47 had proven itself to be a rugged airframe that delivered cargo, shuttled personnel, dropped troops, and towed gliders in every theater of the war. But it was not ideal for parachute operations. It could only carry twenty combat-equipped paratroopers and had a single jump door in the rear. In comparison, the C-46 could carry up to forty jumpers and had doors on both sides of the fuselage. The double doors provided a faster exit, and a faster exit meant a tighter drop pattern.

  But the Commandos had just started arriving in the European theater, and only a handful of pilots were rated to fly them. Getting the Commandos operational for VARSITY required that Troop Carrier Command accelerate the pilots’ transition training. Additionally, Miley and Ridgway wanted some familiarization jumps for the men who would be delivered via the C-46s. The double doors posed a challenge to troo
pers whose muscle memory had been honed to make a right turn when exiting the C-47. That adrenalized moment when a soldier rushed for the exit wasn’t the time to learn how to turn left. The Air Force agreed that the C-46 units would be made available for joint training as soon as practical.

  Rushing the pilots’ training was worth the effort. Including 72 of the larger C-46s in the lift provided the equivalent of 144 C-47s. The reduction in parachute aircraft gave the Air Force the flexibility to shift more C-47s to serve as tugs for Miley’s glider lift, providing a total of 610 tugs.

  The second, more controversial innovation was the decision to double tow the gliders. Simple enough in concept, double towing used a single C-47 to serve as the tug for two gliders. The C-47’s twin 1,200-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines were capable of such a feat, but safety made it an uncommon practice.

  Many tug or “power” pilots were wary of flying double tow. They joked that in addition to severely increasing their aircraft’s fuel consumption, pulling two gliders stretched the fuselage by several inches—the exact amount varied by pilot and the number of drinks he’d consumed at the officer’s club.

  The technique required that the left-side glider use a 350-foot towrope and the glider on the right side, a 425-foot rope. The 75-foot difference provided a safety margin to avoid midair collisions, but glider pilots had to exercise extreme diligence to prevent drift and avert entanglement. The longer rope was actually made up of two ropes, which when under the strain of a fully combat-laden glider, increased the risk of breaking. The nylon towropes were designed to expand by 40 percent before snapping, but the more likely point of failure was the connecting shackles.

  The advanced technique would almost double Miley’s combat strength, but the Troop Carrier Commander, General Paul Williams, rebuffed the idea. Brereton stopped short of making a direct order, but he and Ridgway strongly urged Williams to reconsider. Ridgway favored double tow for obvious reasons, and Brereton was confident a daylight operation would reduce accidents.

  Within a few days, after a series of successful tests had been conducted, Brereton directed Troop Carrier Command to “utilize double tow to the fullest possible extent.” The 610 C-47s would now be pulling 906 gliders.

  • • •

  The British also had their airlift challenges. Unable to leverage double tow, as the Horsa gliders were too heavy, the RAF drafted every spare bomber they could find to serve as a glider tug. The press-ganged aircraft needed modifications to fulfill their new role, and ground crews went to work on over a hundred Stirling and Halifax bombers to install the correct towing equipment.

  Lift capacity so taxed the RAF that they requested an additional 275 C-47s and crews from the Americans to make up for shortages. But Williams could only spare 243.

  This put Bols in a tough spot. The shortage reduced his lift capacity by 576 men—a full battalion. While the loan of the American aircraft allowed his division to go in with more manpower than any previous British operation, it was little consolation in a fight where every rifle would matter.

  The combined effort amassed the largest air armada in history, and for the first time in the war, two divisions would be simultaneously dropped into battle in a single sortie.

  * * *

  Senior Allied officers harbored growing concerns about the Germans’ espionage network on the continent. Hiding in plain sight, as well as lurking in the shadows, the enemy was closer than many realized. Even the somewhat aloof Brereton was alarmed, writing in his diary, “Intelligence reports that it has captured a document which indicates that the enemy had possession of correct information about the proposed Operation NAPLES II, a landing across the Rhine at Cologne—had the correct area and date.”

  Not long after that, another disturbing report reached Brereton. An Allied counterintelligence agent, dressed in civilian clothes, had spent an hour at a bar eavesdropping on American aircrews discussing troop carrier movements and, more revealing, complaining about the ongoing hassles of installing parachute rigging equipment in the aircraft. Brereton sent a strongly worded letter to Williams at Troop Carrier Command admonishing him to take immediate steps to “stop this violation of security.”

  Indeed, Brereton’s staff struggled to keep their own safeguards in check. Eisenhower’s intelligence team chastised them over their own “serious breach of security” following the delivery of a VARSITY planning report through unsecure channels—including a cover elaborately illustrated with gliders and parachutes. The terse communiqué from Supreme Headquarters reminded Brereton that plans were to be “enclosed in a folder which gave no indication of the nature of its contents.” The artist had further compounded his gaffe when in his zeal to decorate the cover he forgot to add the “Top Secret” designation. At least thirty-two copies of the report were distributed without the proper classification label. Obviously, the rigid security precautions that characterized the invasion of France had largely fallen into disuse and given way to complacency.

  But the main threats to security were the French airfields, the feverish construction of which was impossible to hide from informers. As the airfields became operational, the US troop carrier units transferred aircraft to France from their bases in England. In addition to their thriving espionage network in France, Belgium, and Holland, the Germans’ jet aircraft routinely flew reconnaissance missions with near impunity over the growing airfields.

  * * *

  Troopers took advantage of the downtime between training events by playing football or baseball, or improvising their own entertainment.

  The division’s anti-tank unit assembled a formidable band led by Private Bill Keller, who organized several impromptu jam sessions. Keller, whose trigger finger had been severed when a German bullet crushed the trigger guard of his rifle, now played his accordion—or squeezebox—upside down. The unit’s musical prodigy, Robert Beyers, who’d played piano in Cincinnati speakeasies before the war, was Keller’s sax man. Rounding out the band were troopers on guitar, clarinet, harmonica, fiddle, and an improvised set of drums fabricated from purloined fuel barrels. The band’s front man, red-haired Robert Wagner, sang and tap-danced atop a wooden crate. The noise attracted passersby, who ducked into the tent to enjoy the music.

  Elsewhere, recently promoted Clyde Haney, now a private first class, and his tentmates pooled various ingredients from belated Christmas packages to make chocolate fudge. The men combined canned milk, sugar, chocolate bars from field rations, and nuts and boiled the concoction over a cut-down five-gallon jerry can to create a GI version of the homemade treat.

  After the disbanding of the 193rd, Haney had been reassigned to King Company in the 194th Glider Infantry. As a combat veteran, he now received an extra $10 monthly bonus. To make it official, the Army awarded Haney, along with his comrades, the Combat Infantryman Badge. Known as the C.I.B., the badge, worn above the left breast pocket of the dress uniform, indicated that the bearer had engaged in ground combat as an infantryman. The badge featured a silver musket on a rectangular field of infantry blue, with a silver wreath forming the background. It remains one of the most prestigious awards in the US Army, and Haney regarded it as the “nicest looking medal the Army has.” He kept it polished as a proud symbol of his service during the Battle of the Bulge.

  Along with the intensive training, rumors too increased in both quantity and velocity. The men were convinced that their rigorous preparations were for a combat jump across the Rhine, but when and where was still unknown. Spreading or swapping rumors was a favorite pastime, and any new speculations filtered through the ranks like gossip in a small-town barbershop.

  After Haney heard about the captured bridge at Remagen, he was convinced they were off the hook. He figured the Allied crossing of the Rhine had alleviated the need for an airborne mission. Contrarians soberly pointed out that their training regimen hadn’t even slightly abated since Bradley’s crossing of the upper Rhine.

  After a few glider troopers in Haney’s regiment witnessed a
British tank officer being escorted into their headquarters tent, a flurry of rumors circulated that they were dropping into the “Limey’s sector.”

  John Chester’s opinion was that he and his fellow troops would be jumping in front of Patton’s advancing legions to secure vital objectives and speed up the sacking of Berlin.

  Most of the troops knew better than to pay much attention to rumors, but some took them to heart, wrapping their anxieties or hopes around whichever one appealed to their own sense of mortality. Some relished the confusion as a form of sport, actively starting their own rumors to both wind up their friends and see if the scuttlebutt came back full circle. A cruel game to be sure, but one well within the rights of those whose futures were starved of detail.

  Master Sergeant Frank Macchiaverna, an old hand in the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, didn’t believe any of the gossip. But he did confide to his diary, “We are preparing for something big. . . . I can see it in the air.”

  * * *

  Several blocks east of Châlons’ Canal Saint-Martin, on the Avenue de Valmy, Miley’s three regimental commanders arrived at the old French Calvary barracks serving as division HQ. They were among the lucky few learning the truth behind the rumors as they received their first VARSITY briefing.

  Miley’s 17th Airborne Division had two tasks: capture the high ground of the Diersfordt Forest and seize ten bridges over the Issel River and its offshoot canal. The river, four miles inland from the Rhine, provided a natural defensive line, and capturing its crossing points early would prevent German reserves from attacking into the ground forces. Seizing the bridges intact was also vital to ensuring that Montgomery’s columns could attack out of the bridgehead when ready. At the same time, the British would drop farther west to seize the village of Hamminkeln and another three bridges over the Issel in their sector.

  The commanders each returned to their camps to commence regimental-level planning. Large tents, known as “War Rooms,” were set up inside the camps and surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. The tents would serve as secure briefing areas, and intelligence officers carted in trunks stuffed with maps and aerial photographs of Germany.