First SEALs (26 page)

19

“I WAS PROMISED THIS MISSION, AND I WANT IT”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1944, THE SKIES OVER AUSTRIA

The sudden flash of the red jump light inside the fuselage caught Jack Taylor's attention. It was 10:15 p.m., and in fifteen minutes he would be parachuting into the middle of Nazi-held Austria with no support other than his three companions. For the past several hours the drone of the “Liberator” bomber had made conversation nearly impossible, and Taylor became absorbed in studying the maps of the area where he would be gathering intelligence. One of the Polish crewmen pulled away the piece of plywood covering the jump hole, and the four-man team of the Dupont Mission got their first glimpse of the terrain below. For the most part they could see nothing but fog, water, and the seemingly impenetrable black of the moonless night.

The pilot descended sharply to four hundred feet, the minimum height required to make a safe jump. Over the intercom came the call for action stations. The jumpers rose to their feet. Their commander, Major John McCulloch, who was aboard the flight despite the fact that it violated regulations, shook each of their hands in turn and wished them good luck. This practice, intended to inspire
and support the operatives, emulated Donovan's hands-on leadership, but today these actions might be considered reckless: if a senior officer with detailed knowledge were to fall into enemy hands, it could compromise American operations.

Suddenly the light in the back of the plane switched from red to green, signaling their arrival over the drop zone. Taylor positioned himself over the edge of the hole and fell into the darkness.

T
AYLOR WOULD HAVE PREFERRED
to make the jump another night. Friday the thirteenth seemed an inauspicious day to launch one of the most dangerous intelligence-gathering operations of the war. But the mission had already been postponed in September because of weather, and the positions of enemy searchlights and flak guns made it necessary to fly in on a night with no moon. Rather than wait another month, Taylor's superiors ordered them to proceed.

At the American intelligence base in Bari, operatives and military personnel had been placing bets on whether the men of the Dupont Mission would survive. Odds were ten to one they would not.

Dupont called for one American and three Austrian operatives to parachute deep into the heart of Austria. The drop zone was “
a flat cultivated strip about two miles long by one-half mile wide on the northeast fringe of the city near Neusiedler See (40 km south of Vienna near the Hungarian border). The area was sparsely settled and bordered on marshy land with tall reeds which would serve as excellent cover.” After landing in the marshes on the edge of the lake the men would make their way to the city, where Taylor and his team were to gather intelligence about Nazi operations in the area, gauge the local level of support or resistance to the Germans, and radio back their findings.

Because Dupont placed Taylor and his men so far behind enemy lines, it was considered extremely dangerous, even foolhardy. Some questioned Taylor's inclusion on the mission, noting that he spoke almost no German, and the mission included nothing in the way of maritime operations other than parachuting near a lake. Taylor, however, didn't believe the language barrier would be a problem, and he thought it was important to include an American officer to inspire the local Nazi resistance, so he fought to stay on the team. His stalwart determination and willpower won the day. Taylor simply stated, “
I was promised this mission, and I want it.”

NORTHERN ITALY AND AUSTRIA AREA OF OPERATIONS

The other three team members had all been born in the area around Vienna. Although adamantly opposed to the Nazis, all were forced to serve the Third Reich. After capture by the Allies they readily switched sides. In his report Taylor noted all three men “
were in their early twenties, single, in excellent physical and mental condition and eager to participate. There was no question of their integrity.”

Perkins came from the town of Saint Margarethen, about fifty kilometers south of Vienna, and the team hoped they could set up a base in his parents' home. Grant, a former butcher's apprentice and something of a ladies' man, assured them that the team could also find safe harbor in the homes owned by the family of the butcher's daughter, with whom he was very well acquainted. (In the coming days, Grant's womanizing would have a profound effect on the mission.) The operative also believed the butcher, named Buchleitner, “
could be depended upon to help in an emergency.” The third Austrian, Underwood, came from Vienna, an area that was too dangerous for the team to enter, but he also had local knowledge that could prove helpful.

Due to the dangerous nature of the mission, the flight plan and drop procedures would be “
entirely abnormal.” Taylor explained, “Of necessity, it had to be a ‘blind' drop, i.e. without [a] ground reception committee or pattern lights, and with absolutely no circling. Three containers, two containing duplicate radio equipment, were to be dropped in salvo followed immediately by the four bodies.” However, shortly after takeoff Taylor was stunned to learn
that the Polish pilot was expecting to do a “normal drop” with lots of circling. Taylor explained the mission plan to the pilot, stressing that there should be absolutely no circling so as to minimize their detection by the enemy.

W
ITH THE WIND IN HIS FACE
,
Taylor fell through the cold night air and struggled with the risers attached to his parachute canopy. “
I pulled down on my risers to check a bad oscillation,” remembered Taylor. With the lines finally untangled, he looked down to see the ground rushing toward him. “
I . . . saw to my horror that I would land on the roof of a house not more than twenty feet below. As I was slipping in that direction, I released the risers in order to drop straight down and barely missed the eaves, landing instead a few feet away from the house in the front yard.” Mistakenly believing the building to be a radio station, Taylor fled the yard.

The call of a marsh bird sounded in the distance. Knowing it to be the team's prearranged signal, Taylor followed the call and met up with the other agents. They quickly buried their parachutes and jump suits and began searching for the containers with their supplies and the all-important radio that would be their lifeline to the outside world. Though the Polish pilot spoke excellent English, he failed to heed Taylor's instructions. “
To our amazement and chagrin, our plane returned and flew directly overhead in line with our previous run,” Taylor remembered. But they quickly turned their attention back to the ground and within thirty minutes found the first of the dropped containers, the one holding supplies but no radio. They stowed it behind some reeds when, suddenly, the drone of an airplane engine broke the silence of the night. The team found themselves in grave peril. Taylor recalled, “
To our utter horror, ou[r] plane returned again, passing low directly overhead. This was practically signing our death certificates as the German radar was so very accurate that circling over any area by a lone plane at night was bound to create suspicion and lead to an investigation.”
Searchlights and antiaircraft fire arced across the inky black sky as the Germans attempted to shoot down the plane. Finally the bomber left the drop zone and headed back toward Italy.

Angry over the pilot's inability to follow his orders, a distracted Taylor suffered another mishap. “I stepped in a hole in the marsh wrenching my knee badly, which made walking on uneven ground very painful, but we continued searching throughout the night and in desperation even into the dawn. From a hillock, we ventured to look out over the lake and marsh but could find no trace of the other two containers.”

The loss of the other containers had cascading consequences that threatened the success of the mission and placed the agents' lives in jeopardy. Without a radio they could not report back their findings or be resupplied or extracted from Austria. The Dupont team was trapped behind enemy lines with little hope of accomplishing their mission. They continued to search through the night before finally giving in to exhaustion. For several days the four men remained in the area, desperately hoping the plane would return again and finally drop the containers with the radios. They remained hidden from enemy eyes, but not from the wildlife. Taylor awoke, startled, to find “
a medium-sized marsh snake lying alongside my sleeping bag.”

On the third day, the team abandoned all hope that the plane would return to drop a radio. The men set out on the day-long journey to the town where Buchleitner the butcher lived. However, after only a few minutes Underwood became severely ill. He struggled along for a mile before admitting he could not continue. Determined to gather the intelligence and fulfill their mission, the rest of the team left him behind with food and water. They “
continued past Nougledel where thousands of foreign (slave) workers were being herded for work on the Southeast Wall, a line of defense utilizing, in this area, the natural water barriers of Neusiedler See and the Leithe Geb.”

At 2:30 in the morning on October 17, Taylor, Perkins, and Grant arrived at the Buchleitner home. Although they fiercely opposed the Nazis, the butcher's family had some trepidation about allowing the OSS operatives to stay in their home. They fed the men and showed them to some beds. But only an hour later they woke the team, requesting that they leave. German troops were arriving in the village, and the family feared what would happen if they were found harboring spies. Taylor recalled, “
As it was nearly dawn and we had no place to go, we begged to stay and were allowed to hide in the hayloft.”

So began a lengthy and perilous saga of trying to find a safe house. According to Taylor, “
Buchleitner and family were devout anti-Nazis, as were eighty percent of the people in this vicinity, but in spite of a token of a few gold pieces and several hundred marks, he wished us to be on our way. This was the first demonstration of fear growing into terror, which we were to see several times later.” The group traveled from village to village by night, desperately seeking a place where they could set up a permanent base. Along the way they bluffed their way through
kontrols
(checkpoints) by pretending to be soldiers and saluting “
Heil Hitler
.” The old villagers manning the stations allowed them to “slip by, although it was ticklish.” They begged several contacts for a place to stay, “but all were unwilling to keep us permanently although they were entirely friendly and willing to be hospitable for one night,” said Taylor. Many of those they met expressed support. In particular, one “middle-aged woman wept and almost became hysterical when I was introduced to her as an American officer,” noted Taylor. “She was unusually intelligent and vehemently denounced the Nazis. She begged me to send for American or British paratroops, stating that 90% of all Austrians would assist. This plea was repeated many times later by others.”