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he Germans on either
side of the road between Eindhoven and Nijmegen did what the 101st
Airborne Division expected: they made an all-out effort to cut the
narrow corridor on which the column of British vehicles were traveling,
and they did so near the corridor’s base. If the Germans could staunch
the flow of Horrocks’ XXX Corps early, then they could easily mop up
the isolated airborne units to the north in Nijmegen and Arnhem. The
attack came at Veghel, the site of key bridges that promised to snarl
traffic once destroyed. It happened on D-plus-5 in a coordinated attack
that came from the north, northwest and southeast, and it produced the
largest battle in which the 101st had been involved to this point in
Holland.
The command staff of the 101st had known from
D-plus-3 that an attack was coming, but they did not know for sure
where. Early in the morning of D-plus-5 they got word from Dutch
Underground sources that the Germans were moving in the direction of
Veghel and Uden. Heavy concentrations of German infantry, plus one
panzer and one assault gun brigade were in the area and converging. Gen.
Taylor sent Gen. McAuliffe to Veghel early in the morning to find a new
location for the Division CP. When it became clear that the attack would
be on Veghel, Taylor told McAuliffe to stay and take charge. Just after
1100 the Germans cut the road north of town, between Veghel and Uden,
and the 2d Battalion of the 506th arrived. McAuliffe dispatched the unit
to the Uden road to stop the Germans before they could move in on Veghel.
But these Germans had tanks.
Lt. Col. X.B. Cox, who was the CO of the 81st
Airborne Anti-Aircraft / Anti-Tank Battalion, was nearby. McAuliffe told
Cox, “Get one of your guns up the road and smash a tank; that may stop
them.” Cox quickly jumped in a jeep hooked up to a gliderborne 57mm
anti-tank gun. In the jeep was Battery B commander Capt. A.G. Gueymard,
Pfc. Rogie Roberts, the gunner, and another crew member, the ammunition
loader.
When they reached the road there was no time to
find cover. A long column of British vehicles, including trucks loaded
with ammunition and gasoline, was edging its way north; at the
intersection of a road coming in from the west were two panzer tanks.
One was already shooting up a British 40mm anti-aircraft unit nearby.
Also on the north road was a band of Americans from the 327th Glider
Infantry stubbornly firing a small 37mm gun at the tank. The tanks were
preparing for a turkey shoot. A few hundred feet to the east was a
fenced-in field, in which horses frantically raced back and forth,
trying to escape this wanton violence now taking place between humans.
One horse was hit.
Lt. Col. Cox’s group screeched to a stop, and as
they jumped out, the ammunition handler panicked and ran off behind a
building. Flattened into a nearby doorway right next to where the jeep
stopped was a soldier unknown to the gun crew--a glider pilot working
his way south--in the wrong place at the wrong time. The crew was
short-handed and Cox yelled for help. The GP didn’t hesitate. He
quickly assisted the three men in unhitching the gun and wheeling it
around. As they started to set it up, somebody yelled at the GP to see
if he could find them some ammo. He jumped up into the jeep and dug into
the ammunition.
As they loaded the first shell, the tank’s gun
swung around on them. They knew they were dead. The tank hit a house
behind them, covering them with dust and debris. The make-shift
airborne-troop carrier gun crew fired. The first shot hit the turret.
Too high! Pfc. Roberts looked at the gunsight. It was set for distance—1,600 yards. He set it for the correct range: 200 yards! Fire.
. . Bullseye! The tank is on fire. Another gun hit the second tank,
which immediately pulled back.
There had been no time for Col. Cox’s improvised
crew to set up the gun’s trails properly, and each time it fired it
lunged back into Robert’s legs, finally breaking one of his kneecaps.
Quickly, as the column again started to move, the crew packed up and
moved on.
An AP news story by young war correspondent Walter
Cronkite, representing the Combined American Press, appeared on 26
September 1944: “A make-shift crew. . . handling a U.S. gliderborne
anti-tank gun which made a hasty emergency shot that knocked out a
German tank was credited today with saving possibly hundreds of British
and American soldiers. The crewmen were Lt. Col. X.B. Cox, San Angelo,
Tex.; Capt. Adolph Gueymard, Baton Rouge, La., and Pfc. Rogie Roberts,
Port Arthur, Tex.”
No one knew who the glider pilot was. There had not
been time to find out.
Years later, former GP Thomas J. Berry attended a
reunion of his old outfit, the 91st Squadron of the 439th Troop Carrier
Group. The former Glider Officer of his squadron, John A. Neary, who had
de-briefed F/O Berry upon his return from Holland was one of the few who
knew about the incident in Veghel, and had always thought that Tom Berry
should have received some recognition for his action. He asked Tom if he
had made contact with any of the other participants. Somebody in the
101st would certainly remember. Tom said he had just never gotten around
to it. But it started him wondering, and a few years later he bought Rendezvous
With Destiny, A History of the
101st Airborne Division. The book had recorded the incident, and
there were the names of the airborne members of the gun crew. No mention
of a GP. It had been a long time ago; probably no one knew their helper
had been a glider pilot.
A year later, in June of 1982, Tom’s curiosity
got the best of him, and he called Col. X.B. Cox (Ret.) in San Angelo.
Col. Cox immediately sent off a note to the former GP: “Words cannot
express how much I enjoyed your phone call. It seems impossible that
after so many years such a reunion could be possible. Thousands of times
I have recalled the incident and most of the time, I have wondered who
you were and what became of you.” Col. Cox promptly contacted Gueymard
and Roberts.
Upon finding out who the “mystery man” was,
Rogie Roberts wrote Tom a letter: “Yes, I remember you distinctly, and
I knew you were a Glider Pilot. I have thought about you many times
since then and often wondered what would have happened if you had not
been there. The man who should have been unloading the ammunition was
behind the house. I don’t blame him. I was scared, too.”
In a response to Col. Cox, Tom wrote in much the
same tone. He confessed that he had only told a few people of the
incident: “My wife just found out about it, when your letter
arrived.” See photo.
To Rogie Roberts: “I surely do not know how you
people knew it was a glider pilot who became one of the crew. But I know
I was sure slinging ammo around in that jeep looking for an
armor-piercing round. If you were scared you sure didn’t show it. At
least I don’t think you were as scared as I was.
“After the tank was
knocked out—Thank You—you people
seemed to pack up and leave. I assumed you had business elsewhere. After
that I resumed my trek back to Brussels. Our instructions were to make
our way back after landing. I had landed up at Groesbeek with the 82nd
Airborne on D-Day and was just working my way south when this affair
took place.”
Post Script: Tom Berry was presented the
Silver Star at a formal ceremony at Scott AFB, Belleville, IL on 26
November 1996, for “gallantry in action.”
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