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■ Sen. Howard W. Cannon (D-Nev.) is a qualified jet
command pilot in the Air Force. In World War II, he served five years in the
Armed Forces, enlisting as a first lieutenant and emerging as a lieutenant
colonel. His 15 decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air
Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Purple Heart, Presidential Unit Citation,
and the French Croix de Guerre. ONE
RECENT MORNING, I received a surprise birthday gift from a friend of mine in
the Pentagon. It was an oil painting of a war scene in Holland, depicting
two shabbily dressed "farmers" crossing a bridge near a bombed-out village.
In-congruously, in the foreground, there was a large apple from which
someone had taken a bite.
The painting was by Col. Roy Weinzettel of the U.S. Air Force, who
had been an Intelligence officer in our wing during World War II. I was one
of the "farmers" shown escaping to freedom.
The scene holds deep meaning to me, and I hope it will to all
Americans as well as to the rest of the free world. Now, for the first time,
I am telling the full story behind the picture.
As operations officer with the 440th Troop Carrier Group, I had copiloted
the lead plane dropping paratroops over France on D-Day. On Sept. 17, 1944,
during the Allied invasion of Holland, our mission was to discharge 'chutists
over the Arnhem bridge. Col. Frank X. Krebs of Chicago and I were the
pilots in the lead C-47 plane.
Flying through heavy flak over enemy-held territory, we dropped the
paratroops and started back. I saw two Allied planes catch fire and
another burning on the ground. As we turned for home, climbing to
3,000 feet, I thought the worst was over.
Our Plane Is Lost
Just as we passed Breda, we were hit. I heard a terrific
explosion in our left engine. The left propeller vanished, there was a huge
hole in our side and companionway, and the cockpit was a shambles of broken
glass. With controls gone, the ship began to nose down in a spiral. I rang
the signal bell ordering the crew to bail out.
Hydraulic fluid from the shot-out lines spurted all over us, almost
blinding me. I groped for my parachute but slipped on the fluid and fell on
my face. When I regained my balance, I had a hard time getting out of
my flak suit, but I finally hooked on the 'chute pack and managed to reach
the cabin door with the aid of Colonel Krebs. The rest of the crew had
already bailed out.
I had never jumped before. Hardly able to see, I dived. When my
parachute billowed out, I was at an altitude of about 800 feet.
As we drifted with the wind, German patrols below started shooting
at us. To put it mildly, |
it was uncomfortable. Landing in a potato field, we got rid
of our 'chutes and ran for cover to a ditch as Germans on bicycles headed
through the field toward us. With me were Colonel Krebs, who had broken his
left arch in the fall, and T/Sgt. Frank Broga of Chester, Mass., our crew
chief.
We lay flat on our backs in the watery ditch, tall brush and grass
pulled over us. Our .45s were cocked while we listened to the searching
Germans yelling and jamming bayonets into piles of straw. After an
inter-minable time, they left.
Then, suddenly, a Dutch farmer was standing over us. He motioned to
us to stay hidden. When we couldn't understand what he was saying, he
pointed to my watch—to 9 o'clock. We caught the idea that he would return
after dark.
Could we trust the farmer not to give us away? Some of our
flyers had told us not to expect any help from the Dutch because they were
"first cousins of the Germans" and the only way to talk to them was with a
.45. For the next five hours we sweated it out.
Toward dusk, we crawled under a pile of straw. When the farmer
finally returned and we could see he was alone, we emerged. We followed him
to the top of a hill. There we came upon two men in uniform. In a quick
reflex action we pulled out our guns. They only grinned at us. It turned out
they were local policemen, both in the underground.
With the policemen slowly riding their bicycles ahead of us, we
started the longest walk I've ever taken. The Germans would have shot
without warning anyone out after curfew without special-permission
identification. Three times we encountered enemy patrols, but the policemen
tipped us off, and we kept out of sight until the patrols passed. Reaching a
farm, we were hidden in a shed.
Then came the Dutch "reception committee"— all the neighboring
farmers bringing bread, cheese, and hot milk. Everyone there wanted to shake
hands with us. It gave me a singular feeling of brotherhood that I had never
before experienced.
At 2 a.m., we moved on, Krebs riding the handle bars of a
policeman's bicycle. At the home of the local underground leader, in the
little town of Audenbosch, Colonel Krebs' foot was treated by a doctor.
Sergeant Broga and I slept in the attic of the police station. After two
days we were given police uniforms and, riding motorcycles, boldly proceeded
to the city of Breda.
We Have a Cozy Hideout
For three weeks, our home was a department store that had
been closed to civilians, although the Germans often came to requisition
items. Our "bedroom" was the upholstery department, and naturally there was
plenty of furniture on which to sleep. Whenever the enemy |
barged in, we scooted out through a tunnel to the home of the
store owner across the street. Or, if we didn't have time, we'd climb
through the trap door in the ceiling of the elevator, push a switch that put
it out of order, and sit on its top until we were safe.
We ate mostly potatoes, cooked in the store's deserted restaurant
kitchen, and occasionally had a sort of meat stew. Food Was scarce, and it
must have been a hardship for the Dutch to feed us. I knew, too,
that by hiding us the Dutch were risking their lives every hour.
Collaborators were busy informing on anti-Nazis and revealing hidden Allied
fugitives. Every day we were told of Dutch citizens being rounded up and
executed for taking part in underground activities.
In our department store, other American, British, and Canadian
flyers kept joining us until there were 13—too dangerous for so many wanted
men in one hideout. We had to split up into pairs. Colonel Krebs and I were
presented with civilian clothes, ration books, birth certificates, and
forged identification papers complete with photographs, our own
fingerprints, and official seals. I was "Hendrik van Gils," a city clerk,
and Krebs was a schoolteacher.
The Long Trek Back Begins
The superb efficiency of the underground
continued to amaze me. Even our brown paratroop boots, a sure giveaway, had
been dyed black. If we were caught in civilian clothes, we'd be shot as
spies, so the underground kept our uniforms for that emergency.
In the next few weeks we hid in closets of several homes and then
under the floor in the home of a Dutch officer who had spent 18 months in a
Nazi prison. His spirit hadn't been shaken. To keep busy, we did household
chores and buried his heirlooms in the cellar. Every now and then, German
search parties came through, and we felt we were endangering the family. We
decided to make a break to the Allied lines.
Setting the day, we asked for complete new sets of identification
papers and some old clothes. The Dutch came through with their usual
finesse. Colonel Krebs became a farmer carrying a hoe. I was his hired man
with an armful of twigs for firewood. He could speak
German, but I knew only a few words of the language, so I
tied a bandage around my neck. If we were stopped, Krebs could say I had a
sore throat and couldn't talk.
At a predetermined hour we walked down a street until we came to a
bridge where two 14-year-old boys were munching apples. This was our
recognition signal. I pulled an apple out of my pocket and took a bite. (The
apple and the bridge are shown in the oil painting.) Whistling cheerfully,
the boys assigned to be our guides walked ahead of |
us as we trudged along.
We had 15 miles to go on foot, through roadblocks and patrols in no
man's land. Every two or three miles, our young guides would change, so that
none would be found too far from home—a serious offense to the Nazis. To
skirt some towns, we followed ditches and climbed through barbed-wire
barricades. Other times, we couldn't avoid walking by sentry posts, but we
had learned to say "Morga" ("Howdy") to the guards.
Occasionally, the boys were stopped, and we plodded on until the
youngsters caught up. At the end of that nerve-wracking day, we
arrived at a farmhouse scarred by shelling. In the yard, a woodpile covered
the bottom of an old silo. The widow who owned the farm pulled aside a few
sticks of wood and pointed to a small "room" under the brush. Even some food
awaited us.
About an hour later, a battery of German 88s rolled up nearby and
started firing. They were so close we could hear a German officer give his
orders to fire. For three days shells were whizzing around us—both ways. The
farmhouse was hit, the barn knocked down, arid two sheep killed. That meant
fresh mutton, served graciously by the widow to her eight children—and the
two Americans in the silo.
In the middle of the fourth night, the 88s pulled out and an eerie
silence settled over the farm. Next morning we ventured out of our room
under the woodpile to stretch our cramped legs. Then we heard voices of a
patrol moving up. We were about to dash back to shelter when our ears caught
the clear sounds of familiar slang. They could only be GIs! A few days
later, we were back with our outfit, after 42 days behind enemy lines.
Shortly before that Christmas, after the Breda area was liberated,
Colonel Krebs and I loaded a plane with clothes, C-rations, candy, soap, and
cigarettes — all contributed by about 50 men in our outfit. This mountain of
supplies was heaped into a trailer and jeep which we took along in our C-47.
Landing near Breda, we retraced our steps in the jeep and trailer, passing
out our tokens of gratitude to those who had helped us.
This is the simple story of the oil painting now, hanging in my
Senate office in Washington.
It is not a profile of heroism by a couple of jittery American
airmen; the real heroes are the Dutch people. Colonel Krebs and I were
symbols of the free world. We were important to all these vanquished but
unconquerable people who treasured the dignity of liberty.
When I parachuted into Holland, I felt I was nothing—someone small
and unimportant — a speck in the universe leaving a disabled plane for a
hostile country. When I left Holland, I sensed I had accomplished far more
than our original mission — I had learned from the "defeated" the true
meaning of freedom and how we must never give up lighting for it. |
