WHITE CHRISTMAS, 1944

This is Part III of an ongoing series about the Battle of the Bulge, that took place in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium, December 1944



GERMAN DECEPTION & SPECIAL OPERATIONS IN THE ARDENNES


Before the offensive, the Allies were virtually blind to German troop movement. During the reconquest of France, the extensive network of the French resistance had provided valuable intelligence about German dispositions. Once they reached the German border, this source dried up. In France, orders had been relayed within the German army using radio messages enciphered by the Enigma machine, and these could be picked up and decrypted by Allied code-breakers to give the intelligence known as ULTRA.




German Wehrmacht soldiers sending an encrypted message via the Enigma machine.


In Germany such orders were typically transmitted using telephone and teleprinter, and a special radio silence order was imposed on all matters concerning the upcoming offensive. The major crackdown in the Wehrmacht after the 20 July plot resulted in much tighter security and fewer leaks.



The foggy autumn weather also prevented Allied reconnaissance planes from correctly assessing the ground situation.




Two major special operations were planned for the offensive. By October it was decided Otto Skorzeny, the German commando who had rescued the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, was to lead a task force of English-speaking German soldiers in Operation Greif.






Waffen SS Obersturmbahnfuhrer Otto Skorzeny - "the Most Dangerous Man in Europe"


These soldiers were to be dressed in American and British uniforms and wear dog tags taken from corpses and POWs. Their job was to go behind American lines and change signposts, misdirect traffic, generally cause disruption and to seize bridges across the Meuse River between Liège and Namur.

By late November another ambitious special operation was added: Colonel Friedrich August von der Heydte was to lead a Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) Kampfgruppe in Operation Stösser, a nighttime paratroop drop behind the Allied lines aimed at capturing a vital road junction near Malmedy.



Operation Stösser


Originally planned for the early hours of 16 December, Operation Stösser was delayed for a day because of bad weather and fuel shortages. The new drop time was set for 03:00 on 17 December; their drop zone was 7 miles (11 km) north of Malmedy and their target was the "Baraque Michel" crossroads. Von der Heydte and his men were to take it and hold it for approximately twenty-four hours until being relieved by the 12th SS Panzer Division, thereby hampering the Allied flow of reinforcements and supplies into the area.


Just after midnight on 17 December, 112 Ju 52 transport planes with around 1,300 Fallschirmjägern took off amid a powerful snowstorm, with strong winds and extensive low cloud cover. As a result, many planes went off course, and men were dropped as far as a dozen kilometers away from the intended drop zone, with only a fraction of the force landing near it. Strong winds also took off-target those paratroopers whose planes were relatively close to the intended drop zone and made their landings far rougher.




Fallschirmjäger exiting a JU 52 in the unique German headfirst technique.



By noon, a group of around 300 managed to assemble, but this force was too small and too weak to counter the Allies. Colonel von der Heydte abandoned plans to take the crossroads and instead ordered his men to harass the Allied troops in the vicinity with guerrilla-like actions.





Wehrmacht Fallschirmjägeren in combat, 1944






Because of the extensive dispersal of the jump, with Fallschirmjägeren being reported all over the Ardennes, the Allies believed a major division-sized jump had taken place, resulting in much confusion and causing them to allocate men to secure their rear instead of sending them off to the front to face the main German thrust.


Operation Greif and Operation Währung


For Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny successfully infiltrated a small part of his battalion of disguised, English-speaking Germans behind the Allied lines. Although they failed to take the vital bridges over the Meuse, the battalion’s presence produced confusion out of all proportion to their military activities, and rumors spread quickly. Even General Patton was alarmed and, on 17 December, described the situation to General Eisenhower as “Krauts… speaking perfect English… raising hell, cutting wires, turning road signs around, spooking whole divisions, and shoving a bulge into our defenses.”

Checkpoints were set up all over the Allied rear, greatly slowing the movement of soldiers and equipment. Military policemen drilled servicemen on things which every American was expected to know, such as the identity of Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend, baseball scores, or the capital of Illinois. This last question resulted in the brief detention of General Bradley; although he gave the correct answer—Springfield—the GI who questioned him apparently believed the capital was Chicago.

The tightened security nonetheless made things harder for the German infiltrators, and some of them were captured. Even during interrogation they continued their goal of spreading disinformation; when asked about their mission, some of them claimed they had been told to go to Paris to either kill or capture General Eisenhower. Security around the general was greatly increased, and he was confined to his headquarters.

Because these prisoners had been captured in American uniform, they were later executed by firing squad. This was the standard practice of every army at the time, although it was left ambiguous under the Geneva Convention, which merely stated soldiers had to wear uniforms that distinguished them as combatants. In addition, Skorzeny was aware under international law such an operation would be well within its boundaries as long as they were wearing their German uniforms when firing.

Skorzeny and his men were fully aware of their likely fate, and most wore their German uniforms underneath their Allied ones in case of capture. Skorzeny avoided capture, survived the war, and may have been involved with the Nazi ODESSA escape network.



Otto Skorzeny addressing his troops in the field.

For Operation Währung, a small number of German agents infiltrated Allied lines in American uniforms. These agents were then to use an existing Nazi intelligence network to attempt to bribe rail and port workers to disrupt Allied supply operations. This operation was a failure.



Eisenhower Rumor


So great was the confusion caused by Operation Greif that the US Army saw spies and saboteurs everywhere. Perhaps the largest panic was created when a commando team was captured near Aywaille on 17 December. Comprising Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass, Oberfähnrich Günther Billing, and Gefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt, they were captured when they failed to give the correct password. It was Schmidt who gave credence to a rumour that Skorzeny intended to capture General Eisenhower and his staff.

A document outlining Operation Greif's elements of deception (though not its objectives) had earlier been captured by the US 106th Infantry Division near Heckhuscheid, and because Skorzeny was already well-known for rescuing Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Operation Oak or Unternehmen Eiche) and Operation Panzerfaust, the Americans were more than willing to believe this story and



Eisenhower was reportedly unamused by having to spend Christmas 1944 isolated for security reasons.


Pernass, Billing, and Schmidt were given a military trial at Henri-Chapelle, sentenced to death, and executed by a firing squad on 23 December. Thirteen other men were tried and shot at either Henri-Chapelle or Huy.



To be continued . . .


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CHRISTMAS IN EUROPE, 1944

A massive artillery barrage in the early morning hours of 16 December 1944 signaled the beginning of a massive German assault on Allied positions in the Ardennes forest.






By 0800 hours three German armies attacked through the Ardennes. Waffen SS General Sepp Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army moved toward the offensive’s primary objective: Antwerp, to capture the critical Allied supply depots there – most especially the fuel dumps. In the center von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army attacked toward the strategic road junction cities of Bastogne and St. Vith.

To the north at Lanzerath, Belgium and the Elsenborn Ridge, attacks by the Sixth SS Panzer Army’s infantry units encountered unexpectedly fierce resistance by the U.S. 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions. On the first day, an entire German battalion was held up for 20 hours by a single 18-man Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon from the 99th Infantry Division, causing a bottleneck in the German advance.

As it became obvious to the Allied High Command that the German attacks represented a major Nazi offensive, snowstorms engulfed the Ardennes. While having the desired effect of keeping the Allied aircraft grounded, the weather also proved troublesome for the Germans because poor road conditions hampered their advance. Poor traffic control led to massive traffic jams and fuel shortages in forward units.



The Western Front, showing the German "Bulge" Ardennes Offensive 16-26 December 1944.


Malmedy Massacre

The main armored spearhead of the Sixth SS Panzer Army was Kampfgruppe Peiper; 4,800 men and 600 vehicles of the 1st SS Panzer Division under the command of Waffen-SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Joachim Peiper. At 07:00 on 17 December, they seized a U.S. fuel depot at Büllingen, where they paused to refuel before continuing westward.

At 12:30, near the hamlet of Baugnez, on the height halfway between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville, forward elements of Kampfgruppe Peiper captured troops of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, U.S. 7th Armored Division. The Americans were disarmed and sent to stand in a field near the crossroads, where approximately 150 of them were machinegunned to death.



The Malmedy Massacre


Even though executing prisoners and shooting civilians were a trademark of Waffen SS operations, news of the killings raced through Allied lines. Although there is no record of an SS officer giving an execution order, following the war SS soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper were to be held accountable during the Malmedy massacre trial.


Belgian civilians killed by SS units during the offensive.


The fighting went on. By the evening of the 16th Peiper was already behind schedule; it had taken him 36 hours to advance from Eifel to Stavelot, compared to just 9 hours in 1940. As the Americans fell back, they blew up bridges and fuel dumps, denying the Germans critically needed fuel and further slowing their progress.

In the central 'Schnee Eifel' sector, the Fifth Panzer Army surrounded two regiments (422nd and 423rd) of the 106th Division in a pincer movement and forcing their surrender. The official U.S. Army history states: "At least seven thousand men were lost here (the figure was probably closer to eight or nine thousand). This substantial amount of manpower, arms and equipment represents the most serious reverse suffered by American arms during the operations of 1944–45 in the European theater."



American soldiers taken prisoner by the German Wehrmacht


Further south the main German thrust crossed the River Our, increasing pressure on the key road centers of St. Vith and Bastogne. The 112th Infantry Regiment (of the US 28th Division), held a continuous front east of the Our, keeping German forces from seizing and using the Our river bridges around Ouren for two days before withdrawing progressively to the west.

The 109th and 110th Regiments both offered stubborn resistance in the face of superior forces, keeping the German offensive days off schedule. Denied their intended avenues of approach, Panzer columns took outlying villages and widely separated strong-points in bitter fighting, slowed in their advance to Bastogne.



An American road-block with .30 caliber machine gun in the Ardennes, December 1944.


By 17 December Eisenhower and his principal commanders realized that the fighting in the Ardennes was a major offensive and not a local counter-attack, and they ordered vast reinforcements to the area. Within a week 250,000 troops had been sent. In addition, the 82nd Airborne Division was also thrown into the battle north of the bulge, near Elsenborn Ridge.



St. Vith





In the center of the 'Bulge' salient the town of St. Vith, a vital road junction, presented a major challenge for German Wehrmacht forces. The defenders included the 7th U.S. Armored Division, and remnants of the 106th U.S. Infantry, with elements of the 9th U.S. Armored and U.S. 28th Infantry, all under the command of General Bruce C. Clarke.

Clarke's forces successfully resisted the German attacks, significantly slowing their advance. Under orders from Montgomery, St. Vith was given up on 21 December; U.S. troops fell back to entrenched positions in the area, presenting an imposing obstacle to a successful German advance. By 23 December, as the Germans shattered their flanks, the defenders’ position became untenable, and U.S. troops were ordered to retreat west of the Salm River. As the German plan had originally called for the capture of St. Vith by 18:00 on 17 December, the prolonged action in and around the city presented a major blow to their timetable.



U.S. M4 Sherman tanks take up positions on the outskirts of St. Vith, 20 December 1944.


The struggle for the villages and American strong-points, plus transport confusion on the German side, slowed the attack sufficiently to allow the 101st Airborne Division (reinforced by elements from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions) to reach Bastogne by truck on the morning of 19 December. In fierce defensive fighting, the American paratroopers denied the Germans their critical objective Bastogne, with its important road junctions. Panzer columns swung past on either side, cutting off Bastogne on 20 December but failing to secure the vital crossroads.



Bastogne


According to Wehrmacht plan, by 19 December the town of Bastogne and its network of eleven hard topped roads leading through the mountainous terrain and boggy mud of the Ardennes region were to have been in German hands for several days.

Eisenhower realized the Allies could destroy German forces much more easily when they were out in the open and on the offensive than if they were on the defensive. Meeting with senior Allied commanders met in a bunker in Verdun, Ike told his generals, "The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table."



General Dwight Eisenhower poses with a group of soldiers during a visit to the Battle of the Bulge battlefield. The soldiers were members of the 334th Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion.


By the time of that meeting, two separate west-bound German columns were to have by-passed Bastogne to the south and north, the 2nd Panzer Division and Panzer-Lehr-Division of XLVII Panzer Corps, as well as the 26th Volksgrenadier Division. Instead these units had been engaged and slowed in frustrating battles at outlying defensive positions up to ten miles from the town proper.



Members of the 101st Airborne Division armed with bazookas, on guard for enemy tanks. On the road leading to Bastogne, Belgium, 23 December 1944.


Eisenhower asked Patton how long it would take to turn his Third Army (located in northeastern France) north to counterattack. To the disbelief of the other generals present, Patton said he could attack with two divisions within 48 hours. Before he had gone to the meeting, Patton had already ordered his staff to prepare three contingency plans for a northward turn in at least corps strength. By the time Eisenhower asked him how long it would take, the movement was already underway. On 20 December, Eisenhower removed the First and Ninth U.S. Armies from Bradley’s 12th Army Group and placed them under Montgomery’s 21st Army Group.

By 21 December, the German forces had Bastogne surrounded. Conditions inside the Bastonge perimeter were tough — most medical supplies and medical personnel had been captured, food was scarce, and by December 22 artillery ammunition was restricted to 10 rounds per gun per day. The weather cleared the next day, however, and supplies (primarily ammunition) were dropped in by parachute over four of the next five days.

The perimeter held despite determined German attacks. The German commander, Generalleutnant Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, requested Bastogne's surrender. When acting commander of the 101st General Anthony McAuliffe was told of this, he responded with a frustrated, "Aw, nuts!" After turning to other pressing issues, his staff reminded him that they should reply to the German demand. One officer (Lt. Col Harry W. O. Kinnard) recommended that McAuliffe's initial reply would be "tough to beat". Thus McAuliffe wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: "NUTS!" The famous reply - a morale booster to his troops - had to be explained both to the Germans, and to non-American Allies.



General Patton pinning the Distinguished Service Cross on BG Anthony C. McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division during the Siege of Bastogne


Both 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr moved forward from Bastogne after December 21, leaving only Panzer Lehr's 901st Regiment to assist the 26th Volksgrenadier Division in attempting to capture the crossroads. The 26th VG received one panzergrenadier regiment from the 15th PzG Division on Christmas Eve for its main assault the next day. Because it lacked sufficient troops and those of the 26th VG Division were near exhaustion, the XLVII Panzer Corps concentrated its assault on several individual locations on the west side of perimeter in sequence rather than launching one simultaneous attack on all sides. The assault, despite initial success by its tanks in penetrating the American line, was defeated and all the tanks destroyed. The next day, December 26, the spearhead of the 4th Armored Division broke through and opened a corridor to Bastogne.


In the extreme south, Brandenberger’s three infantry divisions were checked after an advance of four miles (6.5 km) by divisions of the U.S. VIII Corps; that front was then firmly held. Only the 5th Parachute Division of Brandenberger’s command was able to thrust forward 12 miles (19 km) on the inner flank to partially fulfill its assigned role.


To be continued . . .


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CHRISTMAS SEASON 1944

Belgium, sixty five years ago:




The Battle of the Bulge was the single largest and bloodiest battle American forces experienced in World War II.

In all, 840,000+ Allied soldiers participated in the Battle, with 1,300 medium tanks, plus tank destroyers, and 394 artillery pieces.

19,246 Americans were killed in the Bulge, 47,500 wounded, 23,000 captured or missing (an astonishing 89,746 total casualties), approximately 800 tanks destroyed. 200 British soldiers were killed, 1,200 wounded or missing.



They fought and died for our freedom. Remember them as you enjoy your Christmas festivities this year, and every year.





Due to horrific conditions at the hands of the Wermacht, many of these GI's did not survive their captivity.


The German Wermacht went into the offensive with 500,000 men, 1,800 tanks, and 1,900 artillery pieces. 67,200 German Wermacht killed, 32,800 wounded or missing and appoximately 700 tanks destroyed. On top of these staggering statistics, approximately 3000 civilians were killed during the course of the Ardennes campaign of 1944-45.


At this time I am playing catch-up with Blog STORMBRINGER - I will cover the Battle of the Bulge with greater, in-depth analysis as this Christmas season unfolds. - S.L.




The text reads:

Dec. 23, 1944 - "Battle of the Bulge" - An entire U.S. armored division was retreating from the Germans in the Ardennes forest when a sergeant in a tank destroyer spotted an American digging a foxhole. The GI, PFC Martin, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, looked up and asked, "Are you looking for a safe place?" "Yeah" answered the tanker. "Well, buddy," he drawled, "just pull your vehicle behind me...

I'M THE 82nd AIRBORNE, AND THIS IS AS FAR AS THE BASTARDS ARE GOING."




I have lived in and around the Fort Bragg area for many years. There are not too many of WWII paratrooper veterans left, but I have had the honor to meet a few over the years. I knew a retired Sergeant Major who served with the 101st in Normandy, the Low Countries and was at Bastogne. I asked him once, "How did you do it? How on Earth did paratroopers fight tanks, and hold out?"

"Oh, well, we just did what we had to do to stay alive."

"I always heard they put you guys in there without any winter gear?"

"All we had was bedsheets, white bedsheets, over our uniforms."

"Oh man. How did you do it? How did you deal with the cold?"

"Oh my Lord, that was the coldest I have ever been in my entire life. I will never forget that cold, as long as I live. On Christmas day, they served turkey stew. We were on the front lines, we'd have to go back one at a time. They'd fill our canteen cups with turkey stew, and by the time we'd get back to our positions, the turkey stew would be frozen solid."

Kind of puts the great Blizzard of 2009 into perspective, doesn't it? - S.L.

WEST-BY-GOD VETERAN

Harold Payne survived the hard, lean years of the Great Depression and combat operations all across the European Theater of Operations; severely wounded and captured in the Battle of the Bulge, as a Prisoner of War he survived illness and near starvation while men died to the left and right of him. Then he came home and did forty years in the coal mines of his beloved "West-By-God-Virginia".


Like we say in the Army: "Harder than woodpecker lips."


Harold Payne FINALLY recieved due recognition for his service & sacrifice in October 2008 - FORTY EIGHT YEARS after the fact! ! !





Blog STORMBRINGER is Veteran-owned and operated, like the many business ventures I am involved in . . . operations constrained postings to commemorate the week of Veteran's Day / Remembrance Day . . . readers have sent so much Veteran material of friends and family there was no possible way I could post it all on Nov 11th therefore I will present much Veteran-themed postings over the next few weeks up to the Holiday season . . . on behalf of freedom-loving people everywhere:


"ALL GAVE SOME - SOME GAVE ALL - THANK YOU VETERANS!"




World War II Memorial - Washington DC


The following was originally posted in the Charleston Daily Mail a little over a year ago:


Friday October 10, 2008

World War II Veteran Finally Getting Purple Heart Today

by Jake Stump - Daily Mail Capitol Reporter

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA - A mortar blast had caused a building to collapse on Harold Payne, crushing his ribs and voice box. The other soldier inside was killed.










German forces found an incapacitated Payne and took him and his captain prisoner. Trapped under rubble, Payne was unable to move or speak. But he could hear German soldiers telling his fellow Americans, "Help get him up or we will kill him." That was in January 1945.

After more than 63 years of records mishaps and government red tape, Payne is finally getting a Purple Heart for that attack. Payne, 84, of Cabin Creek, will officially receive his medal at a ceremony today in Charleston. He first inquired about the Purple Heart in the 1970s. Most of his military records were missing, incomplete or flush with typographical errors.

But earlier this year, the Payne family met with representatives from Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito's office, who got the ball rolling in getting Payne his military decoration that's long overdue. Through a series of records searches, officials found documents in the National Archives that verified Payne should receive the Purple Heart. Payne is somewhat relieved.

Severe beatings, starvation and zero degree temperatures under German captivity never destroyed him. He wasn't going to let the obstacles preventing him from receiving his Purple Heart do it, either, although it took decades.

"It's been a mess," Payne said Thursday. Payne was only 19 when he was drafted to the Army in 1943. He'd been working at a coal mine.

A child of the Great Depression, Payne finished school after the sixth grade. Yet he managed to be one of only two soldiers to complete chemical warfare training in a class of 42.

He served throughout European countries such as Italy and England and was ready to come home, but then the Battle of the Bulge erupted. It was the major German offensive launched in December 1944 towards the end of World War II. There were 19,276 Americans killed; 41,493 wounded; and 23,554 captured or missing.

Payne considers himself one of the lucky ones. He had gone through an 11-day period stuffed in a boxcar without any food. "I had no water or food, but I survived it," he said. "They put us in boxcars because the U.S. and British were pushing in and they kept moving us back into Germany further. They huddled us up together like a bunch of dogs in zero-degree weather for 11 days."

Payne remembers an average of five prisoners dying each day. German captors would strip the dead and store the bodies away in a separate room. Payne figures he wouldn't have survived much longer without food or water. Still, the Germans would only feed him an occasional bread morsel and little else during his four months of captivity.

"So many people starved to death," he said. "I don't care if the bread was black, or there was a crumb of cornbread or a cabbage leaf, I went ahead and ate it."

The soldier stood about 5-foot-6 and weighed 175 pounds going into the Army. As a prisoner of war, Payne slimmed down to 112 pounds. During this time, he acquired an unusually extreme desire for pancakes. It was the last meal he had before the Battle of the Bulge. His yearning became so bad that he dissolved noodles into a sort of flour and attempted to make pancakes out of them. These pancakes, however, made him dangerously ill. "I wanted pancakes so bad that I dreamed of pancakes," he said. "I kept seeing pancakes." The lack of food caused long damaging effects on Payne's health. He now suffers from five bleeding stomach ulcers.

Payne attributes part of his survival to living through the Depression. In those days, he learned what he could eat out in nature and how to keep warm. Some methods he used to keep his feet warm included covering them with sand or cow dung.
During the Depression, Payne and his family would gather beechnuts, chestnuts, hickory nuts, dandelions, milkweeds and all sorts of greens for food. They'd hunt anything that moved. Any squirrel, rabbit or raccoon didn't have a chance," Payne said. "We ate them."

One thing they couldn't eat was grass. "We tried that," he said. "I remember me and my dad sitting on the porch and we saw a cow across the field. I was 4 years old. My dad said, 'I don't understand how we can't eat that grass when the cows eat it up in a storm.' He went into the house, grabbed a pair of scissors and we cut off some grass, washed it and cooked it. It dried up in the frying pan."

Food wasn't the only problem for a POW. Payne suffered several beatings. One incident involved German soldiers beating him in the head with their rifle barrels. In a separate incident, Payne tried arranging a trade for coffee and food but was whipped by seven Germans with straps. He had other skirmishes with fate. Payne recalls a time when a bullet skimmed the top of his head, penetrated his scarf and killed a man standing next to him.

British forces took over the German camp and liberated Payne and his fellow prisoners in April 1945. Despite being a free man, Payne was in wretched shape. He spent about a month in an England hospital and was covered in body lice. He got to go home in June.

"It about ruined my life," Payne said of his war experiences. "I reckon I've been a lucky man all my life." The headaches and nightmares weren't over when he reached the States. He'd lost everything in England - his duffel bags crammed with documents, identification, watches and $1,000 in cash. He didn't even have his dog tags.

This created a dilemma for Payne, who struggled to prove his identity to officials back home. Payne managed to keep a hold of one key piece of evidence - a prisoner identification card issued to him and signed by German officers. He received an honorable discharge in October 1945.

But his discharge papers didn't indicate he was a POW. The omission didn't seem to matter to Payne, who wanted to get on with life. He returned to the coalmines, where he worked for more than 40 years, sometimes loading up to 32 tons a day.

There were a few other discrepancies in Payne's discharge papers, which stated he served in the 515th Battalion. That was true, since it was his training unit. When he went to war, he was assigned to the 550th Battalion, which was excluded in his papers.

Thirty-three years later, Payne's former son-in-law, a Vietnam veteran, received a visit from a veterans' counselor about GI benefits. The son-in-law told the official about Payne and his horrific account of World War II. The counselor then met with Payne and encouraged him to seek medals and benefits.

With the lapses in Payne's discharge papers, it was tough convincing officials he qualified for several military decorations. Even worse, his Army records in a St. Louis office were destroyed in a fire. He had lost contact with all soldiers he worked closely with in the war. Most were killed in action.

But something almost unimaginable occurred in 1992. Payne joined a POW group through the American Legion and attended a gathering in North Carolina. There he stumbled into his old captain, the same guy taken prisoner with Payne back in 1945. They started keeping in touch and the captain wrote letters to officials verifying Payne's actions.

Documents found in the National Archives also confirmed Payne's military record. Payne would finally receive four service stars and a Bronze Star. LaDonna Craft, one of Payne's two daughters, said she admires her father for his resilience over the years. "He never gave up hope," Craft said. "He's got a backbone about him. We would keep getting turned down and have more papers to fill out again." Craft never heard her father speak about his war experiences until after he retired as a coal miner.

Payne also has two sons. His wife, Margaret, passed away three years ago. "She's really missed," Payne said. "I really miss her." Despite his firsthand encounters, Payne still ponders the effects of war to this day. "How are these wars going on?" Payne said. "Why can't we get along? In my years of thinking about it, I can't understand it. I'll never get over it. I always think about it and what life is all about."

This information was sent in from my Special Forces mentor and long-time friend, Mike (obliquely referred to in STORMBRINGER
as The Deacon - Mike has forgotten more about weapons, ballistics and demolitions than I will ever know - and that's a LOT). Mike often speaks of the hardscrabble life growing up in the mountains of beloved West-By-God-Virginia - his Uncle Harold is a living example of how the Great Depression hardened the men and women who fought and survived the horrors of the Second World War.





"RESPECT"






- Sean Linnane

WWII PARATROOPER MAKES FINAL MOVEMENT

Darrell “Shifty” Powers, one of the soldiers depicted in “Band of Brothers,” passed away on Wednesday, June 17, 2009.

Powers, United States Army paratrooper and sharpshooter, Easy Company, 2d/506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, died 17 June 2009 of natural causes at age 86.

Like millions of Americans, "Shifty" answered the call of World War II. A quiet, unassuming man, Shifty joined the Army and then volunteered for the Airborne. After intensive training, Powers was assigned to the famed Easy Company 2nd Battalion 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, where he jumped into Normandy on D-day. He was involved in the assault on Bracore Manor, which saved thousands of lives on Omaha Beach.

Powers fought in the battle of Carentan and the airborne invasion of Holland as part of Operation Market Garden, where millions of French and Dutch citizens were liberated.

During Hitler's final offensive, what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge, the 506th was encircled by superior German forces in the Belgian town of Bastone. The 101st held out against incredible odds; their successful defense of bastogne was critical to turning the tide of the German offensive and ultimately the war in the Western Front. Powers and the 506th then entered Germany, liberated concentration camps and captured Hitler's "Eagles Nest" in Berchtesgarden.

Powers got the nickname "Shifty" playing basketball as a youngster. He served three years in the Army during World War II and later worked as a machinist for Clinchfield Coal Corp. He found renewed notoriety when Stephen Ambrose wrote about Easy Company in the World War II history Band of Brothers; Shifty’s experiences were depicted on the film of the same name.

"He actually hadn't talked about it, his war years, until the book came out," said his daughter-in-law, Sandy Powers.

In the second-to-last episode of "Band of Brothers," an HBO miniseries that documented Easy Company's wartime exploits, Powers spoke on camera about combat, the soldiers he served with and the German enemy he fought.

He recalled a bitterly cold day in the Ardennes when he was able to draw down on a German sniper, sighting his target by the misty cloud of the man's breath. He killed him with one shot.

"Right there," he said, touching his forehead. "Between the eyes."

He was reflective of such matters, "We might have had a lot in common. He might've liked to fish, you know, he might've liked to hunt. Of course, they were doing what they were supposed to do, and I was doing what I was supposed to do . . . under different circumstances, we might have been good friends."

"For me and my kids, it's just amazing that our regular, sweet uncle was such a hero," said his niece, Cheryl Gilliland of Roanoke. "It sure changed his life in later years. He went places and met people he never would have otherwise."

Darrell Powers met a German soldier in 2005 who had fought against him at the brutal siege of Bastogne during the winter of 1944.

According to his son, Wayne, he had been scheduled to travel to Iraq to meet with U.S. soldiers in September 2008, but health problems prevented it. "He was so disappointed. He wanted to meet with the soldiers so badly," Sandy Powers said.

One of his closest friends, Earl McClung, of Colorado, in 2001 called Darrell Powers "a heck of a good soldier and a heck of a good shot."

"And he was there every time I looked up," he added.

"Our family had four boys and one girl, and I'm the only one left," said Powers' sister, Gaynell Sykes of Roanoke, Virginia. "He was a great brother. I know he was great at a lot of other things, too -- great father, great son, great husband."

Blue Skies, and Godspeed to you Darrell "Shifty" Powers, Airborne Paratrooper - we know you're in that Great Big Drop Zone in the Sky, making linkup with the rest of your Band of Brothers.