Behind Hitler's Lines (30 page)

I Ex-krieges of the 101st | Airborne were served i chow in April 1945 at | Fort Sheridan, Illinois, . by German POWs, some I of whom had SS tattoos. The result was an international melee in which several Germans were killed with steak knives and cafeteria trays. Joe is the third man from the right.
(Daily News)

Joe embraced by his parents in Muskegon, May 1945.
(Muskegon Chronicle)

Joe
(left)
and brother Bill with their mother, shortly after V-E Day. Bill unwittingly covered Joe for two clandestine jumps into France. (Joe Beyrle)

Joe in a convalescent hospital in the summer of 1945. Recuperation from his wartime traumas was erratic. (Joe Beyrle)

Joe in Normandy for the thirtieth anniversary of D Day. (Joe Beyrle)

In the White House Rose Garden, Joe presents Russian president Boris Yeltsin with a D Night cricket. (JoAnne Beyrle)

The Beyrle family, 1994.
Seated, left to right:
Kathy, Victoria, Jocelyn, Caroline, John, Alison, and Amanda Schugars.
Standing, left to right:
Christopher, Joe II, Joe III, Joe, JoAnne, Eric Schugars, Julie Schugars, and Jack Schugars. (James F. Keating, Reflections Studio)

As the bushwhacking swirled, after five hours of marching to Veghel, Albers's platoon was in a low crawl through waterlogged meadows, their objective a farmhouse with an overlook of Hell's Highway. He tried the door. It was locked, with no sound from inside except pigs squalling, a good sign to Dziepak: either no one was home, or the Dutch were still there because krauts would have turned those pigs into brat-wurst. Kick in the door, ordered Lieutenant Green, a nonorig-inal.
^*
Dziepak was right, his squad doubly happy because great blocks of aging cheese hung in the kitchen.

There was little time for gorging. From the second floor Green could see burning skeletons of British vehicles. Growling from the west came six German half-tracks. Two disgorged troops then turned south on the road, weaving between wrecks. Green reported this on the radio, while a platoon of
'Fallschirm-jagers
warily advanced to check out the farmhouse. Green had bad news: no artillery was available; it's just us and them. Dziepak smiled as he set up a machine gun and a surprise for the approaching Germans. He identified the leader, pointed him out to the best marksman in the squad, a rookie who started to lean his rifle on the windowsill before Dziepak jerked him back.

Germans noticed the movement and went to ground as
Dziepak's machine gun followed them with fire. Shell casings spurted and rattled around the upstairs room, soon faintly gray with gunsmoke. Outnumbered by the attackers, his squad had protection and a height advantage in the farmhouse, so the firefight devolved into a standoff. Ammo then became Green's main concern. The nearest resupply was a half mile away. “If you ain't got a kraut in your sights, don't shoot,” Dziepak announced, as if his men needed the reminder.

German bullets had been ineffective, but now their mortars ranged in. A scream, and a fragment was buried in Green's thigh. He had to be evacuated and more ammo brought up. The farmhouse fortress kept the
Fallschirmjagers
at bay while Albers, Dziepak, and Green went out the back door but were spotted. All hit the dirt, the wounded lieutenant dragged by his arms till they finally reached a shallow irrigation ditch.

Behind them the firefight intensified, and by wounding Green the Germans had taken out three men, a situation that caused Dziepak to rejoin his embattled squad. By himself Albers would have to drag Green back the rest of the way. Dziepak's rump disappeared in the grass. Albers looked at Green to explain, but the lieutenant's face was pale and distorted as a Halloween mask. A heavy man, heavy and strong, Green wrapped his arms around Albers's waist while with a swimming motion Albers slowly pulled him across the next field.

Green's arms weakened, and his leg became so bloated that it rose like some grotesque balloon. At a dip in the field Albers loosed the tourniquet, let blood flow till Green blanched silver-white, then retightened it. Albers wallowed on with Green draped on his back. They formed a profile so high that a bullet singed Green just as they reached a drainage ditch. Both men collapsed, one at the end of his strength, the other near the end of his life.

Like angels two medics appeared. While one gave Green first aid, the second dodged away under fire to return with a litter under each arm, assuming both blood-soaked infantrymen had been gravely wounded. Green went off on a litter, out of the war, never to return. After checking Albers, the
medics, needed elsewhere, scurried off. He loaded himself with bandoliers and a machine-gun belt. He had crawled back to safety; now he would have to sprint back into danger. Bullets kicked up around him during the chest-heaving run. He burst into the farmhouse as his squad came down the stairs equally winded as incoming mortars exploded on the roof. Thatch ignited and timbers crashed while Dziepak distributed the ammo Albers had delivered. (“Why didn't ya get some grenades, Ed?”) Before the Germans completely surrounded the house, Dziepak's squad shot their way out, herding pigs as they retreated.

THUS ENDED A SUCCESSFUL
German snip of the corridor, one to be reversed in a matter of hours, but too late for the Red Devils who expired around Arnhem, still waiting for Montgomery's tanks. Between the Waal and the Rhine, Screaming Eagles were now deployed on a large wedge of land they called the Island, where many of their grimmest Dutch memories were imprinted during seventy-two days, an American record for continuous contact with the Germans.

Albers remembers the Island as a dreary wetland, so sunken that dikes ringed it to hold off two rivers. Across the Rhine the Germans had observation posts overlooking every movement. “So they just plunked us all the time with artillery. That's how General Taylor got hit in the butt. The worst part was trying to keep dry. Dig a foxhole and it filled with water before you put down the shovel. We lost more guys to trench foot than enemy fire. Sort of like World War I.”

The 101st's losses from all causes had been crippling since September 17. Sink was the last regimental commander to have jumped in Normandy. The other two had been either killed or permanently evacuated with wounds. The 506th had lost a third of its officers and a quarter of the enlisted men. Al-bers's rifle squad had but one rifleman, him. There were plenty of mortars but no one left to load and fire them. No Airborne replacements; Ike's priority was for leg infantrymen, as his manpower pipeline from the States was running dry.

“I remember what the British we relieved said about the Island,” Albers says:” ‘Quiet as a bloomin’ churchyard, mate. The only thing you'll die from is boredom.” For a while that was right. My squad had an OP in a jam factory near Dode-waard. We ate jam, sweetened our coffee with it till we were sick of jam and just used it for trades. Arnhem Annie was the krauts' propaganda broadcaster. Her favorite saying was, ‘You can listen to our music but you can't dance in our streets.’ She'd play good swing and in between tunes ask us to come on over and surrender. We'd be treated well. Just bring a toothbrush, overcoat, blanket, and sit out the rest of the war.

“Some nights we'd paddle across the river in little rubber boats. One of these patrols left a toothbrush, overcoat, and blanket on the kraut side, with a note that they'd tried to surrender to Annie but she wasn't around. They also mentioned how much fun it would be to make contact with her, and offered a standing invitation for her to cross the river. Just wave panties instead of a white flag.”

In the foggy predawn of October 5 the Germans paddled across themselves, a full regiment swarming over the dikes. The surprise attack was preceded by the heaviest enemy artillery concentration that even Dziepak had ever experienced. Incoming flew over like flocks of birds. The jam factory had been zeroed in on. Civilians were huddled under big skylights that shattered into thousands of shards, cutting faces as if there had been a huge knife fight.

“There were lots of puddles from the drizzle,” Albers remembers. “I watched them turn red from the civilians' blood till Dziepak jacked me up. ‘Get on the machine gun!’ I started feeding in belts. The krauts were coming out of the fog—no targets till they were big enough to hear. They came on like Pickett's charge, but we were on the second floor where they couldn't get at us. Every burst seemed to take down a half dozen. As soon as the shell casings stopped bouncing, you could hear more krauts screaming and moaning out there. Dziepak was worried that when the fog lifted they could swing around the factory and we'd be cut off, same as almost happened at the farmhouse back at Veghel. What, me worry?
That was the squad leader's job to worry. What we were doing was holding them off. Someone said every kraut we kill here we won't have to kill in Germany.”