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to capture and hold Nijmegen and its bridges and the noontime
jump was successful; Uncle Joe said it was a beautiful jump with
most of the paratroopers landing in their assigned zones and
then moving out to take their objectives. However, the Germans
regrouped and counterattacked. The 1977 movie A Bridge Too Far
did a good job of recreating the battle and the disastrous loss
of the British and Polish airborne units at Arnhem. The
operation turned into a stalemate and the 508th was engaged in
heavy fighting off and on until it was relieved on November
14th. In the 508th PIR Association’s website, there is a photo
of Uncle Joe posing with seven other paratroopers in Holland.
The caption reads “Devil’s Hill. Group of Headquarters,
Headquarters Co men after taking the hill” and identifies the
men in the photo. During operations in Holland, the 508th
suffered 139 KIA, 479 WIA and 178 MIA.
Upon being relieved, the 508th PIR was moved to Camp Soisson (Swa
son), France, 60 miles northeast of Paris, to reconstitute,
reequip and serve as a part of the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters
Allied Expeditionary Force) reserve force. On December 16th, the
Germans began a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest in
Belgium, setting off what was to become known as the Battle of
the Bulge, the largest battle the U.S. Army ever engaged in and
the most costly in casualties – 80,000.
The 508th along with the rest of the 82nd was hastily thrown
into the battle, deployed into the vicinity of Werbomont,
Belgium north of Bastogne where the 101st Airborne made their
historic stand against the German onslaught. Uncle Joe shared
his thoughts about the fighting with me in a letter six years
ago, recounting how they were the hardest days he experienced
during the war – hearing the roaring of the German tanks and
armored vehicles moving up during the night, the intense cold
and the deep snow of the coldest winter in decades, especially
brutal for an Arizona boy, the large number of GIs felled by
frostbite because they didn’t take care of themselves, having to
fight in the open without the cover of trees, enduring artillery
shelling. This was the only time, on Christmas Eve, that the
82nd, including his regiment, was forced to retreat in battle.
Because he was a demolition specialist, Uncle Joe was often
ordered to hack at the frozen ground to set up defensive
minefields. Besides blowing up
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