”The British are masters of intrigue,” according to Cpl. Walter Gordon. “I wouldn’t necessarily want them on my flank for an assault on some target, but I sure would like to have them plan it, because they are very good at planning.”
He was referring to “the Rescue,” which took place at midnight, October 22-23. A week earlier, Col. O Dobey (nicknamed “The Mad Colonel of Arnhem”) of the British 1st Airborne Division, who had escaped from a German hospital after being made prisoner, had swum across the Rhine and contacted Colonel Sink. Dobey said there were 125 British troops, some ten Dutch resistance fighters who were being sought by the Germans, and five American pilots hiding out with the Dutch underground on the north side of the Lower Rhine. He wanted to get them back, and he needed help. Sink agreed to cooperate. As the crossing point was across from Easy’s position, Sink volunteered Heliger to lead the rescue patrol. Or, as Gordon put it, “We would furnish the personnel, the British would furnish the idea and, I suppose, the Band-Aids. A fair swap, by British standards.”
Dobey was in contact with the Dutch underground on the far side via telephone (for some reason, the Germans had never cut those lines). He designated the night of October 22-23 for the operation. The American 81st AA-AT Battalion would fire tracers over the river with their Bofors guns to mark the spot where the Dutch would bring the men waiting to be rescued. To allay German suspicion, for several nights before the operation, the 81st fired tracers at midnight.
On the appointed night, Heliger, Lts. Welsh and Edward Shames, and seventeen men selected by Heliger followed engineer tape from the dike down to the river, where British canvas collapsible boats had been hidden the previous evening.
[…]
The continued on and shortly met the British troops. The first one Stafford saw “hugged me and gave me his red beret, which I still have.” A British brigadier stepped forward and shook Heliger’s hand, saying he was the finest looking American officer he had ever seen.
Heliger motioned for the British to move in column to the boats, urging them to keep silent. But they just could not. Pvt. Lester Hashey recalled one saying, “I never thought I’d be so glad to see a bloody Yank.” Lieutenant Welsh, who was in charge down at the boats, grew exasperated with the Brits who kept calling out, “God bless you, Yank,” and told them they would all get killed if they didn’t shut up.
[…]
By 0130 the entire party were safely on the south bank and crossing no-man’s-land on the way to the American front line behind the dike.
The next day Colonel Sink issued a citation for gallantry in action. He declared that “the courage and calmness shown by the covering force was a major factor in this successful execution. So well organized and executed was this undertaking that the enemy never knew an evacuation had taken place.
All members of this covering force are commended for their aggression, spirit, prompt obedience of orders and devotion to duty. Their names appear below.”
Gordon’s name is there. When I suggested that he must be proud to have volunteered for and carried out so well such a hazardous operation, he said the only reason he went along was that Heyliger had selected him. “It was not a volunteer operation. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have volunteered, I’m just saying I didn’t volunteer.”
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “The Island.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 158-60. Print.
Further Reading:
[Corporal Walter Scott Gordon, Jr.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Gordon_(veteran\))
Lieutenant General Robert Frederick Sink
[E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division / “Screaming Eagles”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Company,_506th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States\))
No comments, yet...