Four Hours of Fury Read online

  More Praise for FOUR HOURS OF FURY

  “Fenelon’s epic account of the Allied invasion of Nazi Germany re-creates in stirring detail both the generals’ strategies and the privates’ emotions as their colossal effort climaxed in momentous achievement. Four Hours of Fury is a fine tribute to the gallantry of the men and women who, against overwhelming odds, vanquished a great evil.”

  —Craig Nelson, author of Pearl Harbor, Rocket Men, and The First Heroes

  “Diving into Four Hours of Fury is like opening the jump door on a C-46 transport high over Germany in March of 1945. You’re an Allied paratrooper and the Rhine is fast approaching. Waiting are 55,000 Wehrmacht soldiers anxious to make sure you don’t finish the day alive. Your orders are stark: Keep taking ground! A former US Army paratrooper, James Fenelon brings this story of the war’s largest airborne assault to life as only he can, using the voices of the men who were there to deliver heart-pounding realism. The book is a gripping reminder that the crash of war is at its most deafening just before the end.”

  —Adam Makos, author of Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

  “Masterfully researched and written with a novelist’s eye for detail, Four Hours of Fury hurls readers into the heart of one of World War II’s most ferocious fights . . . . Readers will feel the buzz of bullets overhead, smell the vomit in the back of cramped plywood gliders, and duck as the enemy’s artillery thunders. [This] is one helluva combat story.”

  —James M. Scott, author of Target Tokyo and Rampage

  “Fenelon puts you in a transport plane, straps a parachute to your back, and sends you into an adventure commencing 1,000 feet over Nazi German skies. Four Hours of Fury is a brilliant tribute to the last great parachute assault, and the men who invaded Hitler’s empire from the air.”

  —Jonathan W. Jordan, author of Brothers, Rivals, Victors

  “Fenelon’s experience as a paratrooper and his ability to describe in thorough detail what it takes to conduct an airborne operation, as either a private or a general officer, captures the lethal effectiveness of vertical envelopments, whether on the World War II battlefield with Operation VARSITY or today. Critics may question operations such as VARSITY as they assess the time involved, the distance traveled, what might have been achieved with alternative forces, and the total number of casualties, but there’s no doubt that the psychological effect of an audacious paratrooper drop creates a force multiplier on the enemy that cannot be matched.”

  —Brigadier General David L. Grange, US Army (Ret.), former commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment and 1st Infantry Division

  “A riveting chronicle of personal courage, overwhelming logistics, and inevitable mayhem that is as authentic as it gets. ‘The ambition, scope, and execution of Operation VARSITY remains unparalleled in the annals of warfare,’ Fenelon writes. The same can be said of his telling of the largest single-day airborne assault of World War II.”

  —Walter R. Borneman, author of Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

  “Told with a master’s attention to detail and historical accuracy . . . James M. Fenelon emerges as a talented storyteller, anchoring this narrative of a grand military offensive with rich portraits of those whose sacrifices made it successful.”

  —Gregory A. Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500 and The Last Mission of the Wham Bam Boys

  “Deeply researched and richly detailed, Four Hours of Fury constitutes a major addition to the military history of World War II. A particular virtue of the book, among many, is the close attention paid to the GIs who carried out the mission.”

  —John W. Jeffries, author of Wartime America: The World War II Home Front

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  For Frank Dillon. Thank you.

  “He conceived the two armies to be at each other panther fashion. He listened for a time. Then he began to run in the direction of the battle . . . he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.”

  —Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

  LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND MAPS

  Parachute Infantry Regiment (December 1944) Table of Organization

  17th Airborne Division (January 3–23, 1945) Battle of the Bulge

  Allied Advance (Fall 1944) Northern Europe

  Advance to the Rhine (February 8–March 13, 1945)

  Allied Chain of Command, Operations PLUNDER & VARSITY

  The Wesel Pocket (March 1945)

  German Defenses (March 1945) Northern Rhine

  17th Airborne Division (March 1945) Marshaling Camps

  VARSITY (March 1945) Landing Plan

  Operation VARSITY Flight Routes

  Operation VARSITY (March 24, 1945)

  507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (The Ruffians) (March 24, 1945) Drop Zone W

  507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (The Ruffians) (March 24, 1945) Diersfordt Castle Attack

  513th Parachute Infantry Regiment (Thirteeners) (March 24, 1945) Drop Zone X

  194th Glider Infantry Regiment (Glider Riders) (March 24, 1945) Landing Zone S and Issel Bridges

  Operation VARSITY (March 25–26, 1945) Phase Lines

  Allied Advance (March 28–April 1, 1945) Encircling the Ruhr

  PROLOGUE

  On Saturday, March 24, 1945, an armada of over 2,000 Allied aircraft droned through the bright morning sky over Belgium. Seventeen thousand airborne troops sat crammed in the cargo holds waiting to be dropped via parachute and glider into Germany. Consisting of transport planes and more than 1,300 towed gliders, the line of aircraft stretched back to the horizon for hundreds of miles. Flying at an altitude of just a thousand feet, the swarm generated a buzz that seemed to announce the fleet’s arrival from every direction. Fighter escorts, biding their time and scanning for enemy aircraft, flew in lazy patterns above the staggered formations of lumbering transports.

  Spearheading what Allied commanders hoped would be the final offensive in Europe, the transports carried troops from two elite divisions: the British 6th and the American 17th Airborne. Both were to be dropped over the same patch of German farmland five miles deep by six miles wide on the far banks of the Rhine River. As part of the largest operation since the Normandy invasion, the airborne units were to seize a bridgehead on the enemy side of the river and hold it until ground forces surged across the 400-yard width of the Rhine.

  While the Allies had conducted several airdrops during the war, this was the first into the enemy’s homeland. They were invading, not liberating, and the stakes were high. Nazi propaganda broadcasts made it clear that the element of surprise had been lost. The enemy was waiting for them. In addition to the expected 55,000 dug-in Wehrmacht troops, would fanatical German civilians attack with hunting rifles and pitchforks? Or would they cower in their basements? No one knew.

  Sergeant John Chester and 384 other GIs of his battalion flew steadily on toward their drop zone in forty-two C-47 transports. Chester, a confident twenty-four-year-old section chief, occupied his time by writing a few postcards. Wanting to capture the novelty of his first combat jump, he scribbled the same note to both his mother and Kay, his gal back home in Missouri: “I am writing
from a plane. We will drop into Germany soon. Hope to be seeing you soon. I love you.”

  Tucking away the postcards, Chester rested one hand on the buckle of his safety belt, remembering how he’d fought to stand up during his third training jump. Mortified by his body’s unwillingness to rise to the occasion, panic had flooded through him before he realized he hadn’t unfastened the buckle. That wouldn’t happen today.

  Chester knew most of the men in the plane, having trained and fought with them since 1943. Some pretended to sleep while others smoked or just stared into space. No one spoke. The roar of the engines and the rattling of the airframe made conversation impossible, which was just fine. Most were dwelling on their own thoughts anyway.

  Chester briefly dwelled on the fact that this would be his thirteenth jump but chased the creeping feelings of doubt and hesitation from his mind with his simple, standard mantra: You volunteered for this. You asked for it. Now go get the job done.

  The two-hour flight from France had been uneventful, but that couldn’t last; as the planes approached the Rhine, it was time to go to work. From the cockpit, the pilot flipped on the red caution light, informing the men in back that they were nearing Germany.

  As the aircraft began its descent, Chester unbuckled, stood, and yelled, “Get ready!” to the sitting jumpers. Those pretending to sleep snapped their eyes open and turned their attention aft where Chester stood by the open cargo door, wind whipping at his uniform.

  The Rhine was the line of no return—once they crossed it, they’d be over enemy territory. More than ten minutes of flight time remained until they reached their drop zone, but given the possibility of getting shot down, they had to be ready to jump at any moment. This allowed the troopers to do what their pilots couldn’t—bail out in the case of disaster.

  As artillerymen, Chester’s planeload of paratroopers also had to drop their 75mm howitzer. The disassembled artillery piece was divided into a door bundle, to be shoved out when the pilot flipped the jump light to green, and six bundles strapped to the underside of the aircraft, which would be released from inside the cabin.

  “Stand up! . . . Hook up!” Chester bellowed over the sound of the deafening engines.

  He reinforced his verbal commands with hand and arm signals that the men knew. They in turn echoed the orders, yelling them back in a ritual that ensured everyone understood what was happening and was engaged in the process. It gave them something to focus on other than their fears.

  Overburdened with equipment, the troopers seated on each side of the plane struggled to get on their feet and form one line. Once standing, they attached their parachutes’ static lines to the steel cable running the length of the cabin. Jumping at less than 500 feet, there wasn’t time to deploy the chutes manually—the 13-foot static line took care of that, yanking the canopies open as the troopers fell away from the plane.

  The jumpers jerked down on their static lines making sure the hooks locked shut. Satisfied everything was in order, they faced the rear of the plane and watched Chester and Manuel Pena shove the supply bundle to the edge of the open door. The bundle actually included multiple containers—made up of the howitzer’s breech assembly, its wheels, and ten artillery shells—lashed together into a single awkward mass that required three parachutes. The two men wrestled the bundle onto a number of dowel rods, which facilitated the bundle’s quick exit and eased the hassle of forcing the 720-pound bulk over the metal surface of the plane’s decking.

  At the Rhine, smoke and haze from the battle below obscured landmarks as the armada split up to head to their assigned drop zones. The ground forces had unleashed their attack before dawn and were still forcing their way across the Rhine under heavy fire. The pilots of Chester’s unit, adhering to strict radio silence, watched helplessly as the seventy-two aircraft in front of them inadvertently veered off course. The C-47s carrying the artillerymen continued on the correct heading, but Chester, along with the rest of his battalion, was unaware that they would now be dropping first.

  Having been alerted to the oncoming planes, German anti-aircraft batteries filled the sky with 88mm and 20mm flak rounds, the shells arcing up at the descending transports and bursting into dark clouds of exploding shrapnel. Streams of tracer fire from heavy machine guns stabbed at the planes and added to the mayhem.

  The pilots felt like sitting ducks. To shake the aim of enemy gunners they needed to alter their flight path and airspeed, but that wasn’t an option. Being in formation and approaching the drop zone required a steady speed and course. They shifted in their seats and flew straight into the growing maelstrom, following orders while ignoring their instincts.

  Over the roar of the engines, the muffled detonations of flak could be heard from inside the plane. Behind the pilots, the troopers were buffeted about the shuddering cabin. Almost to a man they’d erred in favor of carrying as much equipment as possible: machine guns, rifles, pistols, hand grenades, extra ammunition, explosives, knives, bayonets, and brass knuckles. In many cases the parachute and equipment doubled a trooper’s own weight; they supported themselves by holding on to one another, the airframe, or their static lines.

  Chester caught glimpses of the action outside and was alarmed by what he saw: multiple aircraft in flames and a sky bursting with flak.

  Looks like we are going to be real shorthanded, he thought. Hope there are enough of us left to get the job done.

  As the men waited for the final command to jump, each struggled to stay on his feet as he pushed against the man in front, craning to get a glimpse of the jump light—still red. They wanted out and crowded toward the open door. Whatever awaited them on the ground had to be better than waiting to get shot down. One trooper, with his eyes on Chester, placed his hand on the command switch to salvo the howitzer bundles secured snugly to the belly of their C-47.

  KABOOM! An explosion rocked the plane as a 20mm shell burst through the floor, shredding Melvin Boatner’s leg. He crumpled to the deck, clenching his teeth and grabbing at the wound. Al Perry and Nick Montanino rapidly unhooked his static line and slid him to the other side of the plane—out of the way. There was no time to administer first aid to the increasingly pale Boatner, and he couldn’t be allowed to hamper the jumpers’ rush for the door.

  Realizing shrapnel had severed the circuit to the now dead jump light, Chester yelled for the crew chief to stand in the cockpit door and relay the pilot’s signal. Almost immediately the chief shouted, “GO, GO, GO!” while frantically waving both hands over his head.

  Chester, Pena, and Perry shoved the bundle out and the troopers surged forward to exit right behind them. The salvo switches were flipped, releasing the bundles under the plane. Daisy-chained together to prevent them from drifting apart, all six were successfully deployed under their twenty-four-foot canopies.

  The speed of the aircraft threw Chester forward over 500 feet as he exited. The first thing he saw was the ground below him, then the blue sky, then a jumbled kaleidoscope of both, as his deploying chute twisted him this way and that. The shock of the canopy snapping open took his breath away and sent the two grenades he had slipped into his jacket pocket ripping out the bottom. But he didn’t have time to worry about them. He also didn’t have time to enjoy the usual moment of elation following the successful deployment of a parachute. There’d be no blissful descent today. He briefly glanced at the departing aircraft and the chutes of those who’d jumped after him, before turning in his harness to keep an eye on the floating bundles of the howitzer.

  The surrounding aircraft spewed paratroopers, filling the sky with hundreds of camouflage canopies. Supply bundles were mixed into the fray, descending under their distinct blue, yellow, or red chutes. The pilots, having delivered their cargo, gunned the engines and banked their aircraft for the return flight, finally free to dodge the flak and tracer rounds. Some trailed fire and oily smoke as they limped back to base. Others, more heavily damaged, arced into the ground.

  With their adrenaline pumping, Chester a
nd his fellow artillerymen were relieved to be out of the planes. But as the thrumming engines faded away, the crackle of gunfire and the crump of mortar rounds diverted their attention to the tilled fields of Nazi Germany rushing up at them. It was 10:20 a.m.

  PART I

  * * *

  DECEMBER 1944–MARCH 1945

  CHAPTER 1

  “WHERE IN THE HELL IS EVERYBODY AT?”

  Northern France. Sunday, Christmas Eve, 1944.

  Three months before they dropped into Germany, the troopers of the 17th Airborne entered combat for the first time in a manner entirely different from how they’d been trained. Without much warning, they’d been rushed to the front to set up blocking positions along the Meuse River on Christmas Eve 1944. Platoons of paratroopers, not fully aware of what was going on, found themselves digging foxholes in the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery, the final resting place for thousands of Americans killed in the previous world war. The men dug in and waited for orders, each contemplating the odds of becoming a permanent European resident himself. They were as ready as they could be, but like all unseasoned troops, most had no idea what they were about to endure.

  Lynn Aas’ platoon stopped to dig their defensive positions in a field littered with frozen American and German corpses. The cold, dead faces of the enemy reminded the twenty-three-year-old rifleman of his German and Ukrainian neighbors back in North Dakota. As he stood there in the snow, a nagging unease took hold of him . . . he had no desire to kill these people.

  But knowing the task ahead required resolve, he walked over to one of the bodies and forced himself to stare. In life, the young German had been tall and handsome. Feeling the need to build up his hate, Aas kicked the corpse. This is war, he thought. He is my enemy; I need to prove to myself that I can destroy him. In the coming days almost all of his fellow troopers would get an opportunity to ignite their hate too.