The 11th Airborne Division in World War II - Roanoke, VA Lecture

0:00You're listening to Down From Heaven, a podcast that covers the history of the 11th Airborne Division from World War II through today. I'm your host, Jeremy Holm. Thank you for joining me today. Let's jump right in.

0:30Thank you.

0:43Okay, so can everybody hear me if I don't use the microphone? Everybody can hear me? Okay. How many of you have seen the movie Cool Runnings with the Jamaican bobsled team? Okay, just curious. Okay, it's like 2% true, but at least it shows ourselves. We did our sport on a movie, so we were happy for that. My second coach was actually the coach who took the Jamaicans to the Olympics. So he told us all the stories, and he hates that movie because it makes him look like a cheater and a drunk and all that stuff.

1:14So anyway, I really am excited to be here with you. They say you can't go home again, but I've learned that you can visit. My family is originally from Elliston, so big spring, going back to David Barnett. In about 1767 is when he first moved there. So we've been coming to Elliston and Roanoke for almost all my life. And my grandmother, I told some of you, my grandmother lives over in one of the Wellington buildings.

1:45So friendship is home in a lot of ways. So I'm, you know, and John, thanks for doing this. I know it's work and it's a labor of love. But, you know, it's pretty cool that you get to, you know, keep history going and that all of you come to learn about history and share with each other. I just think that's amazing. I hope tonight we can all learn a little bit more about the 11th Airborne Division. Just by a show of hands, how many of you have heard of the 11th Airborne Division before? Okay. So a couple of you have, a couple of you haven't.

2:15And that's okay. It's very common. You know, I grew up with, you know, my grandfather was in the 511th, which was part of the 11th Airborne. You know, he took us, they used to live on Hilton Head Island. We would go to the beach. He taught me how to swim. He taught me how to dive into the pool. You know, we went bike riding around the golf courses in their neighborhoods. And, you know, as a kid, your grandpa is just your hero. And he was my hero. And I never really thought about why doesn't grandpa have a ring finger on his right hand? Why does he have a huge scar and a hole in his shoulder?

2:50And it wasn't until I was, you know, in my mid-teens that I thought to even ask why that was, and I realized that he almost died in the Philippines in World War II fighting for our country. And it just, that's what started this love of the 11th Airborne. And most of these troopers are gone. There's a few that are still alive. And I have the opportunity to talk to them, you know, every week or every other week. I just went down to New Mexico to celebrate the 100th birthday of one of the last paratroopers

3:21and just an amazing man. And, but they all said the same thing to me when, when we talked about me working on this book and, and trying to preserve their history, they all said, thank you for telling our story. So I want to thank you for coming to listen to their story. So we'll, we'll go ahead and, and, and dive right into this during World War II members of the 11th Airborne, um, they were awarded two medals of honor, 10 distinguished service crosses, over 480 silver stars, 100 air medals, 1500 bronze stars, and over 2,500 purple hearts.

3:56Um, so this was a very small elite unit that did some incredible things that I can, hopefully I can paint the big picture for you tonight. But I hope in painting that big picture, I don't do injustice to the individual stories of these young men. The average age in the 511th, including their officers was 21. So they were very, very young. I mean, very, very young. But their record is one that again, most Americans don't know about. When, when I first published the book, most of, most of the world knew me as the bobsled

4:29guy, but when I published this book and I talked about it, a lot of people looked at me and said, we had an airborne division in the Pacific theater. We did. And, and again, they did some amazing things. So, you know, one of the last paratroopers I talked to, he said, I'm afraid that we're being forgotten. And some of the other paratroopers, you know, they, they, they said, where's our movie? Where's our TV show? You know, who's, who's going to tell our story? So I consider it really a sacred honor to be able to share their story with you tonight.

4:59So let's, let's go ahead and just dive right in. The Italian novelist, Luigi Pirandello, he said, the history of mankind is a history of ideas. And one of those ideas was first proposed by Billy Mitchell and World War One. And Billy Mitchell thought, why don't we take parachutes to, you know, World War One was a horrible war of trench warfare, stalemates, and so forth. He said, why don't we use parachutes to drop behind the lines and try to break these stalemates?

5:29Well, that didn't happen in World War One. It wasn't until 1940 that the U.S. military decided to, to put together the parachute test platoon. Again, this was in 1940. They had seen what England was doing. They saw some of the successes that Germany was having using blitzkrieg warfare with their airborne troops. And so the U.S. said, let's try this, right? So this guy right here in, in, up in the green circle there, his name is Hobart Wade.

6:00And he was, he was the platoon sergeant for the test platoon. And he ended up coming over to the 511th, which was the 10th Parachute Infantry Regiment to be organized. And he helped, um, the cadre train all the new volunteers that came in. Um, the commander of the 511th was Colonel Oren D. Hardrock Haugen. Now Colonel Haugen was, he was one of the first officers in the United States to become jump qualified. So he was well known, well respected.

6:30Um, he was a career soldier. And so airborne command gave him command of the 511th Parachute Infantry at Camp Toccoa. So if you've seen the TV series Band of Brothers, the first episode happens at Camp Toccoa when they're training, you know, running up and down the hill, Curahee, they're practicing parachute landing jumps off, off platforms into sawdust. The, the paratroopers I talked to said they ran everywhere, did pushups all the time, and they sweat blood in the Georgia mud. That was Camp Toccoa for them.

7:02But Colonel Haugen was, or Hogan was, I've heard it said both ways, including by his best friend, but he was, uh, he was a pioneer in parachuting and most people know Dick Winters and they can, you know, tell the story of Dick Winters, but most people don't even know that Colonel Haugen existed. So I hope as I tell you more tonight, you'll understand just what an incredible commander he was. Um, but he was 35 years old when he took command of this regiment. So you can see he was the oldest man in the regiment. The regimental surgeon, Dr. Thomas Nestor was the second oldest.

7:34And then everybody after that was, you know, down towards their, you know, mid twenties and so forth. So very, very young group. When, when Colonel Haugen's first officers arrived at Camp Toccoa, you arrive on a train, you get off the train station. So he met them at the train station. They all got in trucks. He took them straight to Curahee mountain, which some of the paratroopers called that damn hill, but that's Curahee right there. It doesn't look that big, but has anybody been to Camp Toccoa? Okay. So you've been, did you hike Curahee?

8:05No. Okay. So I have, it's, it's a big hill. Like it's three miles up, three miles down and you start a little elevation and then you start going steeper, steeper, steeper. And then you get into the mud and the rock. And every time you try to run up, you step on the gravel and slide back down. So this was just an incredible hill. So Colonel Haugen took the first officers, there was about six or seven of them, they're in their dress uniforms and he took them up the hill and he said, you're going to run this every day. This is what we will test our men on.

8:35And he was a cross country runner for the, for the U.S. Army. So he loved the run. He loved the hill. And, and so that's just, they started calling him the great stone face because he never smiled. But he had really high standards. The, uh, the, the war department sent to, sent to the 511th, uh, 12,000 airborne volunteers. So you had to volunteer to get into the parachutes. So they sent 12,000 volunteers to Toccoa. Well, Colonel Haugen eliminated almost 10,000 of them.

9:08He said, they're not good enough. And the war department wired him and said, you need to lower your standards. And when he got the message, it had taken so long that he had already filled, right? His quota. And he just laughed and said, the war department was too late, but that's just what he wanted. He, he thought that the 511th was going to go straight to Europe. So he said, we don't have a lot of time. We have to get these men ready for war. And so he, he pushed them hard. Um, sometimes they did the army daily dozen, the, the daily dozen exercises.

9:40They would do it twice. And he would often lead their runs up Curahee and he would lead the exercises. And the, the guys who volunteered all said that, you know, their instructors, the cadre would just dish out, um, pushups like it was candy, which was difficult because they were there at the end of December, January, February, March, uh, 43. And so it was chilly, rainy. So they're trying to do these pushups in this cold mud. And then it was just cold at night and they're in these shacks without much heat.

10:12And, and, you know, Toccoa was a tough place for these guys, but it really got them prepared for some of the things they would face in the war a little bit later on. Some of the things that Colonel Haugen required of his men, he said, I want athletes. So when you volunteered for the 511th, you had to strip down to your underwear, walk through the camp to, uh, one of the main buildings and Colonel Haugen would be there with his battalion commanders and they would interview you to see if you fit the bill. Like it's like a job interview. So it would ask what your background was.

10:43They would ask you questions to test your mentality. Do you have, you know, an aggressive attitude or are you afraid or, you know, it was just, it was an interesting way they set this up. And if you didn't pass that test, you were just sent out to what they called cow company and a tent in the mud and you were gone the next day. And then also he, he had all the applicants take the army intelligence test. And he said they had to have a, an, an, a test score of 110 or higher, which is the same for officer candidate school.

11:15So one of the paratroopers told me the Colonel was looking for kids that were smart, but dumb enough to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. But one of the other, um, one of the other officers and the regiment, he pointed out something. He said, our regiment stole a lot of good officers. Our lowliest private would have been a lieutenant in another army unit. So that just shows you the caliber of these young men. They were fit, they were aggressive, but again, most were athletes. They were very intelligent.

11:46And so when they left Camp Toccoa in March, this was a pretty elite unit already. You know, some of you have observed and you know that sometimes those you're serving alongside, it helps if they have a little intelligence, a little discipline, a little work ethic, teamwork, so forth. So again, they called him the great stone face. And one of the captains told me, we never called him that to his face. But as time went on, they learned that the Colonel was tough, but he was fair.

12:17Like if he did something wrong, if he got in trouble, he would hear your case. He would give you a fair shake. So they started calling him the hard rock of Toccoa because everything he asked his men to do, he did. And he did it better, which led one of the young pair, pair troopers to, you know, they were going up Curahee Mountain one day and this was his first time up the hill. And he saw Colonel Haugen up there and he said, if that old SOB can do this hill, I can too. So he led by example.

12:47He wasn't just a do what I say. He said, follow me, I will lead the way. And so the men, at first they thought it was tough, maybe too tough. But as time went on, they really came to trust and respect and even love the Colonel. So there was a method to his madness, of course. And as I said, he expected that as soon as they finished jump school, they were going to go straight to Europe. It was no secret that the invasion of Europe was going to happen. They just, nobody knew when. But he fully expected. He said, you know, I have a great unit. We're going to be paratroopers.

13:18We're going to Europe. So he trained them that way, you know, the, when the 506th, which, you know, if you've seen Band of Brothers, Easy Company, Colonel Sink was over the 506th. So he would stand up and lead his men in the exercises. And he would say, we want the best. And the 511th got there just as the 506th was leaving. So Colonel Haugen would stand up to his men when he's doing the exercises. He would tell them, we are the best, which the 506th guys didn't like very much, but the

13:48511th didn't really care. So they headed to Camp McCall in March of 1943. And they joined, they were the first fully formed unit for the 11th Airborne Division. Now we're getting into the 11th Airborne Division. The commander was Major General Joseph Swing. And he was one of the most qualified airborne commanders in the United States. He had been part of the 82nd Infantry Division over their artillery.

14:20And then that became the 82nd Airborne Division. So he was one of the first high-ranking officers to get his jump wings. So he understood vertical envelopment. He understood the power of the Airborne Division. He was a huge proponent of airborne. And we'll talk about that in just a second, what that really meant. But, you know, at Camp McCall, they got their artillery units coming in, the medical and signals and all. So General Swing had to get everybody integrated, learn their jobs and so forth. So that took a while.

14:51And the 511th went to Fort Benning to earn their jump wings. But they were so physically fit that they skipped phase A, which is the first week at Fort Benning. And so they skipped the physical readiness part because they were so fit already that the instructors there said, you don't need this. Let's move on really quickly. So they learned, I mean, everything. We could spend a whole session talking about Fort Benning. But one thing I do want to say is the 511th kids, I mean, they were basically kids, but

15:26they kind of angered the instructors at Fort Benning. Because when, you know, if any of you have been to Fort Benning, jump school is tough. And the instructors like you to listen, get it right. And if you don't, they'll have you run. They'll have you do pushups, everything. Well, the 511th would just do double whatever the instructors told them to do. So they said things like drop and give me 20. They would drop and give 40, get up and try not to laugh in the instructor's face. So the 511th, they actually really came, the instructors came to respect the 511th very quickly

15:57because they realized this is a special group of troopers we have here. But they still tried to make them crack. In jump school, when they learned to pack their parachutes, you're not supposed to lean on the tables. Well, William Walter and my grandpa's D company, he was leaning on the table. And one of the instructors comes in and he says, uh-huh, Sergeant Small was on the ball. He caught you leaning on the wall. So he told William Walter to load up his shoulders with the little bags full of BBs to weight

16:28the parachutes down. And he said, you go waddle around this building. And the rigor shed is huge. So he had to waddle around this huge building, quacking like a duck the whole time. And then two of his friends saw that and laughed. And the instructor said, oh, you think that's funny? Go join them. So the three of them are walking in a row like ducks, just quacking the whole time. So anyway, so the 5-11th did finish in three weeks. They all finished their qualifying jumps, including one of the troopers, Red Isles.

16:59Red decided to spend the weekend before at the swimming pool at Fort Benning. So he was so sunburned. They said he was about as red as the cushions on these pews. So that's where he owned his nickname, Red. So they said, his buddy said, I don't know how he got his jumpsuit on. I don't know how he got his parachute on. I don't know how he withstood the opening shock five times that week. But he earned his jump wings because I've been sunburned before. And I can only imagine how painful that was to parachute five times.

17:30But so they earned their jump wings. And then they go back to Camp McCall. And again, the 11th Airborne is forming. All the different components of an airborne division are all forming there. So this created kind of a problem because the 11th Airborne, they already knew they were an elite unit. They were volunteers. The two glider regiments, those were all airborne told. They were voluntold to go to the 11th Airborne division. So you have this distinction within division where you have the 511th who they're cocky, athletes, paratroopers, better looking uniforms, jump pay, all these different things.

18:07You have everybody else in the division who doesn't get that. And so it kind of created this conflicting problem that lasted throughout their stateside training. And we'll talk more about that in a second. But General Swing only got to deal with that for a second because his roommate at West Point was Dwight Eisenhower. So Operation Husky over in Sicily, Dwight Eisenhower said, Joe, come over, be my airborne advisor.

18:38So if you've studied anything about Operation Husky in Sicily, you know that those airborne drops were a disaster. And that's because although General Swing tried to advise General Eisenhower, there was a certain Brit, Bernard Montgomery, who thought he knew everything. So he said, nope, we're not going to do what Joe Swing says. So General Swing, he said, that was a disaster because you didn't listen to me. But one of the biggest problems with the disasters in Sicily, with the parachute drops and everything and so forth, was that the War Department said, you know what?

19:10I don't think airborne divisions work. Let's get rid of them. It seems that regimental combat teams are more effective. So General Swing came back to the states and that's what he's being told. Well, of course, he didn't agree with that, nor did airborne command. So they put General Swing in charge of a panel of officers called the Swing Board and they said, figure this out. You've got to fix the problems that happen in Sicily or the 82nd, the 101st and the 11th Airborne and the 17th Airborne will all be broken up.

19:41So there would have been no 101st or 82nd, if not for what I'm about to tell you. So that's my grandpa. I just want to show you that picture later. That's the last picture I got with him before he died. Good looking guy, right? They came back to Camp McCall. It was funny. So the paratroopers, when they got back, they didn't know what was going on over in Sicily. They knew there were the drops. They didn't know that their 11th Airborne Division might be broken up. So the 511th was just enjoying training. They walked through the streets.

20:12The people of Hoffman, North Carolina, said you could tell an 11th Airborne paratrooper from a mile away down the street because they walked with such swagger. And they did. I mean, they put their coins in their hat and they polished their boots, looked like glass, and they fought everybody. I mean, they were always fighting everybody because they called them the Three Musketeers. They would fight amongst themselves, but if any other unit in the area touched a paratrooper, you were going to fight the whole regiment.

20:42So General Swing comes back. He's dealing with these problems, trying to figure out what went wrong in Sicily. All the airborne officers come up with, it's called Training Circular 113. It established airborne doctrine for the remainder of the war and Korea, and it had effects in Vietnam and so forth. But the War Department said, well, that's nice, but let's see if it actually works. Prove it. So I thought this was funny. I want to share this with you. General Swing said, the 511th is the greatest men in the world to go to war with, and the last people in the world I'd take home to date my baby sister.

21:18So he loved his paratroopers, but they didn't always love him. And we'll just leave it at that. So the War Department said, prove your theories, prove that airborne divisions can work. So they put on the Knollwood maneuvers in December of 1943. And the 11th Airborne, they were the Blue Force, who had to prove that you could have multiple groups taking off from different airfields that could meet so far over the water, and then follow a planned course, find the drop zones, get everybody in the drop zones, attack the prepared and entrenched enemy forces,

21:55and then prove that you can get the gliders in, you can get casualties out, you can resupply, all these things. So for these days, the 11th Airborne just proved over and over. I mean, the 511th landed on the airfield, took it very quickly, and the next morning, the 11th Airborne started landing their gliders and transports and so forth. So all the paratroopers said, we just remember Knollwood maneuvers because it was cold, sleet, they had to sleep outside, and they were surrounded by War Department brass. I mean, observers were everywhere watching every single thing they did, which is kind of funny because these gliders down here,

22:30some of the signals guys, their glider kind of crashed, and they couldn't get their radio equipment out. So they got an axe, and they cut off the wings, and then they hooked their jeep up to the glider and just drove it around as a trailer all through Knollwood. And of course, the glider pilot said, you can't do that. And the paratroopers, the glider, the angels are up on top with an axe cutting that down, and he looks over and he sees the Secretary of War, and he said, he doesn't seem to care. Cut, cut, cut, and off they went.

23:00So they were so successful, the 11th Airborne was so successful that the War Department said, we were wrong. General Leslie McNair wrote General Swing and said, your division was so effective in proving the airborne concept that I was wrong, the War Department was wrong, and we will continue forward with the training and implementation of airborne divisions. So, yes? Was this the first time that anyone had ever parachuted out of an airplane? No, no, no.

23:31The 511th was the 10th Regiment Forms. The test parachute was three years before this. So it was still very new. I don't want to discount the fact that parachuting was very new. For a lot of these guys, this was the first time they ever saw an airplane at Fort Benning. And then, you know, they said, that's the first time I ever rode in one was in Fort Benning. And a lot of them laughed and said, the first time we landed in one was in Japan years later. So, yeah. So the 11th Airborne saved the airborne as we know it.

24:05And so if it wasn't for them, the 82nd and 101st would not exist. And even historians in those two divisions don't even acknowledge that. They don't even recognize what the 11th Airborne did. But it goes beyond that because the planning that went into the Knollwood maneuvers was what Dwight Eisenhower used to plan the D-Day airborne operations for Normandy. So the 11th Airborne helped make that happen. Like, you guys have all seen, you guys know these little crickets, the little clicker things that the 101st, 82nd used on D-Day?

24:38Well, the 11th Airborne thought of that. They said, how are we going to, part of it was the 11th Airborne jumped on airfields guarded by the 17th Airborne. They said, how are we going to distinguish between friend and foe? And they came up with these little crickets. So the angels contributed this to D-Day. I mean, all these things, right? So do you see how they're already starting to make history? And most people don't even know. So after that, they went down to Camp Polk, Louisiana, which they loved because, you know, of course, they got to take their nice uniforms and polished boots down to Baton Rouge and all the areas.

25:12And they said the young ladies liked their uniforms. So they loved Camp Polk. But it was a training area to get them acclimated to jungle environments and so forth. It was also where they got their final testing from the War Department. The troopers all said they also got all their shots, anything they had missed since they were born. The medics would just jab into their arm. And so a lot of guys just, they said, you couldn't lift your arm for a week because you got so many shots. But they were an amazing group of guys. So that's my grandpa right there at his wedding.

25:45And this guy over here, Leo Crawford, I can't believe that guy's a paratrooper because my grandpa was tall. He was about an inch taller than I was. So you can see how tall that guy is. I don't know how he jumped out of a plane. Oh, yeah. One story from Camp Polk. So Camp Polk was, for the most part, it was home to armored units. And so when the 11th Airborne arrived and they got situated, they saw some of the tankers wearing what they thought were jump boots. And they actually weren't jump boots, but they looked like them.

26:19Some of the motorcycle messengers and some of the different tanker units would have boots that looked like jump boots. But the paratroopers were so proud of their boots. And remember, nobody else in the division got to wear them. So why would these tankers get to wear them? So as my grandpa told me, all hell broke loose. And there were fights all across Camp Polk. And the paratroopers, they would take these boots off the tankers. And they would do two things. They would either take their jump knives and cut the boots down to what they thought were regulation size and then give them back to the tanker.

26:53Or they would take them back to the tankers' barracks and leave them at the front door. So the tankers would all have to walk back to Camp Polk barefoot. So it was a pretty, it got pretty bad. And that's where I point out this Leo Crawford guy. There was a fight in the officers' club. I mean, there were enlisted fights all the time, but there was a fight in the officers' club. And the officers said, all right, tankers, you pick one champion. We'll pick one champion. You guys fight it out. And then that will be it. Well, Leo Crawford right here, because he was such a big guy, they picked him.

27:26And my grandpa said, it was a knockdown, drag out fight. Nobody won. And General Swing heard of it. And he got so mad, he sent Leo to the gliders. And he chastened the rest of his officers and so forth, right? So what was going on was Captain Kavanaugh told me that we were like horses. We were so trained. We were so fit. We were so ready to go fight, but we couldn't. We kept thinking we were going to go fight. And we kept getting sent to a different camp stateside. And so they were fighting with each other, fighting with the other units.

27:57And their officers recognized this. Like, we've trained them to be ready for war. We need to get moving along. So after all that, they boarded the Sea Pike. Like, they took a train from Louisiana north. And everybody on the train was placing bets. Are we going to turn left or right? Because the Nazis are over there. The Japanese are over here. And so they're placing bets. And all of a sudden, they see the train take a big left turn. And the sun's in their face. And they all said, oh, we're going to fight the Japanese. So they went to Camp Stoneman, California, which is kind of outside San Francisco.

28:31And they were there for a few days signing their wills and insurance forms and, you know, last tests and, you know, making last phone calls to their families and so forth. And Colonel Haugen, he heard that a Marine unit had set a 12-mile march method or march record before they went to the Pacific. And Colonel Haugen said, we can beat their record. So he got these guys all geared up. And they went out and they started marching. And they ended up beating the Marine unit's record by 45 minutes.

29:02That is not discounting what Marines can do because we all know how tough they are. But that shows you how fit the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment was. But what made the paratroopers so mad was they could not tell anybody that they beat the record because their going to the Pacific was a secret. So they had to take off their jump boots. They had to stow all their jump uniforms. They had to take off all their patches. They were just it was unit. I think it was 117 or something. That's all they could say. What unit are you? 117.

29:32They hated that. They broke the record, but they can never tell anybody. And that record stood until the end of the war. So finally, they get to get on this boat right here. You can see the SSC Pike, which was a converted cargo ship. And they said it was the hell ship. They said 20 days. We had two meals each day and they were awful. We had to wait in a long line to get food. And then when you finished, you had to go back and get in line again so you could eat dinner. They said the cargo holds were like what you see in movies where they weld the bunks five up and it had no air circulation.

30:05So imagine 100 guys in a room like this all stacked up and sweaty and stinky and they couldn't shower and stuff for 20 days. So they took to stealing the merchant marines' food because the merchant marines were eating sandwiches for snacks and then eating full meals. So the paratroopers said, no, we're going to take your food. So for 20 days, they head towards New Guinea. And when they got on the ship, they got that kind of standard letter from President Roosevelt that said, you know, our thoughts and prayers go with you.

30:37We're grateful as a nation and so on and so forth. But this guy right here, Alex Village Center, he got a second official letter with a presidential seal. So again, this was the first day they got on board. And he opened it up and it said, Alex, your brothers have been killed in Europe. You are the last surviving son in your family. This is your official notice that you can go home to, he was, it was called the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. They said you can go home if you want to. And of course, all the other paratroopers on deck are like, why does he get a second letter?

31:08So they all gathered around. And as he read the letter out loud, they were just shocked. You know, by then, by then they were all close friends. And Alex just folded up the letter and said, you are my brothers now. I will stay with you and fight. And he did. He fought with them all the way to Japan. So I just thought it was a pretty cool story. So they went to New Guinea, a place called Dobadura. And they just set up camp. It was an old airfield that was abandoned because the war had moved north. So they just set up camp. They were there from May to September, just theater training, learning from Australian units that have been fighting the Japanese, how to move in the jungle, how to fight.

31:46They set up shooting ranges and reflex testing courses. I mean, it was, it was pretty intense training. And they all said they were very lucky to get to train so long. Because, you know, if you know anything about World War II, there were units that trained for three weeks and were immediately sent to the front. So, you know, the 11th Airborne was grateful for this training and so forth. They didn't spend all the time, you know, working. They boxed. They played volleyball, baseball. They had USO shows. You can see they took it very seriously. This is funny. So, again, my family is from Elliston.

32:17And there were members of our family a few generations ago that were involved in moonshine. So I thought this was funny. The paratroopers would build stills out in the jungle. Because the Australians had taught them how to hide things in the jungle, right, how to hide themselves. So they built stills and had the Whiskey Rebellion of Dobadura, they called it. So, you know, New Guinea was a great time. And one thing they hated doing was they had to unload ships because on New Guinea there weren't enough service troops. So even the mighty 11th Airborne had to go unload ships, which, of course, the angels thought was, you know, beneath them.

32:52And they just kind of hated that. So the 511th, when they carried things off the ships, they would just take whatever they wanted. You know, they're thinking we're going to war. We need to prepare ourselves. So they stole cases of .45s, grenade launchers, Jeeps, whatever they wanted, really. The surrounding units said when the 11th Airborne finally left, they went over to Dobadura. And there was like a parking lot of all these stolen Jeeps and trucks and ducks, those floating amphibious transport things.

33:26So the angels were known as thieves. They actually went down to, you can't see it in this picture, but I think it's up north a little bit. But there was a big docks area. So they went down and they stole the big generator from the docks. They just cut the wires, put it in a truck, and then trucked it back to the 511th's camp. So they said that, you know, for two weeks, our camp was lit up like Times Square, which is great because they've been using Coleman lanterns. Well, General Swing found out about that, and he said, you should not steal things. Put it in my CP. So he took the generator, put it there, right?

33:57So the port commander came down, and he said, Swing, your boys are stealing everything. Hey, that's my generator, right? And General Swing is like, my boys would never steal anything. They're perfect angels, right? So that's part of where their nickname, the angels, come from. But my grandpa said, that's not true. They were thieves. They stole everything they wanted to. And I think part of the reason that General Swing was so adamant about rejecting those claims that they were thieves is because he had the generator right there.

34:28So anyway, the port commander got his generator back, and off it went. But the 11th Airborne would sneak into nearby camps and steal their food and say, like, you have canned peaches. We want canned peaches. So they'd practice their infiltration skills and steal all that and come back out. So again, so that was New Guinea, but things came to a reality. They were sent to Leyte in November and December of 1944. So one thing you have to understand is, you know, at that time, there was always those slogans of the war is going to be over by Christmas.

34:59The war is going to be over by Christmas. So you have such an elite group like this. A lot of them said, when we were on New Guinea, we were training so much, but we were frustrated because we worried the war might be over by the time we get there. Well, it wasn't. So they went north to Leyte. They landed in November. And they went inland, and they were immediately greeted offshore by Japanese bombers who were attacking the convoys. And if you know anything, the Leyte Harbor was the scene of the biggest naval battle in World War II.

35:32And so the 11th Airborne arrives, and these bombers are coming in. And, you know, this was their first taste of combat, their first day on Leyte. And, you know, they said they cheered. They saw P-38s and P-47s come over and shoot down the bombers and take off. But then they realized, we're going to be shot at next. Right? This is real now. This is real now. So they got on there, and they came inland a little bit. And one thing about Leyte is that the 11th Airborne was not supposed to stay on Leyte.

36:04They were supposed to stop and let another infantry division go south and over here to Ormok, but just hold the positions. And then the 11th Airborne was supposed to go north up to Luzon, because the thought was the Leyte campaign will be over within a month. It was not. But there were forces that were down south, Allied forces here, up here, and over here. But nobody could take this mountain range through here.

36:34Right? You have a standard infantry division that's very reliant on their transportation, artillery support, so on and so forth. They could not get into those mountains, and the Japanese knew that. So the Japanese had a supply line going through here. And the Japanese were taking troops from Luzon and dropping them up here. So the Allies had this big problem. How do we break the supply line? How do we stop the Japanese from reinforcing this island? Because Leyte is turning so bloody, we do not want to stay here and turn it into just a stalemate.

37:06So General Swing said, hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you let me take my men up into the mountains? And, of course, Allied command, you know, on the island said, that's a great idea. You're an airborne unit. You're accustomed to having no support. Great. You're on your own. Good luck. And that's really how it was. And so the 11th Airborne, or the 511th, was elected to go first. They were the spearhead that went into the mountains. And you can kind of see the route. They look, it looks like a very short distance, and it's not too far.

37:39I mean, you can see it's not too many miles, but moving through the jungle, moving up the hills. They said a lot of those ravines were straight up, so you'd have to hold vines up and then slide down the mud on the other side. Because it's monsoon season, right? They couldn't see very far because it just, when they got up to the heights, they were in the clouds. Which meant the Japanese could strike out of the darkness like ghosts. They called them ghosts in the darkness and so forth.

38:02So Leyte quickly became a nightmare, is what one of the paratroopers told me. So they were given a Thanksgiving breakfast, cold turkey, fruit salad. And they said that as they were trying to eat it in their mess kits, the rain was coming so hard that it just overflowed their mess kits. And they just, they ate more water than they did fruit salad. And the turkey was just turkey soup pretty much by the time they got done. But they put their weapons and packs on, and they head into the hills. And one thing I want to point out right now is that the 511th, again, was the spearhead. They suffered 75% of the division's casualties on this island.

38:35And their foxholes filled with water, again, the Japanese would just bonsai attack out of nowhere. They just expected it every night the Japanese would come in. So what they started doing was, you know, this was something that the 11th Airborne did that a lot of other units in the Pacific did not do. But the 11th Airborne would not dig in until after dark, right? Because the Japanese would watch where they dug in if they did it before sundown. So the 11th Airborne was very intelligent, very creative, and they would string tripwires out with grenades and so forth. But again, they were still bonsai attacked almost every night all the way through this whole campaign.

39:08They said it was just, it was pretty awful. Their maps were useless. So they were following Japanese, recovered Japanese maps from like 10 years before. And so they had to send out their recon platoon to try to find the way. But they were basically, they said we were trying to just feel our way through the jungle. You couldn't see five feet in front of you because it's just such thick jungle. They learned to smell the Japanese before they saw them. They said the Japanese couldn't bathe. They smelled and their leather smelled. We could smell their leather before we saw them.

39:39So we knew where the Japanese were. Their first engagement with the enemy was a disaster. So the 511th split into three groups, and they were trying to follow these trails they fought, the North, Central, and South Trail. And they were heading for a certain village they were going to meet there. Well, Colonel Haugen with C Company and regimental headquarters took a shortcut because they had a local Filipino said, you should go this way. So they're walking along this river bottom, and their scouts see their first signs of the enemy.

40:11They see two or three Japanese soldiers bathing, and so they tell the platoon leader, and the platoon leader says, shoot them. Right? Platoon leader didn't ask anybody above him. He just said, shoot them. So they did. What they didn't realize and they couldn't see was that the hills around them were covered with Japanese units who now had the angels boxed in. Right? So these elite paratroopers are now at the river bottom with the enemy above them, and the Japanese could put their machine guns down, but the paratroopers' brownings could not fire up.

40:44So they instantly started taking casualties. And one of Colonel Haugen's bodyguards says, this was not how our first engagement was supposed to go. It was three days. And Colonel Haugen, so one of the problems was because he took a shortcut, nobody knew where this group was. So Colonel Haugen broke out of the Japanese encirclement and led, it's like four other paratroopers, for 30 hours, you know, getting back to where General Swing's command post was.

41:15And he explained, this is where they are. And Colonel Haugen then said, I want to lead the rescue force to go get my men. And General Swing said, you're not going back there. And so he sent one of the other guys that came out as guide. And so eventually C Company and regimental headquarters was rescued, but they realized you do not underestimate the Japanese. Right? If you think of the propaganda they had been filled, it's like, you know, the Japanese can't see, they're terrible fighters, they're short, they're weak, and so forth. And the angels all said, after Leyte, we knew they could fight.

41:46And they knew we could fight too. So, and again, one thing about that is remember their maps were useless. So they had to send their Piper Cubs over to listen for the gunfire to find C Company and RHQ, even with that guide's help and so forth. So they tried to come up with solutions as they went along. And after that, I won't say things got easier, but it did get better. They were a lot more careful about where they went as they were following trails through Leyte. One of the things they did was they sent their anti-aircraft guys up into the hills with their radios.

42:21Said, you're going to act as relay points. As the 511th pushes deeper, you're going to follow them at different points. And then those Piper Cubs are going to come over and get the reports from the different units. And then come back and report it here at headquarters and so forth. So as the 511th went along, they could report where they were and so on and so forth. So General Walter Kruger, he said the 511th was the fightingest outfit I have ever seen because the 511th just pushed forward.

42:52After that initial engagement, they just steamrolled over the Japanese units they encountered. Yeah, those are those are the mountains they went up into. And you can see how difficult that was to get up and over and so forth. So one of the paratroopers says after Leyte, hell was a vacation. But you can kind of see. So these are the conditions. These are some of the only photos of the 511th taken from Leyte. So that's my grandpa right there. This is his platoon. And that's Captain Stephen Kavanaugh.

43:23But you can see on their bodies a little bit. They're starting to develop the jungle sores. They went seven days without eating. Because again, General Swing said, this is a great idea. We'll take the mountains. He did not think, how am I going to get my men fed? It's monsoon season. So none of the air transports could fly into those mountains. It was too dangerous. 1C47 tried and crashed. So the 511th went up with three days rations. And they started eliminating the Japanese. But then they started stealing the dead Japanese, the food off the dead Japanese.

43:53Because that's all they had. And then they ran out of that. So they started eating roots and berries and rats. And my grandpa said, I looked over at my buddy in the foxhole one night. And I wondered how he would taste. He said, we were just that hungry. He said, when you're hungry, you'll eat anything.

44:10And the monsoons got worse as the angels pushed inland. And so what they did was those Piper Cub pilots would load up their planes, their little L-4s, L-5s, fly into the mountains. And then they would listen for gunfire. Or they would shout down if they could see where the paratroopers were and say, like, you know, what do you guys need? Ammo and food. And they would just kick it out of the back of their planes. That's how the 5-11 survived for, it was about 25 days at that point on Leyte.

44:42Because their pilots were willing to do that. And their surgeons were no less amazing. You have to understand is that as they went up, up, up, they're going in further into the jungle. That means there's no roads to get their casualties out, out, out. So they had to carry their casualties with them as they went forward. And they said, we just buried our dead where they fell. And we marked their graves and so forth. So their doctors and their medics just worked under crazy conditions. There's a story of Dr. Thomas Nestor performing brain surgery in a slit trench.

45:18And the guy survived. And to give you another idea, there was a trooper in F company, Harold Spring, who a Japanese machine gun basically cut him in half. And so Dr. Chambers said, you know, he told some of his assistants, dig a trench. And they put Harold in it. And then some of the medics held a poncho over him. And then with a flashlight, Dr. Nestor performed surgery to stitch Sergeant Spring back together. And then he covered him with a blanket. And he said, leave him there. You're probably going to have to bury him in the morning.

45:50We'll come the next morning. Harold's alive. He's talking. So they got him out of that. And they moved him back to their hospital, which was just a bamboo shelter. And he lived. He went home. And he died at, I think, 80-something. But he sent Captain Nestor a Captain Marvel comic book cover. And he said, you're a marvel. You know, it's just, I mean, both of them are. It's pretty amazing. So Captain Nestor said there should be doctors for paratroopers and doctors for ordinary people.

46:22About three weeks into this campaign, the paratroopers camped out on the Japanese supply line. Well, the Japanese knew this. So those bonsai attacks got worse. And again, they're running out of ammunition. They're running out of food. It's getting pretty tough. But my grandpa said what kept us together was our love for each other. You know, you never leave your buddy. You know, they would fight and die with their friends. So I want to show you this picture right here. I know it's very hard to see. It is the only existing photo of the cemetery that the 511th built where they camped out on the supply tray.

46:56It was called Rock Hill. But you can see the crosses in different places if you look really closely. And you can see how many of them there were. The 511th suffered over 400 casualties on Leyte.

47:11One of the paratroopers said it was devastating when you had to bury your buddy. You know, my grandpa said there's nothing like the closeness of your buddies in combat. It's something you can't explain to somebody who has not served. So there's a reason that Private Jim Wholesome said this was the saddest place on Earth. So again, they spent 33 days in the mountains. They successfully destroyed Japan's 16th and 26th Infantry Divisions. It was the 16th Infantry Division that was involved with the rape of Nanking.

47:43If you know anything about that and how horrible that was. So there are some who called the angels the avenging angels for destroying that division right there. So they reached to a point where they're looking over Ormok Bay. And they're stuck because the Japanese have a last line of defense right there. An E&F company from the 511th tried to break through and they couldn't. So Colonel Haugen had met with General Swing. And General Swing said, you know what? I'm going to take the 187th Infantry Division, which had been following the 511th.

48:16So they hadn't really seen much combat. He said, I'm going to send them up to break through. And then I'm going to march with them down to the bay where all the cameras are and the journalists and so forth, right? Okay. So imagine you're a 511th paratrooper who had just seen hell for almost 30 days, buried your friends, fought the Japanese, suffered hunger, tropical diseases. They were all sick at this point. They had dengue and fevers and so forth. But then they hear General Swing is going to do that. And they all basically said, hell no.

48:47Colonel Haugen said the same thing. He said, we will affect the breakthrough. We have taken this island and we will do this. So he sent my grandpa's D company, 1st Platoon, up this really narrow ridge that they could only fit about one or two troopers at a time up this ridge. And they started early and the Japanese were famous for sleeping late. And so they split into squads and they attacked and they caught the Japanese by surprise. And one of the troopers and D company said, we were so tired. We were so frustrated with all we had been through.

49:20We just took out our frustrations on the Japanese. We wanted to be done with this island. And my grandpa said, we shot everything we saw. It was like shooting rabbits in a brush. And they get to the top of the ridge and they take all these defensive positions. And then they look down and they see this Japanese column, right? That outnumbers them quite a bit. And all the 511th guys start firing. So this statue is of John Vittori. He was kind of a troublemaker in D company, but he grabbed his machine gun just like this.

49:50And he charged the Japanese column. And it's called the rat's ass charge because that was D company's motto. You know, he says, rat's ass, who's with me? And he takes off. And of course, 1st Platoon is like, we got to go. And they followed him and they just charged into the Japanese column. And the platoon had, you know, I think it was about 80 effectives on that day. And my grandpa said, we killed 300 Japanese that day. And he wasn't saying that to brag. And he wasn't saying that to discount the value of human life. He just said, that's how good we were.

50:22That's what we did. So they break through. And General Swing says to the 511th, stop. And D company says, no. And so they keep chasing the Japanese. And General Swing says again, stop. And they say, no. And he says it a third time. So finally, you know, the 511th D company stops. Well, the next morning, General Swing walks through with these 187th glider infantry guys in these clean uniforms. And all the paratroopers said, you could tell they had been eating better than we were.

50:52And General Swing was famous for drinking a shot of whiskey every night and having a steak dinner, right, back at his comfortable CP on the other side of the island. So you can see where these frustrations with the 511th come in. But they had to sit there and they watched him walk all through. They watched him walk down to friendly units in Ormoc Bay and get the cameras and get all the pictures. And journalists are all asking and stuff. So two days later, Christmas morning, the 511th is finally told, you can come down to Ormoc. So their train, their column was, you know, about a mile long, a little over a mile long.

51:29They're carrying all their wounded with them. And they said it was a gray morning. Just nobody felt good. I mean, after that experience is in combat, you just can't, they said you can't put it in words what we felt like. We felt like our souls were as gray as the dark clouds around us. But at the front of the column, somebody started singing. Oh, come all ye faithful, right? Joyful and triumphant. And it starts traveling down the line.

51:59And all of a sudden, you have an entire regiment of young paratroopers who had just seen hell singing Christmas carols as they come down the mountain. And they said it just lifted our hearts and we remembered what this day was all about. So they were given a month's rest and they were sent straight to Luzon, in southern Luzon. The 11th Airborne landed amphibiously, pushed inland. You can kind of see it here. They pushed inland, did some fighting here, went to Tagaytai Ridge, where the 511th came in

52:29and parachuted in, and then they went straight up to Manila up here. So one thing I want to point out is that the Japanese had always expected the Allies to come from the south. So they put all their heavy defenses there. They built miles of cement fortifications. They took anti-aircraft guns and pointed them straight down. They took all the sunken naval ships' guns, put them on that line. All the machine guns put them on that line. They built bunkers and so forth. So think of what you imagine Normandy, D-Day was like with all those bunkers on the cliff.

53:01And that's what this huge line was in the southern part of the city. And you have an airborne division that's going to fight that with limited support. And, you know, I asked my grandpa one time what that was like, and he said, that was just the job. And we did it. We broke through that line in two days. And the Japanese had anticipated holding off two corps of attackers and one airborne infantry or one airborne division broke through. So the angels were just amazing.

53:31My grandpa showed me this picture. He said, I'm one of those out there somewhere. So that's the Tagaytai Ridge jump. But then they're in Manila. And Manila was just, it was a brutal, brutal campaign. They said Leyte was worse, but they said Luzon was just difficult because, you know, there were Japanese defenders that, you know, if you know anything about street fighting, it is brutal. Jungle is rough, but street fighting and house to house. They said they were going house to house, clearing the Japanese out.

54:03The Japanese had taken 500 pound aerial bombs and put little glass triggers. So when their Jeeps would run over them, they'd explode. Um, my grandpa told me of a day they had a tank destroyer attached and the tank destroyer backed over one of those mines and it just blew the several ton tank into the air and then landed down and just killed everybody. And it knocked everybody in D company back. And, um, they said one of the hardest things was when they were up on Tagaytai Ridge outside the city, they could see the horizon turning orange at night and they realized it was the

54:35Japanese burning the city. And then as they pushed into the city, all the Filipino guerrillas would bring them reports of what's going on in different places. And they just heard of the Japanese just killing, raping, mutilating, burning, destroying. It was just hell on earth for the people of Manila. And the angels got angrier and angrier the more they heard. So that's part of the reason they broke through the Genco line so quickly. They wanted to liberate and free those people. So they, they took Nichols Field, they took Fort McKinley, they took Intramuros, um, pretty

55:08tough nuts to crack and so forth. And then, um, they went through Las Pinas and, and Paranake and, and those sorts of things. So I want to give you just one story that will explain how rough this campaign was. Again, you have an airborne infantry that has no tank support. They got a few tank destroyers every now and then, but they weren't attached. They would come and go their artillery was 75 millimeter, which is very small. That's all they had to break through these bunkers. They said, the only reason we got able to take the bunkers is we use flamethrowers, uh,

55:40charges with dynamite and men of the highest caliber, right? Imagine D day, right? But no naval support, no aerial support, right? That's what this was like. It was just, it was rough. So eight days into the, into the Manila campaign, um, D company was told they could finally take a break. Captain Kavanaugh told me he had not slept almost that whole time. And he said, okay, let's, and he looked at his map and he said, okay, our, our assembly point is back here for rest for, for like half a day. So he's watching his men come back in and he's like, this is taking too long.

56:16We need to move. Let's go. So he turns to his first Sergeant and he chews him out and he says, you had got it. You've got to get these men moving. We have places to be. We need to go. We don't have very long. And his first Sergeant looked at him and he says, captain, that's all that's left. Everybody else is gone. In, in five days of fighting, um, for, for D company, um, they lost 38 men killed or wounded. So Manila was just, I hate to say a bloodbath, but it really was for the five 11th, but they

56:50did it. They, they liberated the city, but it came at an even greater cost on February 11th. And general swing took Colonel Haugen on a few of his staff. And they went over to the headquarters of, of Colonel Norman Tipton of the 187th. And, and they were in this building in the city and they were, they were looking out, uh, over the fighting that was going on. They could see, you know, grandpa's D company was down here and they could see some of the 187th guys over there. And, and they're looking at this big map. Well, all of a sudden an enemy anti-aircraft, um, shell comes into the room, hits the table

57:26where they're all standing there and explodes. And it kills one of the aides and it knocked Colonel Haugen onto the floor. A piece of shrapnel had gone straight into his chest, into his heart. So across the street is this famous, uh, cathedral in Manila, and it has a bamboo organ. The 11th Airborne was using that as their hospital. So they rushed hard rock over there and the surgeons were busy with all the other casualties. So he was initially treated by the, the, uh, division dentist and he was expected to make

58:00a full recovery. The other surgeons got to him a little bit down the road and, and he's recovering, right? So they send him to, um, a hospital, uh, a better hospital back behind the lines and they decide they're going to fly him to Indonesia for recovery. So the medical transport he is on is attacked by a Japanese zero. And if you know anything about medical transports, they're not the most nimble craft in the world. So the pilot tries to take some maneuvers and Colonel Haugen is back there and he asked the nurse for a cigarette. Now he was a chain smoker.

58:31That's one thing everybody remembered about him is he always had a cigarette in his mouth. When they were on Leyte, he would go through their areas and look for cigarette butts to smoke because they couldn't get resupplies, right? So anyway, he asked the nurse for a cigarette. She goes to get one. By the time she comes back, hard rock was dead. The, the estimate is that he, something, some of the stitches or something might've ruptured and, and he died right there. And so the hard rock of Tekoa was gone. Uh, he was about 37 at this point and word got back to the 11th airborne and nobody could

59:06believe it. They thought hard rock was invincible. They said, not our rock. There's no way, but, but it was. And that, that was tough. The guys said that was tough, but they couldn't really stop and mourn. They had to keep fighting. So Colonel Lottie, Edward Lottie took over. He was Colonel Haugen's executive officer. And, uh, they, they ended up pushing through Southern Luzon and taking, um, the Malapuño mountain range and, and, and just some incredible campaigns they did over the next little bit. But I, but I want to, um, talk about this really, really quickly.

59:38I've, I've done, uh, several lectures on this. You can find it on YouTube if you want the Los Banos, um, raid. So this was a civilian internment camp. When the Japanese invaded Luzon, they, they rounded up everyday people. Every, you know, if you weren't, if you weren't Filipino or Asian, you're going to a camp. So they put them in this camp. Uh, they, they, they had them in another camp. They moved them here. And then in about the same time, the angels were on Lottie, the Japanese started starving these men, women, and children, right?

1:00:11The youngest in the camp was three days old. So just imagine raising your children in that environment. They, the Japanese got to the point where they were feeding them the equivalent of a granola bar a day, right? For, for months on end. So imagine trying to survive like that. No medical supplies. The camp doctor and nurses did the best they could, but they had to do surgery at times with no anesthetic and just, I mean, it was a, it was a terrible place. And, and so word came down. The 11th Airborne knew the camp existed as soon as they landed on Luzon, but they were

1:00:44busy in Manila. They couldn't go to the camp yet. So in the camp, there was a, there was a lot of clergy. The Japanese rounded up the clergy and put them in camp.