Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  Texan Lendy McDonald’s squad, having followed Ivy, dug into their section of the perimeter that included an observation point along the main road, down which the 116 Panzer-Division’s counterattack was anticipated. The latest intelligence indicated that the Germans’ armored reserve was still in Bocholt, seven miles north of Hamminkeln.

  Coutts’ 3rd Battalion, with arguably the Thirteeners’ most important mission, was behind schedule too. They were responsible for occupying a mile-long gap along the Issel River that would tie together the British 6th Airborne’s line of defense and the glider riders’ perimeter farther south, at the twelve-foot-wide Bridge 10.

  During the exodus south the 3rd Battalion had formed several groups. A group of fifty troopers led by Lieutenant Eugene Crowley was the first to the assembly area. They’d collected 158 prisoners, one of whom had obligingly confirmed their location and got them moving toward the DZ.

  Next to arrive was a group of 150 troopers led by the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Kent. Kent, a thirty-six-year-old lawyer by trade, had mistakenly led his group west before bumping into British paratroops seizing the village of Hamminkeln. Kent turned his columns around at that point, heading back the way they came.

  Kent’s group, while en route to the DZ, found the battalion’s aid station already in operation not far from the planned location of their command post. Captain Arthur Young, Kent’s medical officer, had the situation well in hand. Set up in a grand manor house with several outbuildings, the Americans found the complex already in use as a Wehrmacht field hospital. The German medics surrendered without a fight, and the former adversaries agreed to work together on treating their American, British, and German patients.

  “The Krauts had some stuff we couldn’t bring in by chute and we had some stuff they didn’t have, so we worked together,” said Young. “[They] did a good job, we gave them the basement for their wounded and we took the first floor,” he added.

  Whenever other groups from Kent’s 3rd Battalion trickled into the assembly area, they were directed to positions along the river, where they seized the lone footbridge in their sector. Lieutenant Dean Swem’s platoon was one of the first to get into position.

  One of Swem’s troopers on outpost duty spotted a squad moving toward them in a skirmish line. He couldn’t positively identify them as either friend or foe—they wore camouflage smocks—they might be Germans or they might be British paratroopers.

  Swem alerted the rest of his platoon and instructed a trooper to wave his yellow identification panel.

  “Are you friendly, are you friendly?” yelled Swem.

  A spatter of small arms fire was the reply, followed by shouts of “Hände hoch, Hände hoch!”—“Hands up, hands up!”

  Swem’s platoon shot back, scattering the Germans. A few escaped, disappearing into a cluster of trees, but the rest were gunned down. The wounded called out, “Kamerad, Kamerad.” But Swem, aware the survivors might be lurking in the woods, refused to send any of his men to assist them.

  • • •

  Not long after Coutts’ headquarters group set up their command post, an American pilot wandered in. He’d bailed out of his stricken C-46 and was still carting his bundled-up parachute over one shoulder.

  “What in God’s name are you lugging that parachute for?” Coutts asked him.

  “Colonel, in the Air Force, if you parachute out of a plane and don’t bring it back, you get your paycheck docked $32.84,” he replied.

  Coutts thought that hilarious. He relieved the Air Force officer of his burden, trading him a handwritten receipt and a carbine for the chute. Coutts assigned the pilot to a nearby foxhole until he could be evacuated.

  Miley and Ridgway’s jeep convoy pulled into Coutts’ command post shortly after 18:30. They’d come from the glider riders’ sector, where fighting for several of the canal bridges was still under way; now they wanted to know how the Thirteeners were faring.

  The paratroopers had created a holding area off to one side of the CP to corral several hundred POWs. Coutts gestured toward his caged prize, bragging that he’d left just as many with the British glider troopers. Ridgway jestingly rebuked him for failing to get a receipt from the Brits. Prisoner count aside, both generals were more interested in Coutts’ progress along the river.

  By the time Miley and Ridgway arrived, Coutts’ 3rd Battalion had two companies along the Issel. Their detailed planning in Châlons had paid off. Having carefully studied maps and aerial photographs, the troopers quickly found the predesignated positions for their heavy weapons: belt-fed machine guns, 60mm mortars, Browning Automatic Rifles, and bazookas. But they’d recovered only fourteen out of the thirty-five machine guns dropped in equipment bundles, and they were also running low on ammunition.

  Attempts to recover equipment bundles from the B-24 drop had been frustrated by German mortar crews successfully chasing away search parties. Ransacking the gliders yielded some crates of ammo, but not enough. Resourceful troopers forced some of their prisoners out into the open to recover more supplies. When the POWs complained about possibly getting shot by their own men, the paratroopers gave them a choice.

  Squads continued to dig in and distribute the recovered ammunition. Several patrols had been dispatched across the river to determine what opposition they might be up against. As far as Coutts could tell, his 3rd Battalion alone had suffered over 160 casualties, with 38 killed, and at least 24 men still missing.

  As Coutts briefed the generals, intermittent artillery rounds scudded overhead, crashing on the far side of the Issel. The Thirteeners were calling in harassing artillery fire on targets of opportunity; British guns back across the Rhine answered their requests.

  With the 3rd Battalion tucked in along the river, Coutts’ right flank still had an exposed break of 200 yards between them and the glider riders at Bridge 10. Coutts deployed elements of his 1st Battalion to plug the gap. Captain Ivy had relinquished command to Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kies, who’d rejoined his unit. He and his executive had been captured but negotiated their own release as glider troops closed on the building in which they were being held. With the 1st Battalion in position, Coutts’ Thirteeners were shoulder-to-shoulder with the glider riders along the Issel, forming a defensive barrier to repel counterattacks from outside the bridgehead.

  But it wasn’t all good news. No contact had yet been made with the British glider troops who were to tie into Coutts’ left flank; nor had Coutts’ 2nd Battalion, commanded by “Ace” Miller, seized their objective. Miller knew the Ruffians had cleared the high ground of the Diersfordt Forest north of the castle, but the objective was still susceptible to reoccupation by the enemy. Perhaps the delay was due to having lost two company commanders or only recovering nineteen of their thirty-one belt-fed machine guns. Regardless, Miller sat in his assembly area for hours. By late afternoon he’d collected more than 50 percent of his battalion—over 300 men.

  Not all of Miller’s men waited. Lieutenant Dean Bressler led his small group of troopers toward the forest. But they were held up by barricaded Soldats in two houses on the edge of the wood. They radioed back to Miller for artillery support, which brought Chester’s 466th into action. White phosphorus shells arced into the yards, blossoming around the houses and setting them on fire. The stubborn Germans streamed out with their heads down and their hands up.

  Miller ordered Bressler, who assumed the battalion was already moving, to hold up and wait for the rest of them. This perplexing demand only compounded the delay. Finally at 19:00, after further unexplained postponements, Coutts—no doubt urged on by Ridgway and Miley—ordered Miller to seize his objective. After more than seven hours, Miller finally got his assembled battalion on the move. The slowest record in the division.

  Miller’s men, moving in a skirmish formation, came under fire as they crossed over the railroad tracks skirting Diersfordt Forest. The fire was coming from a cluster of brick buildings protected by multiple machine guns and several large 105mm f
ield guns. Before the Thirteeners could enter the forest they would have to deal with this complex of German-held buildings, which included the large three-story château serving as an enemy HQ.

  Among the paratroopers preparing for the assault was Stuart Stryker, a dark-haired, twenty-year-old former welding machine repairman from Portland, Oregon. Still suffering from the lingering symptoms of dysentery, he’d kept his condition quiet so he could make the jump. Stryker was so keyed up for his first combat jump that he’d announced the previous night—from atop a table—that he’d be going all out, and he was as good as his word.

  Stryker’s platoon made their attack directly across open ground, coming in under the protective fire of two other platoons set up along the railroad embankment. They made it about fifty yards before blistering machine gun fire sent them to ground. The buzz saw’s ripping rate of fire was too much. The platoon sprawled in the dirt with 200 yards yet to go. Every attempt to move drew more fire. No one dared to even shoot back.

  Stryker, from his position at the rear of the formation, saw the attack collapsing. He’d seen it happen too many times in the Bulge—if they didn’t move, they’d be picked off one by one. He shrugged off his pack, rolled to his feet, and ran toward the gunfire. Sergeant Clinton Lynch watched as Stryker rushed forward from trooper to trooper, urging them onward. Lynch heard Stryker yell what he thought was “Follow me!” as he charged past the prone troopers.

  Simultaneously, one of the platoons from the railroad tracks shifted to the right, maneuvering through a wooded area to flank the compound.

  Firing his carbine as he ran, Stryker’s one-man assault inspired his platoon into action. One by one they started returning fire. Stryker, slowed by a shot in the leg, continued moving forward while bullets snapped past him. About twenty-five yards from the Germans’ perimeter, a machine gun burst took him down. He crumpled into a heap. For his critical role in spearheading the assault, Stryker would later be posthumously recognized with the Medal of Honor.

  His comrades, their blood up, bolted forward. Bob Patterson and his mortar squad set up a hasty position near the railroad tracks to provide additional covering fire. They dropped several shells into the cluster of brick buildings while the flank attack came in through the woods. A bazooka team took a knee to blast several rounds into the large chaˆteau.

  The enemy 105mm howitzer crews fired vainly at the Americans. One stray round whistled overhead, hitting the chimney of a nearby house. The German crews all died at their guns, surrounded by empty brass shells, relics of their day’s work. An Unterwachtmeister (artillery sergeant), his section’s lone survivor, spiked one of the guns before falling in a hail of bullets. Paratrooper Robert Gill stared at the body of a dead gunner and was struck by the realization that the human skull is only about a quarter inch thick.

  The Thirteeners laid siege to the Germans wherever they found them. Entering the château, they fired up through the ceiling with Browning Automatic Rifles and Thompson submachine guns. The splintering floor chased the upstairs defenders.

  The three captured American B-24 airmen crouched behind the overturned table in their basement sanctuary. Hollis Powell watched one of his captors take up a firing position at a window halfway up the stairs. With a dull splat, the dead man tumbled back down, shot in the head. An unsettling quiet enveloped the compound.

  An American voice yelled from the top of the stairs, “Anyone in there?”

  Herbert Finney hollered back, “Yes we’re in here, come in and get us!”

  Powell, afraid the answer was too ambiguous, added, “We are Americans, we are in here.”

  A paratrooper cautiously descended into the basement. The airmen noted his baggy olive-drab pants and the casual manner in which he kept his M1 Garand at the ready. “Did they hurt you?” he asked.

  Shaking his head, Powell assured him, “No.”

  The airmen emerged into the sunlight with dozens of paratroopers milling about the compound, smoking and reloading weapons. Medics were already treating the wounded in one of the outbuildings. A gaggle of over 200 enemy prisoners were being searched and organized.

  A shot rang out, and a bullet thudded into the brick wall near Finney’s head. The three airmen scrambled under a German half-track for protection. Powell longed for his B-24 and the high-altitude anonymity of flak and enemy fighters.

  The amused paratroopers ignored the shot and continued smoking and joking, but after a few more bullets ricocheted off the building, an officer gave the order to “go get that son of a bitch.”

  Two troopers reluctantly peeled themselves away from the group to walk around the corner. Two shots were followed by one of them hollering, “I got him!” Powell hoped the dead sharpshooter was the same German who’d shot Milchak.

  It would be several days before the rescued B-24 crew made their way across the Rhine and back to England. Only then would they learn the cost of their mission: 16 B-24s had been shot down, 4 were scrapped, and 126 needed repairs. The human cost, as always, eclipsed the aircraft losses: 109 killed, at least 5 taken as POWs, and scores more wounded.

  Miller had secured the German HQ, but he now made another questionable decision, opting to dig in a mile short of his objective. Not wanting to risk a night movement through the forest, he left the Diersfordt road unsecured, exposing a gap in the perimeter between the Ruffians and the British airborne troops. It was a tactical mistake for which he’d later be criticized.

  Mid-afternoon. Landing Zone S, Germany. Saturday, March 24, 1945.

  Back on LZ S, the OSS agents were set up in a barn licking their wounds. Leo Jungen powered up his suitcase radio to report back to Paris while the agents replaced the damaged tires on their Kübelwagen. Unfortunately, its radio was beyond repair.

  With the team occupied, Steltermann and Vinciguerra left to get their wounds properly treated. They found an aid station bustling with activity. Bleeding and moaning men lay everywhere, and medics moved with intensity to save lives. The dead were laid out to the side of one tent, their brown paratrooper boots sticking out from under gray-green Army blankets stained with dried blood. The two agents took in the scene, glanced at each other, and left. They could wait.

  Overall it had been a frustrating day for Team Algonquin. Vinciguerra’s primary team, Steltermann and Staub, had been taken out before they landed. Steltermann had a bullet through his shoulder, and their Kübelwagen radio was kaput. Team Alsace, the other uniformed agents, had dropped with the Ruffians, and thus far, no one had heard from them. Team Student, as Vinciguerra later put it, “proved itself thoroughly incapable.” Upon landing they simply crawled into the closest undergrowth and didn’t move.

  His only remaining hope was Team Poissy. They’d arrived in the same glider serial, but had been unable to move far enough fast enough, and were rounded up by American glider troops. Vinciguerra rescued them from their internment. The two unarmed agents, Frenchmen in civilian attire, were willing to give their mission another try.

  Vinciguerra and the others agreed that an attempt should be made to infiltrate Team Poissy closer to their original objective: the village of Hünxe, six miles northeast as the crow flies. As the OSS agents drove off the LZ in their Kübelwagen, followed by a second captured enemy jeep, two armed Germans fled into a nearby house. Vinciguerra and Steltermann dismounted to fire a few shots at the windows. Steltermann zigzagged closer, yelling for the occupants to surrender. Thirty-one Soldats, including two Leutnants, filed out. While Steltermann and Staub interrogated the prisoners, Vinciguerra escorted Team Poissy to a point along the railroad tracks leading into Wesel. They didn’t know it yet, but the likelihood of getting across Bridge 1 and through town would be slim.

  • • •

  By midday the glider riders entrenched along the canal were strengthening their positions as more men trickled in. Crews positioned their heavy machine guns and anti-tank guns to cover the bridges’ far approaches. They’d taken all of their objectives with the exception of Bridge 1, which
was still contested by an undaunted German battle group.

  The German units trapped inside the Americans’ perimeter reeled from the initial surprise and violence of the airborne assault, but those outside organized for a counterattack. To break the Americans’ hold they needed at least one bridge capable of bearing the weight of armored vehicles. Elements of Kampfgruppe Karst prowled the banks across from Bridges 1 through 4, probing the glider riders’ defenses for a weakness.

  Responsibility for stopping that counterattack fell on the shoulders of Lieutenant Colonel Harry Balish, who took over the glider riders’ 2nd Battalion after the commander was injured on landing. Given the tenuous situation at Bridge 1, Balish ordered a platoon from his reserve company forward to bolster the defenses.

  Ten minutes later three German tanks attempting to get out of the airborne perimeter stormed Bridge 1 from behind. Troopers repelled the attack, knocking one tank out with a bazooka and another with a 57mm anti-tank gun. The third panzer retreated.

  At 16:00 Kampfgruppe Karst launched a concerted counterattack against Bridges 1 and 2. Determined to keep a route open, they pounded George Company’s sector with showers of mortar and artillery shells. The glider riders dug their foxholes deeper and waited.

  Forward observer Lieutenant Herman Lemberger moved toward the attack as more panzers lurched toward the bridges. Lemberger needed a better view, so he climbed to the top of the canal bank to call back instructions to British artillery batteries. One of the panzer crews must have spotted his radio. The bark of their main gun rocked the tank, and Lemberger disappeared in the explosion of a direct hit. But he’d sent the coordinates, and the British gunners had the range. They dropped shell after shell into the enemy formation, chopping the attackers to pieces with salvos of high-explosive rounds. It was close. One of the panzers clanked within ten yards of the main line before Andrew Adams knocked it out with a shattering shot from his bazooka.