O
ne of those troopers who did so much to strike fear into the Germans was Private First Class Ted Bachenheimer, who would become a legend in the regiment. Corporal Fred Baldino, with Company A, had met him while attending an intelligence class that Bachenheimer had taught at Fort Bragg. During the Anzio campaign, Baldino got to know him much better.“Ted seemed to find his niche in recon. Ted just loved to go out on patrols behind enemy lines—most of the time by himself, and he would bring back prisoners.
“I, as a corporal at that time, along with fourteen others, went out on a patrol with Ted leading the way. We slowly made our way through a German minefield. I remember one newcomer to the front saying, ‘Look, we are going through a German cemetery, look at the crosses down there.’
“I told him, ‘Cemetery, hell.’ Those crosses had ‘Achtung, Minen’ written on them. Somehow, we got through that minefield unscathed. Soon we were in German territory and were walking quietly when we heard some guttural voices. We all laid flat. About twenty yards away, we could faintly see about a platoon of German soldiers. They were evidently relieving their outposts with fresh troops. After they passed on, Ted told us to stay put, and he walked up to the outpost and asked the two German soldiers inside the foxhole for a light for his cigarette. When they went to do so, Ted calmly told them they were surrounded, and he took them prisoner. We headed back to our own lines, and Ted got ahead of us with the two prisoners, and we lost sight of him.
“Meanwhile, someone did not tell our own artillery that we were out there, and we started to get artillery shells coming down around us. If that was not bad enough, every third or fourth one was a phosphorous shell. Now, we
had been under German artillery fire before, but when it comes to firing for effect, it is hard to beat the American artillery. Those shells were dropping all around us, but the worst thing that happened was some of the guys got their jumpsuits scorched.
“On the way back, we came to a ditch along the side of a road and laid down, as we had to wait for two stragglers. As we lay there waiting for them to catch up with us, we heard German boots marching down the road—probably a non-com checking on his men. We had every intention of letting him walk past, but one of the men took the safety off his M1 rifle, making a sound of
‘click.’ The German looked over at the ditch and said, ‘Was ist los?’ Well, every man in the ditch let loose with everything they had.
“Our stragglers, by now on the other side of the ditch, later told us they saw rifle fire coming out of the German’s back. Soon, it seemed that every outpost in the vicinity was firing weapons in our direction. Luckily, we were lying down in the ditch. After a while, we slowly made our way back to our own lines.”1
Major Melvin Blitch was again evacuated to a hospital in Naples at 9:45 a.m. on March 1, and was replaced as 2nd Battalion commander by Lieutenant Colonel Hank Adams, the regimental S-3. Major Edward Wellems was assigned as the 2nd Battalion executive officer. That night, the battalion received eight new replacement officers: Lieutenants John C. Barrows, George H. Furst, and Vance C. Hall, Jr., were assigned to D Company; Lieutenants Robert V.
Heneisen, Carl Mauro, and James H. Nelson went to E Company; and Lieuten-ants Stuart McCash and Richard W. Swenson to F Company.
Lieutenant Mauro had been a technical sergeant and one of the dreaded instructors at the Parachute School back at Fort Bragg before being sent to Officer Candidate School. Now, he was just another replacement officer.
Mauro had had a harrowing introduction to the Anzio beachhead in getting from the LCI on which he arrived at the port of Anzio to the 2nd Battalion.
“As we approached the docking area, we were attacked by speedy, low-flying German fighter planes that came out of nowhere. Planes from both camps arrived almost simultaneously, and the conflict above the harbor lasted only a few minutes—long enough to scare the hell out of us—sending us diving under the trucks on deck or below deck. Our antiaircraft guns surrounding the port and our planes drove off the enemy before they could inflict much damage.
‘Jerry’ was not going to make anything easy for us.
“When enemy aircraft was first sighted, our fleet of landing craft reversed their engines and pulled back out to sea, scattering in the process. After the enemy planes were driven off, our landing crafts went to the wrecked docks, where our small contingent of replacement personnel disembarked as quickly as possible. We were not a large group—fifty or so—men destined for various fighting units already entrenched several miles inland.
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“We walked away from the docks as quickly as we could, carrying every-thing that we owned in our pockets, which were extra large on parachute pants;
hooked onto our web-belts; and in the overflowing, bulging, musette bags we had strapped to our shoulders. It was only a double-quick route-march to the nearby beach where, instinctively, we immediately began to dig in! We were out in the open. ‘What a dumb place to tarry,’ I thought. But I would learn that there was no place to hide on Anzio. But, as everyone else, I started to dig a slit trench in the sand, for lying prone and not a foxhole to stand in. At least the digging was easy.
“We were victims of the ‘hurry up and wait’ scenario. We wanted to get out of there! We heard artillery and cannons and saw signs of shelling in the water, but nothing real close. Fortunately, only a half hour later, but it seemed much longer, we were on our way again, happily, thinking foolishly, that it would get better.
“Small groups of replacement personnel were led in various directions to join Darby’s Rangers, the 3rd Division, or other units. Some of the paratroop-ers may also have gone to the brilliant 509 Parachute Infantry Battalion, which was not a component of the 504.
“The paratroopers in my group, now fewer than ten, moved off the beach and through Nettuno, following a battle-hardened guide who had been sent to lead us to a lightly wooded area. We trudged through Nettuno on the east side of Anzio, because the 504 Combat Team was guarding the right flank of the whole beachhead. Like Anzio, Nettuno was demolished; it was all rubble and ruins. No civilian nor civilian metropolitan activity was observable; the destruction was complete. War was the only open business.
“Meanwhile, we heard intermittent gunfire. Shells were flying over our heads towards the ships that had brought us in. We got a brief glimpse at the large hospital complex near the beach; hundreds of pyramidal and other shaped tents with huge red crosses painted on the canvas that could be seen from miles away. This medical complex got the name ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ because of the constant shelling it received—just like the rest of the beachhead. Several nurses were killed there from enemy fire.
“We stopped in a wooded area to wait for darkness before being led to our new assignments; it was about an hour before dark. At various places around us, I could see our 155mm howitzers and other guns, well-camouflaged with netting above them and well dug in. At Anzio, artillery was king . . . LSTs fulfilled the insatiable demand for artillery shells. We watched the artillerymen methodi-cally dueling—sending heavy projectiles towards the Germans in the distance.
We probably sent them two for every one they sent our way. This was my first view of ground combat, though it was between well separated antagonists. It was raucous and frightening, but exhilarating; it made my heart beat faster.
“Though they were out of our sight, we could hear other friendly guns not too far away. The firing and the noise intensified. At the same time, we heard the crashing, incoming fire from German artillery, tanks, and possibly large mortars coming from far away—not exactly bursting on top of us, but striking fearfully close. It made me wonder if we would be the target for each of the next incoming rounds. I began to ponder whether I would be able to react bravely to this deafening onslaught.
“No one had time to notice or advise us; no one came to tell us what best to do. Except for our guide, a private, we were leaderless and ignorant. Our small group of replacements officers was hugging the shaking earth, lurking behind trunks of small trees that had been already scarred by shrapnel from previous bombardments. We expected to move on soon, as it was [getting]
dark, thinking that by then the cannonading would abate. None of us, maybe unwisely, had even attempted to dig a foxhole.
“We new recruits huddled closer to each other than was prudent. The awesome din caused us to bunch together, believing that proximity provided security. There was no place to hide and we couldn’t run.
“Certainly, I was scared, but not as much as two terrified officers in our group. They were unashamedly on their knees, praying out loud. They begged God, if their lives were spared they would willingly sacrifice an arm or a leg, right here and now; any injury that would cause them to be evacuated immediately.
“Just before darkness fell, a few Luftwaffe fighter planes zoomed into a squadron of American planes that were flying above our heads—eight or ten in all. The rendezvous didn’t last long, but this aerial conflict was the only dogfight I saw during the war. Now, we had a brawl in the air; a duel of artillery on the ground; and German shells were tracking down our naval guns off the beach. We had an unsolicited three-ring side-seat for a variety-show combat-cacophony.
“After a long hour in the midst of this dueling artillery fracas, the action abated, and our guide led us, in the dark, to the 504 regimental headquarters.
Here, we eight new officers were met by the regimental intelligence officer, 1st Lieutenant Louis A. Hauptfleisch, and quickly taken to the 2nd Battalion command post, nearby.”2
From there, Mauro was taken to the command post of Company E, which was in reserve at the time. There, he was introduced to Captain Walter Van-Poyck, the commanding officer, and the company exec, Lieutenant Hanford Files. Mauro thought VanPoyck “looked like handsome Errol Flynn, the popular movie star. He was a thin, short guy and wore a small mustache and walked a little bow-legged.
“Van was a university graduate and worked for Eastern Airlines in Miami, Florida. He enlisted in the army in 1941 and was commissioned a second lieu-tenant in 1942. He volunteered for parachute duty and was a member of the
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original 504 regimental cadre.”3 Lieutenant Mauro was assigned as assistant platoon leader of Lieutenant John “Jocko” Thompson’s 3rd Platoon.
On the night of March 3, Easy Company moved up to take over a sector of the defense line on the Mussolini Canal. There, at a meeting of the company’s officers, Lieutenant Mauro met “1st Lieutenant William E. Sharp, Jr., leader of the 2nd Platoon. Sharp really presented a humorous picture: a short guy;
heavy beard; handsome; wore really baggy pants; web-belt hanging low on his hips, because he was wearing two pistols and ammo clips; his camouflaged-with-netting helmet was too large and fell down over his thick eyebrows. He reminded me of the stereotypical gunslinger cowboy I used to see in the movies.
He was a jolly, young fellow, a gung-ho paratrooper aching for battle. He was a shy, gentle, kind person. He nodded his head continuously and grinned as he talked or listened. I would soon learn that he had gone out on more patrols than any officer or enlisted man. He was always ready to go—he would do as much as any man. His men let me know that Lieutenant Sharp was their paradigm of intelligent courage and daring.
“We all called him ‘Sharpie,’ and possibly it was his patrols that inspired that literary, dead Anzio-German to have written in his diary those now pro-verbial lines about the ubiquity of American paratroopers in no-man’s land:
‘devils in baggy pants.’
“VanPoyck set up his command post and gave his lieutenants some brief, routine orders. We talked briefly with our sergeants, and they led a squad at a time, crouching, to their defensive positions along the Mussolini Canal. We replaced some tired and bedraggled rangers of the 4th Battalion who had pre-viously relieved E Company men at these approximate positions.”4
On March 4, the 504th received a large group of badly needed enlisted replacements to fill its depleted ranks. One of them, Private First Class James L. Ward, was assigned to Company H. “My first night there was in a farmhouse between the lines (no-man’s-land). The shelling was tremendous . . . an awful way to spend your first day on the line. I was glad to leave that farmhouse.
“My first combat experience began while on a ten-man patrol just beyond the Mussolini Canal. [Robert A.] “Big Bob” Harris [six feet four inches tall], with his BAR, was number one in line. I was right behind Bob, and Ray [L.]
Walker was in the middle of the line. We were moving along a ditch parallel to a farm road when a Jerry machine gun opened fire. This gun was directly across the road from me, probably fifteen or twenty feet away, and firing to my rear. I hit the ground and almost immediately, a potato masher struck me on my right leg. Several seconds later, the second grenade landed a few feet away.
I didn’t have any luck finding either of the grenades, which I intended to throw back. It didn’t take long either to realize that the grenades were duds, or maybe landing in six inches of water caused them not to explode. In a few seconds, I threw a grenade which landed exactly as planned, right in the midst of them.
I could hear them shouting, scrambling around trying to find it . . . must have been three or four of them. I was looking at any moment for that grenade to come back my way. That was the longest five seconds I had ever known.
“We sent out patrols almost every night. It took a while to get used to the dead Germans which we had to look at until we were released several weeks later.
“I first met Chaplain Delbert Kuehl when Ray Walker and I were dug in on the Mussolini Canal, manning a .30-caliber light machine gun. On this particular day, shortly before dusk we observed a soldier moving in our direc-tion. He was carrying an M1. When he arrived at our position he said, ‘We’re going to have a prayer meeting.’ No one will ever know how much it meant to have our chaplain there with us. You’d never know where or when Chaplain Kuehl would show up. It seemed like he was always around when you needed him most.
“It rained almost every day in the spring at Anzio. Ray Walker and I usually kept our machine gun covered with a raincoat, but this particular day we left the gun uncovered and walked down to a farmhouse nearby where we saw smoke coming from the chimney. Thought we might thaw out for a while.
Lieutenant Rivers charged in the farmhouse and screamed, ‘Who in the hell is on that machine gun up there?’
“Ray and I said we were. I never knew a man could get that angry. He said,
‘You two SOBs get that gun down here, field strip it, and I’ll be back in ten minutes to check it.’ I think we did it in five minutes. We were taught that your weapon comes first and should have known better.”5
On March 8, Captain Beverly Richardson returned from the hospital and reassumed command of Company F. That night on the Mussolini Canal, Lieutenant Carl Mauro was “standing there quietly with Jocko and Captain VanPoyck, in the dark, behind our line of gun emplacements on the bank, in a melancholy mood. A few moments before, word had preceded his arrival:
Private Edward W. Nolan had been killed while on night patrol in front of our line. A member of his patrol had hurried back ahead of the others to inform the men on the firing line and VanPoyck that his squad was bringing in the body;
this time, one of our own.
“Four men struggled quietly over the embankment and placed the heavy body on the cold ground in front of Van, the company commander. The men were silent; they would give Captain VanPoyck the details later. They, as I, must have thought, once more: there, but for the grace of God, I would be. At a time like this, I learned, there is not much to say; it was better to not dwell upon it.
I could only look briefly and sadly on the inert object.
“A couple of hours earlier, a vibrant Private Nolan was among his buddies, laughing and talking, while putting burnt cork soot on his juvenile face. He made certain that he was wearing or carrying nothing that would shine in the
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moonlight, bang, crunch, creak, tinkle, or rattle as he crouched and crawled in the silent darkness. Nolan made certain he had grenades, his brass-knuckles-handled paratrooper assault knife, and a pistol; he wore a black wool stocking hat rather than his protective but clumsy steel helmet.
“Now, he was a cold ‘body’ dead and silent forever. Captain VanPoyck had the boys take the body to battalion headquarters, after it was covered with an army blanket. The Graves Registration unit would take over from there.
“Nolan was the first ‘friendly’ body (someone I knew) that I encountered in the field of combat. I had known this young, brave paratrooper, if only briefly, and that made a difference.”6
Lieutenants John Thompson and Mauro were standing down near the bank of the Mussolini Canal behind the embankment that served as the Company E front line in mid-March listening to German planes bombing in the distance.
Mauro had spent just a couple of weeks on the line, but the effects were already evident. “He [Thompson] said, ‘Why are you shaking?’
“I replied, ‘I’m not shaking!’
“He said, ‘You’re not moving, but you’re shaking.’ That’s what unceasing
“He said, ‘You’re not moving, but you’re shaking.’ That’s what unceasing