A scene along Hell's Highway in September, 1944. The occupants of the jeep are members of 101st Divarty.
In the 101st's sector, the primary job became holding the narrow corridor of hope open against repeated enemy counterattacks. While Allied armor was advancing northward, it was vital to keep the road open to facilitate the flow of troops and supplies. The Germans, however, fought back viciously against the 101st's defensive positions around Eindhoven, Son, St. Oedenrode and Veghel. General Taylor likened the action to the bushwhacking style of fighting between small garrisons of troops and Indians in the American West. The Germans would attack, cut the road and then be driven back by the troopers of the 101st.
On the 22nd, the Germans mounted a counterattack against Veghel supported by heavy artillery and aircraft. The attack was not beaten back until two days later. "It was a very depressing atmosphere listening to the civilians moan, shriek, sing hymns and say their prayers," wrote Daniel Kenyon Webster of the 506th's Company E, remembering the rain of artillery. He and Private Don Wiseman dug a deep foxhole. "Wiseman and I sat in our corners and cursed," Webster continued. "Every time we heard a shell come over, we closed our eyes and put our heads between our legs. Every time the shells went off, we looked up and grinned at each other."
Landing at the dropzone near Son. Not all landings pass without mishap. While descending two gliders of the 101st Airborne Division have collided and crashed on the landing zone. One pilot is killed. The five occupants of the second glider are trapped inside the wreckage. Paratroopers of the 506th PIR that has just landed rush forward to help. Identified outside the glider are f.l.t.r. Joe Crawford, Chaplain Tilden McGee, Captain Tollet and Stanley Speiwak.
On September 24, the Germans ravaged a British column on Hell's Highway at Koevering. Burgett remembered: "The Germans brought up some 40mm cannons and they had some self-propelled guns, and they shot up the British who were lined up on the side of the road…brewing tea in those five-gallon tins, and the Germans just opened up on them. They killed over 300. "When we got down to Koevering, the trucks were still burning," continued Burgett. "We went into the attack immediately. I remember we killed two Germans in a haystack. Then we made an attack west across the road at a farmhouse. The farmhouse was set on fire. We went into the German side, and we drove them back."
101st Airborne Trooper shares his food with Dutch civilians.
Although it became apparent that Market-Garden was a strategic failure, the men of the 101st Airborne could say that they had done their part admirably. The northern flank of the Allied armies was extended 65 miles across two canals and the Maas and Waal rivers, while a considerable amount of Dutch territory had been freed from Nazi occupation. The division had killed many Germans and captured 3,511, while suffering 2,110 casualties itself.
Although most of the men of the 101st expected to be pulled out of the line at the end of September, the division was placed under the control of the British XII Corps on the 28th and transferred north to the front line in an area known as the Island, a 5-kilometer strip of land between the Neder Rijn and the Waal. Due to heavy demands for manpower, the British were pressed for troops, and both the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions found themselves in positions that resembled the trench lines of World War I. Occasionally, they experienced artillery duels between the Germans and the British and were involved in infantry clashes.
On the night of October 5, a platoon of the 506th's Company E, supported by a detachment from Company F, mauled two companies of German SS troops attempting to infiltrate American lines in support of an attack by the 363rd Volksgrenadier Division. Captain (later Major) Richard Winters, Company E's commander, led his 35 men brilliantly, demonstrating great bravery and coolness under fire.
This pic shows Lt.Delmar Denson Idol of A/502 on a combat patrol near Dodewaard, Holland on the Island in October, 1944. Capt. Joe Pangerl photographed Idol as he scanned no man's land for signs of dug-in German positions.
Moving along a road adjacent to a dike near the banks of the Neder Rijn, Winters shot a German who was only three yards away and then opened up on a mass of enemy troops. "The movements of the Germans seemed to be unreal to me," he reflected. "When they rose up, it seemed to be so slow. When they turned to look over their shoulders at me, it was in slow motion. When they started to raise their rifles to fire at me, it was in slow, slow motion. I emptied the first clip [eight rounds] and, still standing in the middle of the road, put in a second clip and, still shooting from the hip, emptied that clip into the mass."
Winters remembered that action as the "highlight of all E Company actions for the entire war, even better than D-Day, because it demonstrated Easy's overall superiority in every phase of infantry tactics: patrol, defense, attack under a base of fire, withdrawal, and above all, superior marksmanship with rifles, machine gun and mortar fire."
The 101st held its positions on the Island until late November, when it was withdrawn to Camp Mourmelon, outside the French village of Mourmelon-le-Grand. From the Market-Garden drop until its last troopers were relieved, the division had spent 72 days in combat zones. In the defensive fighting at the Island, it suffered 1,682 casualties.
The men of the 101st experienced combat for the first time on D-Day. They had fought gallantly as veterans in Holland. But their sternest test and their finest hour were yet to come, at the Belgian crossroads town of Bastogne.
Additional Sources:
members.lycos.nl/bandofbrotherse506pi
www.101airborneww2.com
www.barakuda.ch
www.mariaheide.nl
home.tiscali.nl/~jschoe
www.pointvista.com
www.army.mil
www.campbell.army.mil
home.wanadoo.nl
www.yankee-yankee.bravepages.com
home.tiscali.nl
