The Mission-Part I

ften I have been asked questions regarding the 50-ship glider mission of 27 December 1944, and its route, as briefed, into Bastogne. I remember the circumstances very well. All of us knew the 101st Airborne Division and attached units were encircled there, under siege (see “Bastogne Under Siege”) and it was clear that the only way they had of getting supplies was through Troop Carrier.

The American forces in Bastogne needed heavy ammunition, and that entailed a glider mission. This one would be flown by 37 C-47s and crews from the 439th Group, and 13 C-47s and crews from the 440th Group. The 50 CG-4As were all flown by glider pilots of the four squadrons of the 439th. The route [see map] was specified through 50th Wing.

During the early-morning preparations for the mission, I was out on the runway at Châteaudun checking last-minute details of the marshaling. I recall that it was cold and that I was worried about a rather heavy coating of frost on the aircraft, especially on the cockpit windshields and wings of the gliders. Some of the glider pilots had only small holes melted or scraped through the frost layer to see through.

While I was checking the frost on one of the gliders, an officer in a jeep slid to a stop beside me to tell me that the co-pilot of one of our 91st C-47s was very sick. I went immediately to the airplane and found that he really was sick, and throwing up. I told the first pilot that I would fly as his co-pilot, then sent my driver, Cpl. Collen R. Connell, to get my parachute and flight gear.

I continued with my inspection of the gliders and about that time another jeep stopped abruptly beside me. In it was Capt. Pat Maloney, our Assistant Group Intelligence Officer (Maj. John L. Yaple, our Group S-2, was on leave). Capt. Maloney, a very careful and thorough officer, said that 50th Wing A-2 had just called with this message—and I remember the exact words: “You might want to consider changing the route into the LZ,” and gave some suggested navigational fixes. I asked Capt. Maloney, “Why would I want to consider a change in route?” He said, “I don’t know. They didn’t say.” He then repeated the message word for word.

The crews were already in their airplanes and gliders, it was almost engine-start time, there was no time to re-brief the pilots, and most important in my estimation was that a delay could make us miss our fighter protection. This was not expected to be a difficult mission, however, as we knew that other Groups had previously used the same route we were briefed to fly and they had experienced no enemy action of consequence. I had gone over to the 440th’s base at Orléans the night before, after both missions had returned and got an update from the 440th crews on enemy positions along this route [see smaller glider mission]. We discussed the situation briefly and I said, “We’ll go as planned.” I was expecting to go on the flight myself at the time this decision was made.

Then it was time for me to go to the airplane, but when I got there a stand-by co-pilot was already in the seat. He had been rushed out to the plane from the 91st Squadron area, so I was not needed.^*

A message sent by Gen. McAuliffe’s Headquarters about a suggested route change evidently went to SHAEF Headquarters in Paris the night before our mission [see message from the 101st]. What its original content was, or why it was not received by our Group intelligence section until mid-morning on the 27th just before time for take-off, or why there was a lapse between that message and the one received by Group operations from Wing operations, I have never learned.

We discovered much later that on the afternoon of December 26th the leading units of the 4th Armored Division—Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams with his 37th Tank Battalion and Lt. Col. George Jaques with his 53d Armored Infantry Battalion—were only a few miles SSW of the 101st perimeter outside Bastogne. They fought their way in that evening. For whatever reason, this information did not get to us. In any case, I do not think Troop Carrier Command or the 50th TC Wing Intelligence or Operations sections would have left any doubt in their instructions to me if they had been advised of the importance or understood the urgency of changing the route into the glider landing zone at Bastogne.

Perhaps even more perplexing after all these years is the fact that the largest concentration of German troops and artillery on the Bastogne perimeter had moved into position on the west side of Bastogne by 24 December—virtually directly under the route given to the 50th Wing by the Ninth Air Force—and after a lapse of two-and-a-half days Troop Carrier Command still did not have the news. We know now that the sector adjacent 101st’s western and northwestern perimeter contained much of the 26 Volksgrenadier and the 15 Panzergrenadier Divisions, with CPs at Gives and approximately one mile west of Flamierge, respectively. The 15 Panzergrenadier Division, a veteran unit of the Italian fighting, was part of Hitler’s reserve, and had just moved into the line on 24 December. Also nearby in the area surrounding Remagne, according to German situation maps for 27 December 1944, were units of Panzer Lehr. CPs of 47 Panzer Corps and the 5th Panzer Army were located near Roumont and Bertogne, respectively (Bundesarchiv, 2; 3).

The route our formation flew, as briefed, passed within close range of these and other German concentrations, including the artillery that had been assembled for the German offensive on the western perimeter. Most aircraft and glider pilots who were shot at reported gunfire from the railroad crossing at Bras, from just east of Remagne, and from about two to three miles north of the railroad tracks running from Libramont into Bastogne (positions occupied by units of Panzer Lehr and some elements of 26 Volksgrenadiers), from locations northwest of Bastogne and to points NNW of the LZ area.^† Others reported fire from the vicinity of Sibret and Mohret, which was probably a combination of other units from 26 Volksgrenadier and also from the 5th Parachute Division (of Gen. Erich Brandenberger’s 7th Army) that were being pushed northwest by the thrust of Patton’s forces into Bastogne.

As discussed in detail in the Historical Summary [of Chapter 13], the German command had decided several days earlier to relocate the center of its strength to the western perimeter and mount an all-out attack on Bastogne from there, beginning from northwest of town. The attack started at 0300 on 25 December. The artillery concentration for this renewed German offensive was centered in the area around Flamierge and Givry. According to German situation maps, a headquarters unit of flak artillery attached to the 5th Panzer Army had penetrated the northern perimeter of the Bastogne defense early on 27 December, approximately 5 miles NNW of the LZs (Bundesarchiv, 2; Pallud, 337).

It follows that by 25 December many of the German strongpoints west of Bastogne were well known to both American ground forces and to the Ninth Air Force. Units of the Ninth AF aircraft flew an average of more than 250 sorties per day from 23 December through 26 December in support of ground positions held by the Americans in Bastogne. In fact, on 19 December, Ninth Air Force had sent a Forward Air Controller and a radio technician into Bastogne who, according to 101st Airborne records, were able to call in air strikes within as few as 20 minutes beginning on 23 December (see Part III, Communications, for more detail). The Führer Begleit Brigade, ordered to leave the fighting at Hotton and go to Bastogne on the night of 26 December, reported that as it crossed through German positions northwest and west of Bastogne on 27 December, its progress was “plagued by Allied fighter-bombers ranging unopposed over the battlefield” (Rapport & Northwood, 537-38; Pallud, 402).

Why information did not reach us regarding important concentrations of German forces that were part of an attack that had been underway for over two days is hardly clarified by explanations of why last-minute messages from 50th Wing were garbled on the morning of 27 December 1944. IX TCC stated in its report on these missions, Operations Repulse, that “Contact [between IX TCC HQ and Ninth Air Force] was kept up all during the operations,” thus producing “good” communications. But communications between IX TCC HQ and Ninth Air Force were not good; in fact, it is hard to imagine how they could have been worse. A Troop Carrier liaison officer at Ninth Air Force, as the author suggested in the 50th Wing Group Commanders’ meeting on 28 December 1944, would surely have recognized the implications of this German concentration on the western perimeter and would have been able to help IX TCC HQ correlate information on enemy ground positions with air resupply routes to Bastogne.

That the 101st Airborne arrived in Bastogne without any ground-to-air radios, and that IX TCC did not act to rectify this by dropping or airlanding such equipment, remains unexplainable. Ninth Air Force air support was effectively and efficiently coordinated from a portable jeep radio acquired on the spot from units of the 10th Armored Division Combat Command B. In lieu of preparation and planning at FAAA, a small amount of improvisation would have been appropriate and possibly sufficient.

However, the problems we experienced in Troop Carrier with regard to Bastogne airsupply missions—from the Command level on down—simply exacerbated the problems in ground-to-air communication between Airborne and Troop Carrier units in the First Allied Airborne Army.

These deficiencies had caused alarm as early as Normandy, and by operations in Holland, losses associated with inadequate Airborne and Troop Carrier communications produced immediate recommendations from both Airborne and Troop Carrier (IX TCC, a, Annex). These recommendations, though accepted by FAAA, were not acted upon in a timely fashion. The dilatory response of FAAA, however, seems less related to technological limitations and more related to the often-unfocused leadership at the command level of First Allied Airborne Army.

In hindsight, knowing what we know now 1) of the communications problems within FAAA in December 1944; 2) of the German concentrations on the west side of Bastogne; and, 3) that Ninth Air Force fighters would not show in sufficient numbers to provide adequate flak suppression, what I should have done was hold the mission until the situation was sorted out down through Wing, and requested whatever adjustment in time for fighter cover that was necessary. Hindsight, however, alters only information, not events. I have anguished over this decision these many years, and will continue to do so for as long as I live.

See next, Mission to Bastogne, 27 December 1944, Part II: Plans and Coordination.

^* Editor’s Note: 440th TC Group CO Frank Krebs and crew were knocked down over Holland on 17 September 1944 and spent weeks MIA. They were behind enemy lines, but were in the hands of the Dutch Underground, who helped them in a harrowing escape from German-held territory. Their fate remained unknown to their units until late October when they were rescued by the U.S. 104th Infantry Division. After their return, Gen. Julian Chappell, CG of the 50th TCW ordered his unit commanders not to go on any more missions than necessary.

^† Most of the fighting during the siege of Bastogne took place well outside of town. The southern perimeter was closest to the edge of town—approximately one mile. In the northwest, the perimeter was approximately 3½ mi. away from town; the northern perimeter was approximately 2½ mi. from town. The LZ area was centered about 1 mile NNW of the town.