Four Hours of Fury Read online

  To get around the censorship, Private Joseph Clyde Haney, known as Clyde to his friends, had developed a secret code to conceal information in his letters home. Whenever he addressed a sentence directly to his wife, Vera, or mentioned “Tell Dad,” his family knew to assemble a hidden message from the first letter of every following word.

  Haney, an older-than-average private at thirty-two, was handsome, with thick, dark hair and a natural smile that belied the gravity of leaving his wife and four-year-old son back in Wisconsin. Before getting drafted in early 1944 he was a district manager for Fox Entertainment Corporation, responsible for multiple theaters in the Madison area. It had been his duty on December 7, 1941, to interrupt a screening of Shadow of the Thin Man to inform the audience the United States had been attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

  Haney took the war seriously and was active on the home front, managing several successful War Bond drives and Red Cross fund-raisers, and he even set up a program to accept old tires in exchange for movie tickets at his theaters. The rubber would be recycled to make all manner of things from oxygen masks to galoshes.

  Haney did lament his bad luck: two weeks after he was drafted, the War Department again exempted pre–Pearl Harbor fathers from service. But there was a war on and he accepted his lot. Arriving in England as a replacement in September 1944, he was assigned to the glider infantry as a rifleman four months before they were hustled into the Bulge.

  From his rest camp Haney wrote to his in-laws: “Charles Holmen and Larry Owens need sales. 6 or 7 more in longs easy sold—so see what you can do—eh?” the hidden clue reading, “Chalons, 6 or 7 miles.” Combined with “somewhere in France,” it gave Vera a pretty good idea of her husband’s location.

  • • •

  To get the division back to battle readiness, the First Allied Airborne Army, which had administrative and logistical responsibility for the airborne divisions in Europe, designated the 17th a priority recipient of men and materiel.

  Officers, noting discrepancies and shortages, conducted a division-wide showdown inspection wherein each soldier presented his cleaned government-issued equipment. Five hundred planeloads of supplies were flown in from England to refit the men. Specialists rotated through the camps repairing damaged vehicles, radios, artillery pieces, and small arms.

  Men, of course, are the most important assets of any fighting unit. Due to casualties, the division needed 4,000 to return to full strength. Upon arrival in Châlons, some rifle companies barely had enough men left to fill one platoon of 49 men; other units had lost all of their officers. One of the division’s parachute infantry regiments had been reduced to less than 50 percent of its total manpower, with most of the losses suffered by its front line rifle companies. Invariably some of the wounded trickled back from hospitals as they recovered, but fully replenishing the ranks of the division required a significant number of fresh replacements.

  The airborne divisions drew from a pool of trained parachute and glider replacements, but reconstituting the losses of the three American airborne divisions—all of which fought in the Bulge—drained the reserve entirely. To address the shortage, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces sent a request to the Zone of the Interior (or the ZI, as the pencil pushers referred to the continental US), calling for 5,000 replacements in February and another 3,200 in March.

  The replacements started arriving at the camps surrounding Châlons a day or two before the tired and depleted units themselves.

  “Where in the hell is everybody at?” asked one of the replacements.

  “There’s seven guys here,” said a sergeant, nodding to the few who were left of the company’s original 120 men.

  “The others,” the sergeant added, “they’re killed or in the hospital.”

  The veterans’ haggard appearance startled the new men. In need of showers, haircuts, razors, and clean uniforms, they looked more like well-armed desperados than elite airborne infantrymen.

  The veterans eyed the new arrivals warily if they eyed them at all. The old-timers, who’d trained together for over two years before their first combat, considered the replacements inexperienced outsiders. The replacements, witnessing the emotional reunions of returning comrades, felt ignored or slighted at their indifferent reception.

  Private Tom Funk, a replacement paratrooper, noticed that many veterans seemed “to be in shock after the violent combat they had seen.” He overlooked the cold reception and focused on fitting in.

  The Army made an administrative attempt to improve replacements’ morale by officially changing their designation to “reinforcements.” But to veterans they were still just unproven unknowns to be regarded with doubt until proven otherwise. Rumors suggesting jailed inmates back in the States now had the choice to enlist in lieu of finishing their sentences didn’t help the standoff.

  • • •

  After a short grace period, the officers reasserted the military discipline commonplace in a garrison environment. HQ issued directives preventing the use of tent guylines for hanging laundry and calling for the neat and orderly storage of equipment. Uniforms should be clean, worn correctly, buttoned correctly, headgear donned correctly, and boots polished. The camps soon took on the appearance and routine of well-organized military posts.

  Officers and sergeants introduced physical training back into the division’s daily routine. In the predawn darkness, the camps echoed with the cadence counts of calisthenics and the call-and-response running songs of units moving at double time:

  We pull upon the risers and we fall upon the grass

  We never land upon our feet; we always hit our ass

  Aye, aye. Christ Almighty, who the hell are we?

  Zim zam God damn, we’re parachute infantry!

  It soon became apparent that the replacements were out of shape. The veterans hounded the newcomers to meet the expected levels of physical fitness, adding to their misery. However, the growing intensity of training did provide an opportunity for camaraderie. Private Funk and others struggled through morning runs and forced marches to prove they could be relied on to carry their share of the load in combat.

  A replacement later noted with pride that it took “two weeks of torturous physical training” before he started to feel welcomed by his squad.

  Private Robert Fox, another newly arrived paratrooper, vividly recalled his reception: “The first person that we met as we disembarked was First Sergeant [John] Miletich. From his looks, I certainly was happy that he was on our side. The word was that he was from Chicago. To a kid from Iowa, with knowledge of the likes of Dillinger and Capone . . . that was about as tough as it gets. Somehow, I do not believe he was as happy with us as we were with him.”

  Miletich had the men fall into formation and called them to attention. The company commander, Captain Harry Kenyon, inspected the ranks of replacements and quickly found fault with Fox’s posture. Getting in the newcomer’s face, the captain yelled for him to “Stand at attention!”

  “He was shouting so loud that I could have heard him from fifty feet,” Fox remembered. “He kept finding fault so I was relieved when out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the guy next to me had one pants leg bloused in his boot while the other was out. . . . From the beginning, it was obvious to us new replacements that Captain Kenyon was held in high regard and respected by the Bulge veterans. All troops under his command were battle ready at all times. You did not go to the latrine otherwise—no exceptions. There would be no sneak attacks by the Germans when we were not ready.”

  The next morning, rising for early-morning calisthenics before he “had a chance to pee,” Fox, in the back rank of the exercise formation, attempted to ease up on his exercises, thinking himself safely concealed in the darkness. As the men in front of him executed jumping jacks, he just threw his arms in the air.

  A lieutenant roared into his ear, “Soldier, get your head out of your ass!” Immediately hopping into the rhythm of the exercise, Fox made note to use th
is new expression should he ever reach a position of authority.

  As icy as they might have considered their welcome, the replacements integrating into the 17th had it pretty good. They at least enjoyed the luxury of joining a unit refitting in the rear. Infantry replacements commonly arrived at the front in the middle of the night, ushered straight to a foxhole on the line. In many cases replacements died before anyone even knew their name. If a replacement made it through his first forty-eight hours, his chances of survival slowly increased.

  The survival rate of replacements was so low that a running joke among veterans was that the Army could save everyone time if the new men were just shot before bringing them to the front.

  Although John Chester’s artillery crew survived the Bulge without losing a man to enemy action or frostbite, they wouldn’t be exempt from integrating replacements. To spread experience throughout Chester’s unit, the 466th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, several of the sergeant’s men were reassigned to other gun teams that hadn’t fared as well. Disassembling, inspecting, cleaning, and lubricating the section’s 75mm howitzer became the first order of business for Chester’s new crew.

  Adopted by the Army in 1927, the M1A1 75mm howitzer was referred to as a pack howitzer; the design allowed the gun to be dismantled into seven components for transportation by mules through mountainous or jungle terrain. Its easy disassembly made it ideal for parachute delivery, the only disadvantage being the need for reassembly on the drop zone—after the crew had found all of the components. With a maximum range of a mere five miles, this peashooter drew sneers from conventional artillerymen, but airborne troops valued it for its simple operation and reliable firepower.

  The howitzers of the 466th were divided into three batteries with four guns each. Chester, as section chief of the first gun in A Battery, prided himself on being an artillery guru. Before joining a gunnery crew, he’d spent time in the fire direction center and the unit’s instrument and survey team. He pored over training manuals and questioned experts with the diligence of a religious scholar unlocking heavenly mysteries. Not one to accept doctrine blindly, he reverse engineered the Army’s artillery practices, not only for deeper understanding but also to improve them. He devised an unorthodox method of resetting aiming stakes, which shaved vital minutes off the standard procedure for repositioning his howitzer.

  Yet Chester did reverently adhere to the Army’s maxim of retention through repetition. He ran his men through endless iterations of the Cannoneer’s Hop—a drill in which each man rotated through all of the crew positions, practicing the steps necessary to assemble, prepare, and fire their howitzer. Each position had specific, well-defined responsibilities, and the drill provided a way to evaluate the replacements’ competency, reinforce teamwork, and ensure they could perform all of the tasks necessary to accomplish a fire mission.

  Once satisfied with his crew’s expertise in each position’s prescribed procedure, Chester worked them through drills to increase their speed. The Army manual asserted an ace crew’s rate of fire should be one round every ten seconds; Chester thought that was too slow. The value of his rigorous training had been validated during the Battle of the Bulge when a forward observer (FO) radioed a fire mission to A Battery. Each of the four howitzers fired its first round, which Chester’s gun crew immediately followed with another four shots.

  The FO radioed back, “Cease fire, mission accomplished.”

  Chester’s crew destroyed the German target before the other guns managed to fire a second round.

  • • •

  Upon the division’s arrival, Châlons-sur-Marne had been placed off-limits. Authorized passes would be required to enter the town, and before the men got time off to parlez with the local ladies or hoist a few drinks, they needed to get their respective camps in order. Once the essential tasks were completed, HQ posted requirements for issuing passes, and forays into Châlons and neighboring villages became frequent.

  But soldiers heading into town needed cash. Since there was no use for money at the front, they hadn’t been paid since leaving England. Dutifully, the troopers lined up by last name and waited their turn to step up to the small field desk and sign for their pay. Many elected to send an allotment home to their families. Chester earned a base pay of $78.00 a month, plus another $50.00 for parachute duty, an additional $10.00 for combat pay, and $15.60 for foreign service. Because his father had died in 1940, Chester requested only $10.00 per pay period for himself, and sent the balance of his $143.60 home to his mother and sister. Given his aversion to drinking, gambling, and smoking, and the fact that the Army provided his meals, $10.00 covered minor incidentals until the next payday.

  The influx of troops significantly increased the town’s population, literally overnight, and strained the local economy accordingly. Soon GIs crowded into town, flipping through their little blue Army-supplied phrase books, attempting to order champagne or a glass of watery French beer. To mutual delight, children soon learned they could trade bottles of wine for a few cigarettes.

  Five days after issuing the first passes, division headquarters started publishing a slew of directives to reduce tensions between the local inhabitants and their new, albeit temporary, neighbors. But trying to police troopers who viewed bucking the system as a right became an unwinnable match of wits.

  So many of the GIs enjoyed swaggering through the streets munching on long French baguettes that it produced a civilian famine pour le pain, resulting in a directive prohibiting the purchase of local foodstuffs. The habit of swigging from open bottles of wine and champagne so offended the locals that another posted edict required concealing spirits in paper bags or satchels. Soldiers tearing down narrow streets in jeeps, mindless of civilians, necessitated the division to crack down on traffic and limit access to vehicles. Like circus clowns, the enterprising troopers got around the prohibition by stuffing as many men into a jeep or on a motorcycle as humanly possible. In short order, the clown-car routine was banned by a decree formalizing the explicit number of passengers allowed per vehicle type.

  The camp’s Red Cross coffee and doughnut bars provided little distraction, and the troops preferred going out for their entertainment. On weeknights, the division’s Special Services unit utilized the town theater to show movies, and on the weekends the venue presented live entertainment. The vaudeville-type show Oui, Oui, Oui featuring a juggling act and a female tumbler—who also played the vibraphone—was so popular that the two nightly performances played to full houses with standing room only.

  The more burlesque revue Straight from Paree soon replaced Oui, Oui, Oui, and due to the number of women in the production—and the corresponding amount of exposed flesh—it became a local sensation. Soldiers eagerly paid their forty francs to ogle bare midriffs, long legs, and much to their delight, the occasional breast.

  The lure of Châlons so tempted troopers that many risked trips into town without passes rather than spend a dull night in camp. After a week or two of turning a blind eye, division headquarters decided to apprehend offenders with a cordon of surprise checkpoints. For troops trained to operate behind enemy lines, evading the checkpoints became a sport.

  To reduce brawls and rowdy drinking, airborne divisions relied when possible on their own MPs rather than those of rear-echelon units. The hope was that using MPs from the same division would, because they were at least paratroopers, curtail the inevitable scuffles at checkpoints or during curfew enforcement. To soldiers returning from the front, where battle had forged an easy camaraderie, pedantic requirements for pressed uniforms, orderly paperwork, and salutes rankled—as did the petty indifference of rear-area personnel.

  Those looking for cultivated options beyond the rustic environs of Châlons had the opportunity for a forty-eight-hour pass to either Reims, Nancy, or Paris, with the capital city being the most popular destination.

  The Army’s official Guide for Leave Troops, recognizing that Paris could accommodate the whims of any visitor, encouraged G
Is to “take advantage of the things that interest you.” While the guide promoted such sights as Notre-Dame, Sacré-Cœur, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower, it attempted to dampen the desire for other indulgences by warning those seeking negotiable affections that 42 percent of all venereal disease cases suffered by American troops originated in Paris. An enclosed map plotted available activities, including athletics, free theaters, movies, music, architecture, the English library on the Champs-Élysées, and for gamblers, the location of twenty-five prophylaxis stations scattered throughout the city.

  Readily identifiable by a green light over the door, the prophylaxis treatment centers—known to the GIs as “pro stations”—provided a remedy for sexually transmitted diseases. Soldiers were urged to seek treatment within three hours of sexual intercourse. However, waiting in line, embarrassment, and the procedure itself often discouraged would-be patients. The preventative entailed a silver protein solution injected into the penis, which had to be held in the urethra by clamping the thumb and forefinger over the end for an agonizing five minutes. After expelling the fluid, soldiers were directed to avoid urination for at least four hours. The stations’ medical staff often had more free time than patients.

  George Holdren, with his recently cleaned teeth, won a pass to Paris and the city made quite an impression on the twenty-year-old Midwesterner. Fortunate to be billeted in the luxurious Le Grand Hotel, Holdren found himself staying in the city’s center, not far from the Louvre. But on his first evening in the City of Light, unable to speak French and afraid of getting lost, he retreated to a nearby theater where he spent several hours relaxing and tapping his foot to the beat of American big band music.