Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  Having the packet readily available was critical. In the event of injury during the landing it would be up to the individual and his buddies in the immediate vicinity to administer first aid to one another. Medics would be otherwise engaged or simply not around. Standard operating procedure called for using the casualty’s aid packet, not your own. You might need it later yourself.

  For VARSITY, officers ordered the troopers to tie the packets to the front of their helmets. Not only would this make them accessible, but it also gave the Americans a distinct silhouette. This detail would help friendly troops identify one another at a distance and also serve as a recognition aid to the advancing British. The British airborne troops dropping to the west would in turn don their maroon berets upon landing, giving them their own visual identity.

  Each GI in the division also received a US invasion armband. Featuring a five-inch, forty-eight-star American flag printed on weather-resistant oilcloth, the armbands were safety pinned or stitched onto the right shoulder of the combat jacket.

  These friendly identifiers were vital when dropping in the midst of enemy troops.

  • • •

  At airfield A-55, Frank Dillon and his platoon sergeant distributed bright yellow silk triangular signal panels to their men as an additional measure to aid friendly identification. Both British and American airborne troops would be wearing them. Each corner had a loop of cord to facilitate tying it down as necessary; the panels could be worn as a scarf, tied over a helmet, across the back, or tied down to the hood of a jeep. Their bright color facilitated both ground-to-ground and ground-to-air identification. The glider riders were instructed to wear theirs looped over one shoulder.

  Dillon discovered that they were one short, so he cut the last one down the middle and shared it with his platoon sergeant. Each man laughed and shoved his half into a pocket. Most troopers scoffed at the highly visible bullet magnets, hiding theirs away or securing them around their neck, tucked under the collar of their combat jackets. But the panels would save more than one life on D-Day.

  Officers ensured that their men knew the operation’s password combination for the first twenty-four hours: “Hither-Thither.” The tongue twister would be used as a challenge for anyone advancing on their position at night. Passwords were often selected in the belief that Germans had a hard time pronouncing “th,” so even if they tried to use it, their noticeably hard Ds and Ts would give them away.

  Troopers could be heard mumbling “Hither” and “Thither” to have the two words front of mind. No one wanted to be shot down by a GI with an impatient trigger finger.

  * * *

  Since the airfields were jam-packed with troops and overcrowded with aircraft, station commanders were concerned that even a small German air strike could put dozens of planes out of action. The unfilled bomb craters and confined conditions of the former German airfields hindered ground crews from disbursing the transports and gliders, making them vulnerable to attack. The grounded aircraft were literally sitting ducks, all grouped together as if huddling for warmth.

  Anti-aircraft guns ringed each airfield and several American night-fighter units stood on alert to intercept enemy raiders. While the Allies enjoyed air superiority by day, radar-equipped Luftwaffe fighters menaced the skies after dark. Earlier in the month, several had cozied up behind a flight of returning bombers and followed them back to their British airfield. Aircrews at a nearby base witnessed the resulting carnage: “A few spurts of gunfire were heard and almost immediately a bomber was seen to go down in a great ball of flame . . .” Peeling away from the attack, the marauders then strafed two other nearby airfields before vanishing as rapidly as they’d appeared.

  Hitler’s Vergeltungswaffen—vengeance weapons—were also proving to be a menace. On the night of March 21, and again at dawn the next morning, the impact of V-2 rockets’ high-explosive detonations jolted aircrews and ground personnel from their slumber at airfields in England. The rockets caused alarm, but no one on the base was injured.

  • • •

  Upper-echelon commanders also worried about all the activity drawing the enemy’s attention. Montgomery grew increasingly nervous about Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights, and his staff hounded the RAF to do something about them. The new jet-engined Messerschmitts and Arados gave the Germans a tactical reconnaissance asset that could range over the front with almost complete freedom. Thwarting them was easier said than done.

  The single-seat Messerschmitt Me-262, with its two turbojet engines and sharklike appearance, was the most common nuisance. With nose-mounted oblique cameras, the 262 gave the Germans access to previously unavailable intelligence, and Montgomery wanted them stopped.

  The 262’s speed was its greatest asset—it flew at an astonishing 530 mph. So fast, in fact, that Allied radar stations couldn’t fix its echo accurately—the 360-degree sweep moved too slowly. By the time it came back around, the jet had screamed past.

  The RAF assigned the perplexing task of stopping the 262s to units flying the Allies’ fastest single-engine fighter, the propeller-driven Tempest, with a max speed of 435 mph.

  The disparity was obvious. By the time the Tempests scrambled and were vectored to where the 262 had been spotted, the Luftwaffe jets had vanished. Even if the Tempests got close, the 262 easily outran them.

  Wing Commanders Peter Brooker and John Lapsley developed a workable solution that they dubbed the “rat code.” Within a few days the Tempest pilots renamed it the “bastard code.”

  Flight Lieutenant Pierre Clostermann, an ace multiple times over with twenty-six kills, recalled how the system worked: “Two pairs of Tempests were permanently kept at a state of immediate alert—i.e., the planes were actually in scrambling position on the runway, with the pilots ready, strapped in their cockpits, their finger on the starter, engines warmed up, radio switched on.”

  When a 262 crossed the Rhine heading toward the front, the control tower radioed the bored pilots, “Hallo, Talbot Leader, scramble, rat, scramble, rat!”

  Alert ground crew fired three red flares skyward to clear the flight pattern and give the rat-catchers priority for takeoff.

  The Tempests headed in the opposite direction of the enemy jets, making no attempt to intercept them. Instead, they flew to the 262’s airfield, where they took up patrol positions at 10,000 feet to await the returning jet. When the Messerschmitt pilot lowered his wheels and reduced his speed for landing, the RAF swooped in for the kill.

  It took the Luftwaffe the loss of eight rats in a week before they devised an effective countermeasure.

  To counter the RAF tactic, the 262s started returning to base at full speed and at treetop level, which made them tricky to spot. The Germans sent up their own fighter patrols to cover the returning jets and also built an impenetrable “flak lane” of several dozen four-barreled, 20mm anti-aircraft guns. The flak positions, arranged in a five-mile corridor extending from the runway, allowed the 262s to touch down under their protective fire.

  “In one week we lost three Tempests which tried to attack an Me-262 in this flak lane,” Clostermann recalled. “There was no point in persisting.” The wing commanders ordered their pilots to avoid attacking 262s within six miles of their base as the losses were unsustainable.

  But the aggressive pilots often ignored orders regarding personal safety. On March 15, Clostermann’s rat patrol was circling a Luftwaffe airfield, hoping to get lucky, when “suddenly we saw at ground level a Messerschmitt 262 without any camouflage, its polished wings glittering in the sun. It was already in the flak corridor and about to put down. The barrage of tracers was already up to cover its approach. In accordance with the new orders I decided not to attack in these conditions, when, without warning, my No. 4 dived vertically towards the small bright dot which was nearing the long cement runway. Hurtling through the air like a bullet Bob Clark miraculously went through the wall of flak without being hit and fired a long burst at the silvery Me-262, which was in the final phase of its approa
ch. The Messerschmitt crashed in flames just on the edge of the airfield.”

  • • •

  Below the rat patrols, Wehrmacht troops on the far bank of the Rhine harassed and hampered British efforts to finalize their D-Day preparations. They fired machine guns set on fixed trajectories into areas of known activity, which was more of an annoyance than anything else. But they also lobbed artillery shells, and those were less predictable and far more deadly.

  Trucks traveling too fast over dry dirt roads kicked up clouds of dust, drawing enemy artillery fire. Soon MPs posted signs along all of the roads leading to the Rhine, urging drivers to slow down: “DUST MEANS DEATH.”

  In mutual attempts to frustrate watchful eyes, artillery duels became a sport with no perceived vantage point safe from shelling. Artillery spotters found it more and more difficult to gain elevation for effective observation. German gunners turned Xanten’s church tower on the Allied side of the Rhine into a sieve, and in retort, British artillery brought down the church towers at Wesel and Bislich.

  Because Montgomery felt that the “dummy supply points, parks of inflated rubber vehicles, aggressive patrolling, construction of faked approaches, and even the use of sound effects” were insufficient to baffle his adversaries, he approved the use of smoke to screen the entire seventy miles of his front.

  The airborne commanders and Air Force liaison officers had advised against it. Asked for input before igniting the screen, Brereton and his Airborne Army staff “definitely disapproved” of the tactic, fearing it would mask navigational features from pilots on D-Day. Montgomery took the risk and soon had dozens of smoke generators, built by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, intermittently belching out walls of smoke during peak activity. He planned to have them billow continuously from sunrise on March 21 until sunset on March 23, the eve of D-Day.

  The smog was primarily intended to conceal the Royal Engineers who had to complete their work along the Rhine’s banks. They were responsible for laying causeways down to the river’s edge to ease the entry of amphibious vehicles and assault boats. Additionally they taped routes for mustering infantry and installed small, battery-operated signal lamps; these were faced away from the river so they could guide friendly troops but remain out of sight to the enemy.

  The engineers found the smoke “a mixed blessing.” It screened their activities and prevented accurate German shelling, but the stench was overpowering and several men complained of chest pains.

  The swirling clouds of white smoke certainly frustrated German observation, but it would also have unintended consequences on Montgomery’s master plan—just as the planners at Airborne Army predicted.

  CHAPTER 9

  “SATANIC PLAN OF ANNIHILATION”

  German side of the Rhine. Sunday, March 18, 1945.

  On the east bank of the river, German lookouts sat in the swirling haze of Montgomery’s massive smoke screen. Generated by boiling cauldrons of oil-based wax placed along the far bank, the smoggy veil stymied observation. The smoke drifted across the river and inland over two miles into the German-held side, blanketing the ground and making breathing a chore.

  The troops closest to the riverbanks donned gas masks to mitigate the effects of the smog. The continuous wearing of the masks was uncomfortable and shook the morale of the younger troops, who found them claustrophobic. Feldwebels—sergeants—in charge of work details, removed theirs, encouraging the younger ranks to muscle through the discomfort. The lookouts continued to stare into the haze, hoping it would part long enough to reveal a hint of what might happen next.

  Apart from causing discomfort and frustration, the smoke didn’t particularly alarm Schlemm’s troops. The veterans were familiar with the Allied tactic and had used smoke themselves the previous autumn to conceal the Rhine’s bridges and ferry sites from Allied air raids.

  But expecting it and doing something about it were different. Directed by irritated forward observers, Schlemm’s artillery batteries lobbed shells into areas engulfed by the thickest smoke on the Allied side. The hope was that the harassing fire had hit something, but it was impossible to know.

  Generalmajor Heinz Fiebig, whose troops were deployed around Wesel, contemplated generating his own smoke screen, just to mock his adversaries, but he lacked the means. Montgomery’s smoke screen did conceal activity, although for trained professionals it failed to mask where the battle would unfold.

  It was “purely a case in which the territory most suitable for AFVs [armored fighting vehicles] would be bound to be used,” Fiebig later observed. His reconnaissance patrols had already identified the most probable launch points, and of course, the corresponding landing sites capable of supporting armor on their side were well known to the Germans.

  * * *

  Hitler’s Reichsminister, Joseph Goebbels, held the dual titles of Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War and Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Through these two offices, he worked feverishly to drum up support for his “People’s War”—a last-ditch effort to defend the Third Reich by any means available.

  While publicly Goebbels held firm to the Reich’s inevitable victory, privately he believed Germany’s only salvation lay in its embrace of total war. If he could inspire every man, woman, and child to dedicate themselves to repelling the enemy, Germany could achieve a stalemate. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Goebbels had convinced himself that staggering Allied casualties would divide their alliance and bring them to the negotiation table.

  Toward this goal, Goebbels had used his position to drain industries not directly contributing to the war effort and had drafted over 500,000 new recruits for national service. As head of propaganda, he leveraged his ministry’s control of film, radio, and print to infuse the German population with a sense of the pending catastrophe should the Allies win the war.

  His machinations to stir up fear and national pride were aided by an unwitting ally: the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau. Morgenthau had authored Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany, a proposal arguing for stripping postwar Germany of all industrial production and limiting Germans to an agricultural economy.

  The public release of the report, aptly referred to as the Morgenthau Plan, played to Goebbels’ favor, and he ensured that radio and newspapers fanned the fires of fear. Völkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, proclaimed, “Roosevelt and Churchill Agree to Jewish Murder Plan!” The article warned, “The German people must realize that we are engaged in a life and death struggle which imposes on every German the duty to do his utmost for the victorious conclusion of the war and the frustration of the plans of destruction planned by these cannibals.”

  The Berliner Morgenpost referred to Morgenthau’s document as a “satanic plan of annihilation,” and the 12 Uhr Blatt concluded that the “aim of these conditions, inspired by the Jews, is the annihilation of the German people in the quickest way.”

  Goebbels deftly tied these themes to the Allies’ stated policy of unconditional surrender, first announced by American President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943. Goebbels assured Germans they could expect a reign of terror and enslavement if the Allies were allowed to turn Germany into a “giant potato patch.”

  The newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a Zürich-based German-language daily journal, recognized Goebbels’ success: “The conviction that Germany had nothing to expect from defeat but oppression and exploitation still prevails, and that accounts for the fact that the Germans continue to fight. It is not a question of a regime, but of the homeland itself, and to save that, every German is bound to obey the call, whether he be Nazi or member of the opposition.”

  Goebbels’ plan seemed to have the desired effect. In the battle for Aachen, the first German city conquered by the Allies, just over 18,000 defenders held up 100,000 Americans for five weeks of bitter fighting. President Roosevelt’s son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John Boettiger, an Army Civil Affairs officer,
believed Morgenthau’s document was “worth thirty divisions to the Germans.”

  A declaration issued by the Führer on March 19 reinforced the desperate measures necessary to reclaim a German victory: “The struggle for the very existence of our people forces us to seize any means which can weaken the combat readiness of our enemy and prevent him from advancing. Every opportunity, direct or indirect, to inflict the most lasting possible damage on the enemy’s striking power must be used to the utmost. It is a mistake to believe that when we win back the lost territories we will be able to retrieve and use these transportation, communications, production, and supply facilities that have not been destroyed or have been temporarily crippled; when the enemy withdraws he will leave us only scorched earth and will show no consideration for the welfare of the population.”

  Hitler’s order, known as the “Nero Decree,” went on to outline the targets of destruction: “all types of bridges, tracks, roundhouses, all technical installations in the freight depots, workshop equipment, and sluices and locks in our canals. Along with this all locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars, cargo vessels, and barges are to be completely destroyed and the canals and rivers blocked by sinking ships into them.” Ironically, if carried out to the letter, the order ensured Germany would become nothing more than a potato patch.

  • • •

  One of the more celebrated efforts of Goebbels’ call for total war was the Volkssturm—“People’s Storm”—a paramilitary organization whose ranks were filled by conscripted civilians: those too old, too young, or too unfit for military service. Organized into company-sized units of sixty to seventy-five men, Volkssturm units were composed of men from the local region who were mustered for active service when their district became operationally relevant. Goebbels claimed his home district alone had marshaled 100,000 recruits.