Holland: Parades, Grenades, and Hell’s HighwayFrom Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends

American Valor Quarterly, Issue 1, Winter 2007 – 2008
By William “Wild Bill” Guarnere and Edward “Babe” Heffron

Bill Guarnere and “Babe” Heffron have, in recent years, become two of America’s most recognizable veterans of World War II, with their stories made famous by the book Band of Brothers, and the subsequent miniseries on HBO. The popularity of the miniseries, and of Bill and Babe themselves, has done a tremendous service in encouraging younger generations to learn more about the history of World War II and its veterans. Bill and Babe recently told their own story, in the new book Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends. In this issue, we print an excerpt from that book, recounting their experience in Holland during Operation Market Garden.

Mid-September to End Of
November 1944

Babe: Going to Holland we flew in C-47s, with P-38 fighters trailing us for safety. The P-38s fired at anything they had to. Once we got close to the drop zone, we heard occasional bursts of antiaircraft fire, but not much. Things were pretty quiet. Looking out the door of the plane, I saw a windmill, might have been on the Belgium side of the border, and shots were firing out of it at the planes in the sky. We had been told the Germans used windmills to hide their antiaircraft batteries, and sure as hell they did. Right away a couple P-38s that were escorting us flew straight under the tail of our plane right for that windmill. They blasted it, and all we could see were plumes of black smoke. The windmill was destroyed.

The plane’s crew chief, who was an old guy to us kids—he was in his late twenties—went up and down the aisle telling us all what a credit to our country we were. “You guys should be proud of yourselves,” he said. “I wish I could do what you do.” He made us feel really good about what we were doing. He told us he’d mail letters for us, so some of the guys scribbled off letters and handed them to him. I said, “By the way, who’s Doris?” He told me it was the pilot’s wife. I told him about the broad back in South Philly and the Dear John letter. He must have related the story to the pilot, because the pilot, a really nice guy from New Jersey, came out to shake my hand. He looked at us all and said, “Don’t worry, boys, I’ll be dropping you right where you belong.”

The mood in the plane was tense. Guys were praying, sitting in contemplation. We felt some flak on the tail of our plane, and the order came to stand up and hook up. Sometimes you felt that order in the pit of your stomach. When you stepped out that door, you knew full well you might not be alive when you hit the ground. We were told to check equipment and stand in the door. Joe Toye was pushmaster.

They make sure you get a good fast stick out of the plane. The green light came on, even though we weren’t by the drop zone yet. We jumped from about twelve hundred feet, which is high for a combat jump, but the area was supposed to be quiet. We were glad to go out that high because that meant there was no major threat in the area.

I heard a story later that in Bill’s plane, a few of the guys here cutting up and laughing, I guess to relieve the anxiety. Bill was watching the guys, like he always did. He was standing up, and he turned to the rest of the guys and asked, “You guys doing all right?” Then he said, “I just want to remind you, the krauts are down there waiting for us.” All of a sudden, it got quiet. He was saying, if you don’t want to think about what’s coming, I’m going to make you think about it. He wanted the guys to be in fighting mode before they hit the ground.

The jump couldn’t have gone better. It was noon on Sunday, September 17. A bright, beautiful, sunny day. We landed in a giant field. I could hear rifle and machine-gun fire in the distance. The Germans must have been shooting blindly from somewhere far, because shells would go past our ears and just drop to the ground. Projectiles that had no spin on them and just ran out of steam. A crashed glider and C-47 were burning on the field, and chaplains and troopers were trying to drag the dead and wounded off the drop zone. When you landed, you were supposed to move fast—cut your chute off, gather your gear and get off the drop zone to your platoon, and get into formation.