Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  Lieutenant Colonel Branigan landed unscathed, but his map case took a bullet. He landed close to the farmhouse that he’d preselected for his command post. Unfortunately, the Germans had also chosen it for a strongpoint.

  Branigan rounded up five troopers, including First Sergeant Ed Kissinger. The six of them laid down a base of fire and started maneuvering on the house. As they closed on the target, Kissinger sprinted past Branigan to pitch a hand grenade. Just as it left his hand, he collapsed, fatally shot in the head. The five troopers stormed in, killing several of the defenders and taking as prisoners a handful of the more quick-witted, who dropped their weapons.

  One of the troopers rushed up to the second floor with his bazooka. From an elevated window he engaged nearby enemy positions.

  Once the Germans realized that the house had fallen to the Americans, they targeted it with mortars and an 88mm anti-aircraft gun. After several near misses and a mortar round through the roof, Branigan realized that the house would offer scant protection until the 88 was dealt with. One of the war’s most versatile weapons, the German 88 was an effective anti-aircraft gun that could also be leveled for use against ground targets. It was known for its lethal accuracy and the whip-crack sound of its high-velocity shells.

  Small groups fought their way out to the bundles, and the Bastards soon had two more of their heavy .50-caliber machine guns in action. The methodical chug-chug-chug of the belt-fed machine guns could be heard raking the tree line along the eastern edge of the DZ. Their overwhelming firepower provided essential cover for the crews crawling out to assemble their guns. The welcoming boom of friendly artillery rose above the fracas. Crews leveled their 75mm howitzers in direct fire on the German positions and in some cases targeted individual enemy riflemen, too stubborn, or too well dug in, to be taken out by more patient means.

  With the initiative shifting in their sector, the Bastards fought to establish a perimeter on the northeast end of the DZ. One of the artillerymen scrambling to join them was William Pandak, who skirted the enflamed skeleton of the downed C-47. Bullets whizzed out of the conflagration as fire set off the dead troopers’ ammunition, and the smell of burning flesh hung in the air. It wasn’t a place to linger.

  Several shell bursts sent Pandak diving into a ditch already occupied by troopers with the same idea. As a designated grenadier, Pandak had a rifle loaded with blank ammunition. It wasn’t a role he relished. The blanks were the mechanism that allowed him to launch grenades from a device attached over the barrel of his rifle; the blank provided enough pop to hurl the four-ounce grenade 200 yards.

  Pandak crawled to the end of the ditch and, with a buddy calling out adjustments, started arching the grenades toward the Germans firing at them from a farmhouse hedge. After three misses he found the right range; the last three projectiles exploded on impact in the hedge and the shooting stopped. Out of grenades, Pandak ditched the launcher and loaded his rifle with live ammo.

  • • •

  While the Ruffians on DZ W mopped up resistance, those who had mis-dropped with Raff prepared to seize the Diersfordt Castle complex. The task fell to Thad Blanchard and the rest of Able Company. Advancing through the woods single file, Blanchard’s squad came under fire from the front. They’d stumbled on several dug-in positions along the edge of the woods, surprising the German infantry. The first several troopers formed a quick skirmish line while the squads behind them fanned out to each flank. The troopers killed nine of the Germans before the remaining fifteen surrendered. The biggest prize, however, was a captured 81mm mortar. It would prove to be fortuitous booty.

  The brisk firefight hadn’t gone unnoticed by the defenders in the castle, who barraged the tree line with mortar and machine gun fire. With a few men left behind to man the heavy mortar and enemy trenches, Able Company began a wide flanking move through the woods to approach the castle from the east. The terrain on that side provided better concealment.

  As Able advanced on the castle, Blanchard spotted a group of Germans sprinting to their Mark IV tank idling at a crossroads. Blanchard yelled at Rexford Bass to hit them with his machine gun. But the tankers won the race, pulling the hatches shut behind them as bullets ricocheted off the six-inch steel plating.

  The tankers rotated their turret to line up the main gun for a shot at Bass’ chattering gun. The first round exploded right in front of Bass; miraculously, he survived with only minor injuries, but his machine gun was a twisted piece of junk. The spraying shrapnel killed Lieutenant John Sterner, one of the company’s most popular officers.

  The tank fired its 75mm main gun again and again, blasting the American line. Blanchard watched in horror as Private Albert Ballon, who’d been perforated with shrapnel wounds and was covered in his own blood, calmly collected his machine gun and walked away.

  Blanchard screamed, “Set the gun down!”

  Suffering from severe shock, Ballon grinned and said he was leaving with his mother, his left hand out as if holding hers. As he turned to continue the conversation with his maternal hallucination a machine gun burst ripped through him. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Having taken eight casualties in a matter of seconds, the platoon gave up the attack. Blanchard ran back through the woods to retrieve a working machine gun. As he did so, he passed one of Able Company’s tank hunters, armed with the new M18 recoilless rifle, who was moving forward.

  • • •

  As Blanchard and Able Company struggled to get the upper hand in their sector, the Ruffians’ 3rd Battalion departed their assembly area on the edge of the DZ. As they advanced toward the castle, they entered the thick woods of the Diersfordt Forest.

  The trooper on point stepped lightly, his eyes scanning for movement. The smoky haze hugged the ground, turning the trees into dark silhouettes and limiting observation to a few feet. Behind him, the rest of the troopers kept their rifles at the ready. The woods were quiet, but the men could hear the sounds of battle echoing from the castle. Experienced troopers would have been eyeing the terrain for small folds in the ground or good, thick trees—cover to take advantage of should they stumble into a gunfight.

  As they neared the castle a dug-in tank fired into their right flank. Several troopers went down injured and a lieutenant was killed. Yells from the flank brought a mortar squad forward. With only the tank turret visible, they used the high-angle fire of the mortar to bracket their target. It took them several rounds before a 60mm shell dropped directly on the turret top’s thin armor plating, killing the occupants instantly.

  All the while, Raff coordinated his units over the radio, ordering Blanchard’s Able Company to hold their position and provide covering fire as the 3rd Battalion organized for their assault.

  • • •

  To Ruffians with any imagination the castle had probably proven a disappointment. It was nothing like what they might have seen in a Hollywood movie. There were no rounded turrets and there was no wooden drawbridge. The foundations of the castle had been laid more than 700 years ago and had seen a fair share of action, having been sacked and looted multiple times by Spanish soldiers, most notably in 1621 when the original castle was believed to have been destroyed. Rebuilt in the late 1700s as more of a residential palace, the compound now consisted of several freestanding buildings with a shallow moat on three sides; the water was probably no more than two feet deep.

  The most formidable structure was on the compound’s east side: a three-story brick building with a gable roof. Built in 1432, the walls of the massive blockhouse rested on parts of the original castle’s perimeter. From the Ruffians’ view the back of it would have appeared to be a thirty-foot sheer wall of brick with three rows of tiny windows.

  The compound also contained a church large enough to accommodate 120 worshipers. Built in the late Baroque style, it sat atop a large underground vault, which had in recent days served as a bomb shelter. Eight steps led up to its two tall front doors, flanked on either side by stone columns. Above the door a coat of
arms cast in concrete had dedicated the church in 1776; its copper spire held a bell forged in 1747.

  The largest structure, though, was the main building, erected in 1931 after its predecessor had burned down. The replacement was an L-shaped, four-story brick building with dormered windows along a squat roofline. At the foot of the L sat a square, five-story tower. Covered in ivy, it was the most imposing structure of the complex and provided the defenders with an elevated position.

  • • •

  Determining the best route to attack the castle was crucial. Open fields bordered the north and west sides of the complex; approaching from either would have been suicide. The moat on the south side was made deeper by the eight-foot foundation; troops attacking there would be funneled over a narrow bridge, which the Germans undoubtedly had well covered. That left the east side, closest to the protection of the forest, dominated by the massive blockhouse. It was the best option, but an attack there would require suppressing the blockhouse while crossing the moat to storm the northeast corner between the old stables and the church through a section of collapsed wall.

  Around noon, two companies of the Ruffians’ 3rd Battalion formed a wide, half-moon arc on the castle’s east side, using an embankment along the tree line for cover. Before they could completely set up, the volume of fire from the castle swelled. A distinct clanking sound could be heard under the cacophony of rifle and machine gun fire. The troopers knew what it was before they saw it: a tank. The German panzer rolled out of the castle grounds and down a narrow tree-lined road, directly for the troopers’ embankment. Rounds from the main gun sailed in, injuring several troopers. The radio operator called for artillery support, but the guns remained silent due to the low-flying aircraft still coming in.

  From their position Able Company used their captured 81mm mortar to thump out several rounds. But the white phosphorus shells fell short, landing in the compound’s courtyard and setting one of the outbuildings on fire.

  The panzer continued its advance. Ruffian Ivey Hutchinson leapt up from his position and sprinted down the embankment toward the tank. He heaved a British Gammon grenade baseball style; the deafening explosion rocked the tank. It appeared undamaged, but the dazed crew had had enough. Not knowing what had hit them, they pulled themselves out of the hatches and ran toward the Americans with their hands up in surrender.

  A second panzer rolled out of the castle grounds following the same route as the first, which sat abandoned, blocking the road. The panzer blasted at the embankment, killing and wounding several troopers. One of the Ruffians’ two-man recoilless rifle teams worked their way forward, stalking the tank and using trees alongside the road for cover. Their first shot made a direct hit, punching a perfect hole through the armor plating and showering the crew with white-hot shards of metal. The tank erupted into a ball of flame as the survivors scrambled out of the smoking hatches. They opted to run back toward their comrades in the castle, but were picked off one by one by the Americans.

  Having blunted the armored counterattack, the Ruffians resumed their siege. With Blanchard’s Able Company providing mortar and small arms cover, the Ruffians along the embankment launched their attack on the northeast corner. However, as soon as the advancing troopers crossed into the open field, they were pinned down by withering fire. The assault commander was wounded and the attack stalled. The men withdrew back to the shelter of the berm—they would have to try again.

  Regrouping, the battalion commander came up with a new plan: at 13:00 every trooper along the perimeter would unleash his weapon, firing rifles, machine guns, and mortars to keep the Germans’ heads down and give the attack on the northeast corner a better chance of success.

  While the men at the castle waited, a deafening roar at treetop level caused a momentary distraction. The men stared up as waves of B-24 bombers screamed overhead with their bomb bay doors open, on their way to DZ W to drop supplies.

  CHAPTER 13

  “THE YANKS ARE COMING!”

  10:09–13:00. Drop Zone X, Germany. Saturday, March 24, 1945.

  Flying in six minutes behind the Ruffians were the seventy-two C-46s carrying the Thirteeners into DZ X at the far end of the bridgehead. Their mission was to seize the remaining section of high ground in Diersfordt Forest and to set up blocking positions along the Issel River. Supporting the Thirteeners were John Chester and his fellow artillerymen, bringing up the rear in forty-five C-47s.

  Pilot Gordon Wood recalled seeing, from the cockpit of Chalk 9, the Ruffians’ C-47s on the way back from their drop: “We could see planes coming out of the first drop zone all in formation and it looked like a piece of cake. The picture soon changed with the second serial coming out. They were all over the sky and I can remember at least two going down in fire.” Now it was their turn and things were looking a lot more uncertain.

  The planes flew in over the Rhine at 1,000 feet and began their descent to jump altitude. As they flew over the Diersfordt Forest, the pilots scanned for their primary checkpoint—a double-track rail line. From the shelter of the dense woods the Germans fired small arms and light flak up at the C-46s passing overhead.

  In Private Tom Funk’s aircraft, the platoon medic led the stick in singing several songs during the flight. Belting out “Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word over there! That the Yanks are coming!” kept the stick’s spirits up. Until the flak started.

  Funk had joined the regiment in Châlons and he had learned that his comrades valued humor almost as much as hard work. Ever the comedian, he yelled to his buddy Doug Lawson, “What’s that noise I keep hearing?”

  “Well, it isn’t firecrackers,” Lawson yelled back.

  Realizing that his joke had fallen flat, Funk grabbed Lawson’s shoulder and wished him luck. The two men turned their attention to the jumpmaster’s bellowed commands.

  The first serial came in too fast. It was here that the pilots’ inexperience with the C-46 became obvious. The lead pilot chopped his power back belatedly, reducing speed from 170 to 100 mph. The sudden deceleration had a domino effect, forcing pilots higher to avoid collision. The jostling broke up the formations, and several pilots throttled down to as little as 80 mph. It was close to stalling speed for the large twin-engine transports. And one, seemingly undamaged by flak, dove into the ground, killing everyone on board. In an instant over thirty men were gone, consumed in an explosive inferno as the formation screamed overhead on their final approach into the DZ.

  As the planes cleared the forest at 600 feet, 20mm anti-aircraft guns opened up from their left, and heavier flak cannons peppered them from the right. The German gunners on DZ X had had more time to collect themselves after Montgomery’s artillery barrage. They were almost gleeful in their retaliation.

  Black and white puffs of exploding flak scarred the sky; streams of tracer fire crisscrossed through the formation. The glowing tracer rounds, designed to help gunners track the trajectory of their bullets, created an optical illusion: from a pilot’s view the rounds appeared to lazily arc upward until they got close enough to reveal their true speed, zipping past with hair-raising lethality.

  At 10:09 the pilot in the lead aircraft flipped on the green light. With the plane already hit by multiple AA rounds and the left engine in flames, the shrill ringing of the bailout bell added to the bedlam. The C-46 pilots supplemented the jump signal with the bell so troopers at the back of the stick knew it was time to jump. Just after Chalk 1’s troopers cleared the cargo doors, several of the crew bailed out too, but the pilots didn’t make it, as the aircraft nosed over and augured into the ground. Off the right wing, Chalk 2 burned in as well, taking most of the crew with it. Fortunately, the troopers had jumped in time to escape.

  On the run in, flak burst on the right side of Chalk 11, killing Sergeant Tom Harvey, who was standing in the jump door. With no time for options, First Sergeant Royal Donovan slid Harvey’s shrapnel-torn body out of the plane, letting the static line deploy his chute. Within seconds the clanging of t
he bailout bell and the glow of the green jump light sent the troopers rushing for the doors. The sticks of thirty-odd jumpers cleared the double doors in less than twelve seconds.

  First Sergeant Dick Carter candidly recalled his deepening anxiety: “I’ll admit that when we stood up in the plane I was damned frightened, and when the bell rang for exit I was scared, but when we jumped and I heard the flak, I was terrified, I saw two of my buddies get hit while in the air. I’ll always remember how they slumped in their chutes, silent and sinister.”

  Trooper Sid Laufner was more direct, if less eloquent: “I was scared shitless.” He jumped anyway. The fear of going down in a flaming coffin far outweighed anything that might await on the ground.

  In his aircraft, Mac McKirgan was the last man in his stick. He rushed to get out as flames consumed the fuselage, filling the cabin with smoke. The plane rattled horribly, and a jolt threw McKirgan flat on his face just short of the open jump door. He grabbed the edge and pulled himself forward, tumbling out headfirst. He twisted as he fell, and his chute opened with a backbreaking shock, but he made it.

  The trooper jumping in front of Private Harry Deaton was struck by shrapnel, which ignited the phosphorus grenade in his cargo pocket. “He was just a sheet of flames, screaming and trying to get out of the harness, and the phosphorus burned him up,” recalled Deaton. “It was horrible, and I’m sure he was dead by the time he hit the ground.”

  In Chalk 46 combat photographer Robert Capa braced himself against the turbulence. He secured his cameras, verified that his parachute harness was tight, and made sure his flask was snug in his breast pocket. Capa later remembered that, with the red light on and standing at the rear of the stick, “I started to think over my whole life. It was like a movie where the projection machine has gone crazy, and I saw and felt everything I ever ate, ever did. . . . I felt very empty.” In front of him thirty men, including the Thirteeners’ commander, Colonel Jim Coutts, stood poised to jump.