The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler's Eagle's Nest :The True Story of the101st Airborne's Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers

315 Pages·2003·2.24 MB·English

by  Richard Killblane

Published by
CASEMATE
908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083
United States of America
and
17 Cheap Street, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 5DD
United Kingdom
© 2003 by Richard Killblane Reprinted September 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publishers.
Typeset and design by K&P Publishing.
Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-932033-12-0
Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-932033-46-5
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-935149-81-1
Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress
PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction Jake McNiece
Chapter 1 Creating a Legend
Chapter 2 Fuel for the Myth
Chapter 3 A Bridge in Normandy
Chapter 4 Surviving Holland
Chapter 5 Rescue of a Division
Chapter 6 End of the War
Chapter 7 Get-Together
Epilogue The Moral of the Story
A Soldier’s Prayer by Jack Agnew
Notes
Bibliography
PREFACE
I had known of Jake McNiece for a number of years before I considered writing
his story. He and a friend, Truman Smith, were favorite guest speakers at local
schools and social organizations, and both were always willing to speak at any
veterans’ event I coordinated. Both of them truly gifted speakers, Truman finally
put his own words into print with The Wrong Stuff: The Adventures and Mis-
Adventures of an 8th Air Force Aviator. It was subsequently at the urging of
Jake’s friend and fishing buddy, Richard Sherrod, that I agreed to personally
record Jake’s own version of the war.
Sherrod, probably the biggest fan of World War II veterans, originally had a
notion that every soldier’s story should be recorded, though without realizing
exactly how much work oral history entailed. Yet it was thanks to his
encouragement that with Jake I finally took the first monumental step. The hours
of effort required far exceeded my initial expectation, but I was overwhelmed
with what I discovered. I had heard Jake speak to audiences before, but in one-
on-one sessions I encountered the full uncensored version. With me as his sole
audience, I was at the mercy of his unique talent for storytelling. Jake has a way
of leaning back with his laugh; that grin just spreads across his face. He looks at
you with that gleam in his eye and knows when and how long to pause before
hitting you with his punch line. At times, he fed on my laughter. Sherrod, who
had also heard all the stories fit for print, again became instrumental when I sat
down to chronicle the accounts to see if I had missed anything. With his help I
recorded them all.
Jake is one of the most gifted storytellers I have known. This is not to imply that
any of his descriptions are untrue, but only to say that he is a skillful practitioner
of the American art of first-person narrative that extends back to the days of
Davy Crockett. This tradition continued with Samuel Watkins after the Civil War
and Samuel Clemens (later Mark Twain), and in that same eighteenth century the
famed frontier trapper and army scout, Jim Bridger, who attracted people from as
far away as Europe to hear him spin his yarns of adventure. Storytelling is a
talent which takes life’s experiences and relates them in an interesting manner.
Like a fairy tale they often have a moral at the end, or like a joke they end with a
punch line. There is no way I could ever tell the story of the Filthy 13 better than
the man who inspired and led it. Even when Jake’s words are captured in black
and white they do not quite convey his gifted original style.
After innumerable interviews to record Jake’s personal recollections, the second
part of my task was to ground his accounts in the context of the broader
campaign in World War II Europe, and to crosscheck them with the stories of
other survivors of the Filthy 13, or men who fought alongside them. On occasion
I have placed the stories of other veterans within Jake’s narrative in order to
flesh out events. More commonly, the additional context and analyses are in
footnotes for each chapter.
There are places where Jake’s memory of an incident differs in varying degrees
from other veterans’ or what has been described by official histories. For anyone
searching for the truth, no matter how fresh the memory or how recent the event,
versions are going to differ depending on the perspective of the individual and
what he felt was important. For example, Virgil Smith and Jake McNiece, who
both live in Ponca City, Oklahoma, tell nearly identical versions of the same
stories, though with different emphases. When Jake ate in the officers’ mess in
England, Jake concludes with how Virgil introduced him as a major. That was
funny enough for Jake. Since Virgil’s neck was on the line if Jake’s cover was
blown, he finished with the fact that Jake kept going back to the mess. Otherwise
the stories were identical. By and large, the accounts from the various veterans
of Regimental Headquarters Company were similar.
I have benefited from the fact that following the 1979 101st Airborne Division
Reunion, the veterans of the company began to hold their own annual “get-
togethers.” At these they told and retold stories, allowing me to compare
accounts and often gain greater detail. While Jack Agnew and Jake are reputed
to have the best memories in the unit, their stories differ more in the details. Jack
lives in Pennsylvania and Jake in Oklahoma. On average they meet once a year
at the reunions and communicate a little more on the phone. Without a doubt this
storytelling process by the group has had influence on the similarity of the
stories and it has also helped validate the events. In some ways the telling of war
stories at the reunions filled in lost details by others and performed the function
of the long awaited group after-action review.
Jake’s narration is not just another view of the war through the eyes of a
paratrooper. Jake and the Filthy 13 played key roles in some of the critical
battles of the war. At first it may be hard to believe that any one unit could have
been in the thick of so much combat, but one must remember that the Filthy 13
was one of only three demolition-saboteur sections in the 506th Parachute
Infantry Regiment. Unlike other infantrymen, they received special missions in
accordance with their training, such as wiring or removing demolitions from
bridges, or clearing mines and booby traps, all at the forefront of the attack. On
top of that, their transfer to the Pathfinders and fortune would place these men in
the path of even greater adventure.
After interviewing other members of his company, including two of his company
commanders, Hank Hannah and Gene Brown, I found that Jake’s reputation has
if anything exceeded his personal estimation. Although he was but one of the
many interesting characters in Regimental Headquarters Company—and for that
matter, the entire 506th Regiment—he may well have been the wildest. This was
in no small measure due to his sometimes anarchic sense of humor. In addition,
almost everyone agreed that Jake was the toughest man in the company.
When comparing Jake’s and other company veterans’ stories with the official
histories there are significant discrepancies. Jake’s account of the fight on the
bridges on the Douve Canal below Carentan differs from the official report
compiled by the History Division under S. L. A. Marshall. Marshall, himself the
pioneer of the group interview, has come under criticism for not being uniformly
accurate in his research, particularly regarding the maelstrom of airborne melees
during the Normandy campaign. Marshall admitted to historian Mark Bando that
he did not use the group interview on the action at the Brevands bridgehead but
instead referred to official reports. From the writings it appears that the officer
who commanded the action at the bridge, Captain Charles Shettle, may at least
have been consulted.
Shettle admitted that the demolition men reached the bridge first and wired it,
but from there the stories differ widely. The official report says that Americans
had crossed to the other side and established a bridgehead. All the demolition
men who reached the bridge tell essentially the opposite story. The Germans held
one side of the canal and the Americans the other. The paratroopers were pinned
down on their side. Jake says that he never saw Shettle anywhere near the
bridge. Jack Agnew says he saw him but Shettle never left his foxhole. He did
hear that a lieutenant managed to get men across a wooden foot bridge further
downriver from them.
The veterans are not certain whether it was the second or third day when the
USAAF bombed the bridge. Shettle claimed it was the second day. The official
history, veterans, and even a follow-up interview in the Stars and Stripes, differ
on whether the planes were P-47s or P-51s. Jack Agnew and Eugene Dance
knew the difference and agreed with Jake that they were P-51s. The report
claimed that the men on the canal were relieved on the third day. The regimental
journal states only that the 327th Glider Infantry was sent to relieve them on the
third day. Most of the veterans do not remember being relieved by anybody and
that they left the bridgehead some time after the third day. Jake is adamant that
he spent five days on the bridge.
A turning point in the history of the Filthy 13 came after Holland when Jake
McNiece, followed by most of the survivors of the section, decided to join the
Pathfinders—the most dangerous job in the airborne. Typically, Jake analyzed
this move pragmatically, saying that while he realized his officers were only
trying to get rid of him, the war was nearly over so it was he who would have the
last laugh. But then came the Battle of the Bulge, which the Allied chain-of-
command hadn’t expected. The role of the Pathfinders at Bastogne has in the
years since been obscured. According to standard histories, the heavens parted
and the planes found their drop zones clear on Christmas Day, 1944. Nearly
everyone has heard the story. I have seen the official report by Captain Frank
Brown, the roster of the jump, photo evidence—with one unmistakable photo of
Jake McNiece dragging in a bundle—and read testimony by witnesses on the
ground. The Pathfinders’ drop was briefly mentioned by reporters at the time,
but the hundreds of histories since have entirely ignored their participation.
Along with the navigational skill of the C-47 pilots who dropped them in
Bastogne, the Pathfinders were hugely instrumental in bringing in the resupply
drops that saved the 101st Airborne Division from defeat. As for the courage of
the Pathfinders themselves, one need only realize that after flying hundreds of
miles from England, a missed drop of a hundred yards would have resulted in
their immediate death or capture. Who would think that nearly sixty years after
World War II there would be a vital aspect of the Battle of the Bulge that history
has missed.
While I could have written the story of the Filthy 13 as my own interpretation,
after having scrutinized the evidence, it would not have compared to the skill
with which Jake McNiece tells it. Instead I have tried to preserve the art of
storytelling by participants themselves. Each of Jake’s stories stands by itself. As
a writer I have arranged this collection together in a chronological manner and
filled in the gaps with interviews to provide a more complete narration of the
war and description of the characters. As a historian I have then added the
corroborating evidence with my own interpretation as footnotes. In this respect it
becomes a record of history. But this narration also seeks to convey a unique
style of oral history. The main text is a war story. Its purpose is to entertain. I
have deliberately retained some of the imperfections in grammar and style to
preserve the feel as if Jake is talking to the reader. The art of storytelling is a gift
and requires skill. For this reason I feel it should be preserved.
There are a number of people instrumental in putting this work together. On top
of the list is Richard Sherrod, without whom this story may never have been
preserved. I learned that other historians had written Jake or interviewed him but
none fully realized the gold mine of information he had. I once asked Richard,
how after all these years, I would be the lucky one to write Jake’s story. He
answered, “Because you were the only one who cared enough to take the time.”
George Koskimaki is another who took the time to record everything he could
about the 506th Parachute Infantry. Having served in the 101st Airborne
Division, he had a special interest in preserving its oral history. He has published
three books chronicling its exploits, which are mentioned in the bibliography.
His research has been instrumental in filling in details.
Other veterans provided interviews, documents, clippings and photos as
evidence of their experiences. One occasionally encounters people who claim to
have been in places they were not or to have done things they did not. The
survivors of the Filthy 13 are fortunately among those veterans who have
amassed a number of documents to prove their incredible story, guarding against
untruth. The veterans have been their own best historians.
Research would never be complete without the help of other historians and
archivists. Jim Erikson provided letters and veterans’ information from his
research about his uncle, Lieutenant Charles Mellen. Richard Barone informed
me of the wealth of firsthand accounts of battles written by infantry officers
hidden in the infantry school library. Renowned WWII historian Mark Bando
kindly reviewed the manuscript and provided rare details into the actions and
personalities of the 101st. In addition, the Army War College Library staff has
always provided more material than needed in any research project about which
I have contacted them.
A writer often needs to impose upon friends to read his manuscript while it is
still in the draft stages. They have to suffer through the unpolished work,