All American, All the Way: A Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II: From Market Garden to Berlin

553 Pages·2010·7.56 MB·English

by  Phil Nordyke

ALL AMERICAN
ALL THE WAY

FROM MARKET GARDEN TO BERLIN

THE COMBAT HISTORY OF THE
82ND AIRBORNE DIVISION
IN WORLD WAR II

PHIL NORDYKE
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Chapter 1 “Put Us Down in Holland, or Put Us Down in Hell, but Put Us
Down All in One Place or I Will Hound You to Your Graves!”
Chapter 2 “This Mighty Spectacle Deeply Impressed Me”
Chapter 3 “Situation Well in Hand”
Chapter 4 “We’ve Come a Long Way… Tell the Boys to Do a Good Job”
Chapter 5 “The Nijmegen Bridge Must Be Taken Today; At the Latest,
Tomorrow”
Chapter 6 “A Day Unprecedented in the Division’s Combat History”
Chapter 7 “I Have Never Seen a More Gallant Action”
Chapter 8 “The Finest Division in the World Today”
Chapter 9 “I’m Sure Glad You Bastards Are Here”
Chapter 10 “Let’s Get the Sons of Bitches!”
Chapter 11 “I’m the 82nd Airborne and This Is as Far as the Bastards Are
Going”
Chapter 12 “Sort Out the Battlefield and Tidy Up the Lines”
Chapter 13 “Well Colonel, the Old Guys Got It Today”
Chapter 14 “Sir, They’re All Dead”
Chapter 15 “Surrender, Hell!”
Chapter 16 “The Closest to Hell One Could Get Without Entering the
Gates”
Chapter 17 “Refugees from the Law of Averages”
Chapter 18 “You Wonder What Happens to a Magnificent Division of Brave
Men after the War”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Dedicated to my wife, Nancy,
and my children, Jason, Amy, and Robert
MAPS

Operation Market-Garden: Zones of Operation 10
82nd—Holland: 17–18 September 1944, D-Day thru D+1 61
Attack on Nijmegen Bridges, 19 September 1944 86
Attack on Nijmegen Bridges, 20 September 1944 138
82nd—Holland: 19–21 September 1944, D+2 thru D+4 154
82nd—Holland: 22–23 September 1944, D+5 thru D+6 159
82nd—Holland: 24–28 September 1944, D+7 thru D+10 167
82nd—Holland: 29 September–1 October 1944, D+11 thru D+14 173
82nd at Nijmegen: 2–16 October 1944, D+15 thru D+29 176
Movement of 82nd to Werbomont 186
Movement of 82nd Airborne—Belgium, 19–21 December 1944 189
Cheneux 200
Trois Ponts 206
82nd Airborne—Belgium, 21–24 December 215
82nd Airborne—Belgium, 24–31 December 248
82nd Airborne: The Action of 1–4 January 1945 267
82nd Airborne—Belgium, 5–10 January 1945 280
Attack Northeast of Saint-Vith, 28–31 January 1945 299
Attack on the Siegfried Line, 1–3 February 1945 311
82nd Airborne Hürtgen Forest Attacks, 7–16 February 326
Route of the 82nd Airborne to Cologne and to the Elbe River Area 331
The 505th Parachute Infantry Crosses the Elbe River, 30 April–1 May 1945 342
The 82nd Meets the Russians 347
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people deserve my gratitude for contributing directly and indirectly to the
completion of this work. First, I want to thank my family, beginning with my
parents. My father, Zyra Jr., helped me to develop an interest in history and an
appreciation for the U.S. military. I developed a love for reading and writing as a
result of the efforts of my mother, Marjorie. My wife, Nancy, deserves special
thanks for having faith in me when this project was just an idea and for putting
up with me during the research, writing, and editing processes. She tirelessly
supported the project by mailing almost two-thousand questionnaires, assisted in
many of the videotaped interviews, traveled countless miles to museums and
veterans’ residences, and provided constructive feedback on the manuscript. My
children, Jason, Amy, and Robert, also deserve thanks for their patience during
the many side trips to battlefields of the 82nd Airborne Division while we
vacationed in Europe. My elder son, Jason, provided tremendous assistance
between semesters at college, locating and contacting many veterans using
World War II company rosters and formulating some of the company-specific
questionnaires. Amy took an interest in the project, providing much emotional
support despite being away at college. Robert gave valuable help by using his
computer skills and knowledge of Internet search engines to locate veterans.
Any work of this sort would not be possible without those great authors who
came before. Cornelius Ryan pioneered the technique of using the words of the
veterans to tell the stories in his two landmark works, The Longest Day and A
Bridge Too Far. Mr. Ryan graciously donated his wealth of research material to
Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, for others to utilize. Many thanks to Doug
McCabe, Curator of Manuscripts, Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for
Archives and Special Collections, the Alden Library, Ohio University, for
providing the materials referenced in this book.
A second historian and author, Dr. Stephen E. Ambrose, has done more to
educate the American public about the sacrifices of World War II combat
veterans than probably any author. Dr. Ambrose established the National D-Day
Museum and the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, to preserve the
oral histories and written accounts collected for his monumental works, D-Day
and Citizen Soldiers. I owe a great debt to Martin K. A. Morgan, Research
Historian, National D-Day Museum, and the curator of the Eisenhower Center
World War II collection for the copies of oral histories and written accounts.
The 82nd Airborne Division War Memorial Museum at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, was the source of a great deal of the primary source material for this
book. Dr. John Duvall, Museums Chief, and Betty Rucker, Collections Manager,
gave me total access to the Ridgway–Gavin Archives at the museum. I am
deeply in their debt.
I appreciate the photos, maps, and after-action reports obtained through the
generous assistance of Joe Hays, Museum Director, at the Silent Wings Museum
in Lubbock, Texas.
Many thanks go to Ericka L. Loze, Librarian, Donovan Research Library, Fort
Benning, Georgia, for her tireless work in obtaining for me monographs of 82nd
Airborne Division veterans from the library’s massive collection.
I want to recognize and thank others who have provided research materials for
this work. Guy LoFaro and Normand Thomas sent materials that I needed from
the U.S. Army Military History Institute and the U.S. Army Center of Military
History. Starlyn Jorgensen gave me access to her history of the 456th Parachute
Field Artillery Battalion and Doc Hardie’s account. Albert N. Parker gave me
access to some of the key 507th veterans’ accounts. Rick Erny graciously sent
copies of World War II rosters of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment. Bob Burns
and Robert Slivatz provided the unit journal, contact information for veterans,
and filled in the blanks regarding much of the action of the 80th Airborne
Antiaircraft (Antitank) Battalion. Jan Bos, in the Netherlands, sent his history of
the 376th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion.
The book publishing process was new to me, after spending my entire career
in the high tech industry. My literary agent, Ms. Gayle Wurst, Princeton
International Agency for the Arts, did a great job of representing my interests
with and educating me about the publishing industry. Author and historian Ed
Ruggero provided much appreciated counsel regarding the business aspects of
book publishing.
I owe a great deal of thanks to Richard Kane, Editor, Zenith Press, who has
been a pleasure to work with from the contract through the editing process to the
final product. Bob Kane did a wonderful job with suggestions for improvement
of the manuscript. The copyeditor, Tom Kailbourn, did a great job getting the
manuscript ready for publication.
Special thanks to the cartographer, Phil Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the fine maps he produced.
My greatest appreciation is for the contributions of the veterans of the 82nd
Airborne Division. Space will not permit me to mention by name and thank all
of the veterans that provided contributions for the book. I must begin by
thanking General Jack Norton, Colonel Mark Alexander, and Colonel Ed Sayre
for their support and for inspiring me to write this book. I owe an enormous debt
to 82nd veteran Don Lassen and his Static Line magazine. The publication
provided most of the contact information for the more than two-thousand
veterans of the division. In each of the unit organizations I found key individuals
who were instrumental in opening the door to their respective associations. Ray
Fary was of immense assistance in providing material regarding the 80th AA
Battalion. Al Nemeth gave me much information and contacts for the 307th
Airborne Engineer Battalion. I received invaluable help from Wesley Ko and
Wayne Pierce with 325th Glider Infantry Association in providing exposure
through the Tow Line newsletter and for written accounts that Mr. Pierce had
gathered during the research for his fine book, Let’s Go! Ray Grossman and Tom
Mattingly were of special help in providing contacts, accounts, and help with the
456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. T. Moffatt Burriss, Ed Dodd, Jim
Megellas, and Ed Sims, all veterans of the 504th, were of great assistance. Jim
Megellas, author of the great book All The Way To Berlin, gave me great advice
about the publishing process and great contacts in the business. I am indebted to
many veterans of the 505th RCT Association, particularly Frank Bilich, Chris
Christensen, Robert Franco, Don McKeage, and Joe Tallett for having
confidence in my abilities and for encouraging the membership to contribute
their accounts. The late Jim Blue and O. B. Hill, along with Francis Lamoureux
with the great 508th Association made available their personal material as well
as contact information for the members. Doug Dillard with the 551st PIB
Association was instrumental in getting accounts by the veterans of the unit for
the book.
Finally, I owe the most gratitude to the more than nine-hundred veterans of the
division and their families who contributed to the book. It is with regret that the
size of the book didn’t allow for each and every veteran’s account to be included.
They will, however, be included in future regimental histories and books about
each of the campaigns.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Following thirty-three days of heavy combat during the Normandy campaign,
the All Americans of the 82nd Airborne Division were withdrawn to rest and
recuperate, refit, and integrate replacements into the tight-knit world of the
airborne units. After several operations proposed for early September in support
of the fast-moving Allied forces were canceled due to bad weather and ground
forces having advanced up to and beyond the airborne objectives, the next
operation was set: the daring plan known as Operation Market Garden.
On Sunday September 17, 1944, in an audacious daylight drop, the All
Americans jumped into Holland in the vicinity of Nijmegen. A key objective for
Market Garden was to capture intact the Nijmegen highway bridge over the
Waal River, the longest single-span bridge in all of Europe. The epic assault by
the division’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), veterans of Anzio, to
create a bridgehead across the four-hundred-yard-wide Waal has been called a
second Omaha Beach.
Although the All Americans captured and held all of their assigned objectives,
Market Garden failed, becoming known as “a bridge too far.” The paratroopers
and glidermen of the 82nd became mired in a defensive, static campaign in the
Dutch lowlands. Finally, on November 10, 1944, the division was relieved by
Canadian forces for a hard-earned rest behind the lines in eastern France. Little
did they imagine the cataclysm that awaited them little more than a month later
in the Ardennes.
On December 16, 1944, four German armies, including two panzer armies,
exploded through the Ardennes, beginning the campaign that has gone down in
history as the Battle of the Bulge. As one of the few divisions in reserve, the All
Americans once again led the way, securing crucial positions on the northern
shoulder of the Bulge. By January 3, 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division, despite
horrendous casualties and horrible winter conditions, was once again on the
attack, driving eastward and piercing the Siegfried Line along the German
border.
Ferocious combat in the infamous Hürtgen Forest and a combat assault across
the Elbe River deep into Germany followed the Bulge. By May 2 the division
headquarters was well east of Hamburg, where the All Americans accepted the
unconditional surrender of 144,000 soldiers of the 21st German Army Group.
V-E Day on May 8 brought an end to the war in Europe but not to the service
of the troopers of the 82nd. As the U.S. Army’s premier combat division, the
division was chosen to represent the United States in the occupation in Berlin. In
January 1946 the All Americans were honored once again as the leading unit of
the great victory parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City.
This book concludes the World War II saga of the All Americans. The story of
the paratroopers and glidermen of the famed 82nd Airborne Division in World
War II started with the reactivation of the division in early 1942 and the
development and training of the unit as America’s first division-size airborne
unit, one of only four that were formed during the war. Spearheading the
invasion of Sicily, the 82nd was the first U.S. airborne division to parachute into
combat. Combat in Italy and the D-Day invasion of France followed. This part
of the division’s service in World War II is told in a companion volume All
American, All the Way: A Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in
World War II: From Sicily to Normandy.
—Phil Nordyke, August 2009