Lieutenant Colonel Carl W. Kohls, the 101st's supply officer, had tasked the 501st and 506th Parachute Infantry regiments with preparing recovery details. As the parachute bundles touched ground, the men raced out to drag in the desperately needed ammunition, food and medical supplies. The heavily loaded jeeps raced back to collection points where they were unloaded and the contents sent on to the most needy units. Meanwhile, other supply-laden C-47s headed for Bastogne through a hail of heavy groundfire -- unarmed, unarmored and without fighter escort. In just over four hours, 241 planes dropped 144 tons of supplies to the Bastogne garrison.
To ensure that the aerial lifeline remained open while Agnew and his men worked on the first landing zone, McNiece located two other sites for Eureka beacons. One of the spots he chose was a small hill near the farmhouse of the Massen family. When darkness ended the supply drops for the day, the pathfinder teams began to look for a place to spend the night. Although shelter was at a premium, they soon came upon a three-story chateau occupied by members of Team SNAFU. This was an improvised outfit made up of men from the 28th Infantry Division and other units, who had been caught up in Bastogne during their units' retreat at the start of the battle. The major in charge told McNiece that he had no room for any pathfinders and that they could not stay with his men. McNiece pointed out that his men could sleep down in the basement. He preferred that anyway, since it would be safer from the artillery fire and bombing, and the heater down there would keep them warm. Again the major told them to look someplace else.
Angry, McNiece told the major to telephone General McAuliffe. "Tell him that Jake McNiece is here with his pathfinders requesting quarters and that you don't have room for him. Me and my men are going to stay here in this house tonight, I guarantee you!"
When the major hung up, he told the pathfinders that they could stay.
They had just settled comfortably in the basement for the night when a bomb hit the chateau, blowing away the top two floors. The bottom floor caved in on the pathfinders, nearly burying them alive. Fortunately, Agnew was outside with John Dewey when the bomb hit and was able to rush to the ruins of the building and find a small opening amid the wreckage. The two men worked quickly to help the others out of the basement. In their haste to rescue their friends, however, they did not notice an unexploded bomb that was just feet away from the opening. McNiece was the first out of the basement and was horrified to see the bomb in front of him. He knew that the slightest movement could set it off. With no other avenue of escape, McNiece warned the others of what lay just outside, jumped over the bomb and raced to safety. The entire unit escaped unharmed, lugging most of their pathfinder equipment with them. The inhospitable officer from Team SNAFU and his men in the floors above were not so lucky, as many of them were killed or wounded in the blast.
Following the pathfinders' lucky escape, McNiece reasoned that the Germans would be unlikely to drop bombs anywhere near their own men, so he decided to move his pathfinders out of the town and onto the perimeter. McNiece remembered the Massen farmhouse from his reconnaissance earlier in the day. At about 9 p.m. he moved his men there.
The next day, Christmas Eve, the pathfinders awoke before sunrise. After breakfast the men went out to the Eureka sets and began sending signals. More than 322 tons of supplies were dropped to the Bastogne garrison that day. The pathfinders returned to the Massen house after sunset, and joined the family for a Christmas Eve dinner of chicken soup.
The supplies dropped on the 23rd and 24th had been a great help but had not met all of the needs of the division. The shortage of medical personnel was particularly acute. The division's entire field hospital had been captured on December 19; by Christmas the few remaining medical personnel within Bastogne were barely able to keep up with the increasing number of casualties.
Weather conditions prevented any resupply missions on Christmas Day, but McAuliffe was able to make an urgent request for additional medical assistance. The Army asked for volunteers who would be transported to Bastogne by glider. Five doctors and four medical technicians stepped forward. Dangerous even in ideal conditions, the glider descent into Bastogne would be a particularly hazardous undertaking. Nevertheless, Dr. Lamar Soutter, the Third Army surgeon who would lead the team, wrote, "This was something we felt we absolutely had to do."
On the 26th, the medical volunteers left Metz by truck for Thionville, France, where a glider awaited them. First Lieutenant Charleton W. Corwin Jr. and his co-pilot, Benjamin F. Constantino, would fly the glider. The volunteers loaded medical supplies and boarded at 4 p.m.
Jake McNiece [HQ, REGT (acting SGT, Demolition "Filthy 13"), 506th PIR, 1942-1945] and author of the book The Filthy 13, from the Dustbowl to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, the 101st Airborne's Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers: the True Story of "The Dirty Dozen"
(R): Jake's Parachutist Badge with 4 stars, one for each of his WWII combat jumps:
- - Normandy [HQ, REGT, 506th PIR (Demolition;"Filthy 13")]
- - Holland (HQ, REGT, 506th PIR)
- - Resupply of Bastogne (Pathfinder, 101st Airborne Division)
- - Operation Varsity, Germany (Pathfinder; jumped with 17th Airborne Division)
They took off and caught up with 10 other gliders containing 2,975 gallons of 80-octane gasoline, which were being towed by the 440th Troop Carrier Group out of Orléans. The planes flew at treetop level. At 5:20, the C-47s rose to 600 hundred feet and cut the gliders loose. They landed without incident. Later that day, the weather cleared enough over England for other planes to take off. Throughout the day, the 434th, 435th, 437th and 438th Troop Carrier groups flew additional resupply sorties.
As the pilots flew these hazardous missions to Bastogne, they were encouraged to see columns of tanks and men from the 4th Armored Division below. One remembered: "Now it appeared that our men were resuming the offensive. This was an entirely different ground situation from that on our first mission Saturday. Then it seemed a situation of impending disaster." At 4:40 in the afternoon on December 26, tanks from the 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division, made contact with an outpost from the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, and the siege of Bastogne was finally broken.
Jake McNiece [HQ, REGT (acting SGT, Demolition "Filthy 13"), 506th PIR, 1942-1945] and his wife Martha stand beside the road sign for the Jake McNiece Path.
The next day was the last for the aerial resupply drops into the city. The first 138 C-47s delivered their cargo with little difficulty. A subsequent flight of 37 C-47s from the 439th and 13 from the 440th Troop Carrier groups towing 50 Waco CG-4A gliders loaded with high explosive ammunition had more difficulty, however.
The gliders were scheduled to fly the same route the resupply missions had flown since McNiece and his pathfinders had first set up their Eurekas. McAuliffe was concerned about this and suggested a change in route. However, the pilots flying the mission decided that there was little time to prepare a new flight pattern and that it would be best to use the original route. The tow planes and gliders ran into heavy flak and groundfire eight miles out from their landing zone and five C-47s were shot down. By the time the 440th Troop Carrier Group towed the remaining gliders over the target area, the Germans had their range. Flak and groundfire brought down eight more tow planes and badly damaged five others. Only four of the C-47s were able to make it back to their home base at Orléans. The gliders fared somewhat better. While 17 of the fragile craft were lost en route, the remaining 33 were able to arrive at the landing zone with their cargo relatively intact.
D-Day Airborne veteran Jake McNiece watches as today's airborne soldiers parachute onto the drop zone outside Sainte-Mere-Eglise, France, June 5. The World War II veterans and the current troops shared a mutual respect on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the jump. Photo by Jim Garamone
Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower later claimed that the resupply drops had ensured victory at Bastogne. The pathfinder teams and their Eureka beacons were critical to that success. Had it not been for the pathfinders, the fast-moving C-47s, even with good weather, would have been unable to ensure that the badly needed supplies were dropped inside American lines. As it was, 95 percent of the dropped cargo was retrieved by the defenders.
When aerial resupply missions were no longer necessary, McNiece and the other pathfinders rejoined their old regiment and fought with the 506th through January as the ground lost to the Germans at the start of the Battle of the Bulge was retaken. Meanwhile, back in England, Captain Brown recommended the pathfinders who had jumped into Bastogne for the Silver Star. Normally this would have been a straightforward affair. In this instance, however, the pathfinders were only on temporary assignment to the 9th Troop Transport Command, and their parent organization, the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, would have to approve all awards. When Brown's recommendations arrived on his desk, Colonel Robert Sink, the 506th's commander, refused the awards. Sink had not sent McNiece and the others to the pathfinder school to be heroes. He said that the men had only performed routine paratrooper duty and instead awarded them Bronze Stars. In a telegram to Brown, he requested that the pathfinders from Regimental Headquarters Company be officially reassigned to the regiment. "Evidently I can kill them off faster than you can," Sink said.
According to Jack Agnew [HQ, REGT (Demolition, "Filthy 13", Normandy; and Pathfinder, Resupply of Bastogne)], this is a photo of the ceremony where those who participated in the Pathfinder Mission to resupply the Battle of the Bulge/Bastogne were awarded the Bronze Star Medal.
Brown told Sink that he could have all of them back but McNiece. As the acting first sergeant of the pathfinder school, he was critical to the training. Lieutenant Williams also stayed, and the two made one more pathfinder jump, into Prum, Germany, to bring in supply drops for the 90th Infantry Division.
Jake McNiece, Schrable Williams, George Blain and Lockland Dillon, another one of the 506th pathfinders, finished the war with four combat jumps each. No one unit had made more than three combat jumps, and most only made two. These four men may hold the unique honor of being the only American paratroopers to survive four combat jumps during World War II.
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