Tonight We Die as Men: “No word from 3rd Battalion, 506th PIR”

March 2024

“So it happened that out of 81 planes scheduled to drop their men into DROP ZONE C, only 10 found their mark.”

Regimental Unit Study, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment

In preparing my book, I read many accounts including Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe, George Patton’s War As I Knew It, Omar Bradley’s A Soldier’s Story, and the classic multi-volume history of the war by Churchill. These great books offer sweeping context, the grand strategic picture, and insights into the scope of this titanic struggle. It is mind-boggling when one considers that the immense breadth of the war in Europe was only a portion of the struggle. War was simultaneously being fought across the East and upon the mother of all oceans – the mighty Pacific. It is easy to see how a war fought on this scale fell into great dehumanizing violence with civilians and military members serving as mere numbers at best or objects of cruel torture and anguishing deaths at its worst. Whole populations were decimated and systematic efforts were afoot to wipe out entire peoples.

During my time of service, I was told by a senior Navy officer that the difference between strategy and tactics was simple. When you are “doing” strategy, you are thinking and when you are “doing” tactics, you are scared.  Smaller and smaller units were the key to carrying out the grand objective of the war in Europe – the total destruction of the Wehrmacht. Some may say that my father and his fellow 3rd Battalion paratroopers were cogs in the great bloody war machine. What I see are hundreds of individual lives who were called upon to carry out a civilization’s dirty work at an increasingly intimate level. In my father’s corner of the world, it was the men of his regiment, battalion, company, platoon, and squad who served as his war tribe. The friends he knew best and spoke the most of seemed to start at the battalion level.

One book that I really enjoyed because it shared so much detail about my father’s unit was Tonight We Die as Men by Ian Gardner and Roger Day. Their work offers a lot of detail and context to my father’s personal story, and in fact, documents much of what his battalion mates were up to during the time in which he was captured and detained as a prisoner-of-war (POW). Third Battalion’s story began with very high losses in its first action in Normandy. The 3rd Battalion’s mission, regardless of the costs, was to capture two wooden bridges and a ferry boat that crossed the Canal de Carentan. I (India) Company along with G Company were ordered to hold one of the bridges until the 4th Division troops arrived from Utah Beach.

My father’s particular mission was a very violent one, but by June 7 he was a prisoner while India Company and 3rd Battalion found temselves thick in the fight. Almost all the individuals were men he never saw again, save for a few. Many were killed, others wounded, and still others were taken prisoner. Then, there were those few who managed to stay and fight all the way to the end of the war. They fought in Holland and Belgium during Operation Market Garden and the 101st’s famous stand at Bastogne. It was in this last city where Anthony McAuliffe uttered that legendary response to the German Army’s demand that the 101st surrender – “Nuts!” During the Battle of the Bulge, paratroopers from 3rd Battalion were at the famous fight for Foy when Easy, led by the now-famous Lt. Ron Speirs, linked up with India Company. They also marched into Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s famous mountain hideaway at the close of this damnable war.

There is much to detail about 3rd Battalion’s exploits, and I include some in my book. If you really want to delve into it, then I recommend Tonight We Die as Men. Rather than offering too much detail in this post, I want to share a few highlights; ones about individuals who were part of my father’s unit at a very personal level. So, let’s visit and hear a few snippets about some of these men and remember them.

Jim and Jack Brown were twins in India company, and it is almost certain that my father knew them. Compellingly handsome to a degree that I think Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg would have a hard time finding a movie star good lucking enough to play his part, Jack was captured early after his D-Day jump. His brother, Jim, handsome in a wholesome fellow-next-door way, was anxious to know what happened to his brother.  Jack escaped and eventually re-joined his unit, but he and Jim were never reunited. Jim was killed at the battle for Foy in January of 1945.

Then there was the tall and lean Captain John McKnight, my dad’s company commander. He too was captured and most likely separated from my father and other enlisted men. He spent the rest of the war as a POW. His picture can be seen as part of the introduction to this article.

Sergeant Al Engelbrecht, my dad’s squad leader, was much loved by my mom for his concern for her future husband. He was the last person to see my dad before he was captured and wrote to my mom to encourage and be there for her. He was a leader to her when his ability to lead my father was taken away.

Then there was 3rd Squad’s Sergeant Beverly Manlove who my father admired and called a friend. Bev’s life was lost when his plane crashed, burning into the English Channel along with others who my dad knew well.

Harold Stedman, a fellow soldier in India Company, landed in a flooded field like my father. Stedman was bogged down with heavy equipment and nearly drowned. Joe Madona, Lloyd Rosdahl, and Wilbur Fishel managed to save his life and get him untangled from what would have been a watery and muddy grave.

Jimmy Sheeran, Bernie Rainwater, Ray Crouch, Leonard “Sam” Goodgal, and Niels Christenson, to name a few, were the leading cast of characters in many of my father’s tales. Jimmy, a fellow POW, found an early way to escape and went down an utterly adventurous path. Bernie Rainwater, also a friend of my father’s escaped with Sheeran. Niels, with Ray Crouch hanging on to him, leapt from the burning plane in which Manlove died.Niels was captured and served the rest of the war in a large German POW camp. My father saw Niels briefly at the camp, but was sorrowfully separared from him when the Germans ordered him to another location. Niels stayed behind. Sam also jumped from the burning plane and had to take an unbelievable route, along with Ray Crouch, to simply to get back to his unit.

Things were clearly f*ed up, but there were human encounters that transcended the awful chaos and bloody violence. Even in this blood and fire, the human spirit found moments where it could ascend and offer a witness to hope. You can see these moments where the war was fought at its most personal and elemental point - the human soul.

On June 7, D-Day+1, Tom Kennedy, a young second lieutenant in 3rd Battalion, had such an experience.

“I came across a wounded Kraut. The guy was begging me not to shoot him and showed me his wedding ring and some family pictures – he was obviously dying. I stayed with him for a short time and held his hand until he fell unconscious. I then returned to our position.”