Private First Class Harvey Yates

     With the 506th heading to the south and the 501st to the north, the 502nd was tasked with holding the key middle ground of the division. Within an hour, the regiment was fully assembled and 1st Battalion headed off for its initial task: the capture of St. Oedenrode. It was an important town in the 101st Airborne sector which was necessary to the division’s grand objective of holding the main highway. It also contained two important highway bridges over the Dommel River. C Company led the battalion into the town, followed by Yates and the battalion headquarters. B Company flanked to the right.

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     P-51 fighters strafed German positions, tanks, and troops as the battalion approached the town, softening the enemy defenses. It did not take long for street fighting to break out across the city. B and C Company took the brunt of the action, while the mortars of Yates’ platoon provided supporting fire from the rear. The firefight did not last terribly long, however, and the town was captured with nearly eighty German casualties recorded.

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     1st Battalion immediately set to work making defensive positions all across the town and bridges. Word came in from members of the Dutch Underground that the Germans were regrouping to attack from Schijndel, about four miles down the main road. The old monastery in the town quickly transformed into a field hospital, and was right in the middle of much of the fighting. By the end of the day, St. Oedenrode was secure, with the Germans back across the Dommel River. The next day was spent shoring up the city’s defenses with sporadic small-unit action between the paratroopers and bands of German soldiers.

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     In the mid-morning of September 19, the sounds of British tanks filled the ears of the paratroopers. The first tanks arrived around 1000, rolling through the corridor over a bailey bridge at Son. Tanks, halftracks, trucks, laden with troops, chugged their way northward past the Americans. One British tank, however, struggled. A Sherman Firefly commanded by Sergeant James “Paddy” McCrory dropped from the column due to engine trouble, pulling into the streets of St. Oedenrode with 1st Battalion. The tank could only travel a mere five miles per hour, but was not ready to give up the fight. Instead, his crew volunteered to join several of the battalion’s battle patrols sent to push back German troops along the Schjindel Road. Throughout the day the combined force accounted for several German vehicles, flak wagons, an 88, an ammo truck, a number of enemy troops, and several defensive positions.

     The following morning found 1st Battalion under a heavy artillery barrage, with four men killed near Yates at the battalion command post in the center of town. The Germans launched a counterattack in force towards St. Oedenrode, leading the paratroopers to ask McCrory to lead his tank into battle once more. Down a few crew, he recruited three of the troopers to join him in the tank and set off along the road to Schjindel, leading an attack which destroyed an 88, knocked out two 20mm flak guns, and stifled an enemy infantry attack. The German advance stalled, and the battalion once again managed to hold the town. McCrory was later awarded the Silver Star Medal, and his crewmen put in for the Legion of Merit.

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     1st Battalion continued to hold St. Oedenrode from repeated German attempts to move up the roads leading into the city. Two other British tanks joined their defense, but were knocked out by rockets, leaving only McCrory to continue his valiant support. On September 22, 1st Battalion tried to push up the roads, meeting a large contingent of German Fallschirmjager. Fighting was brutal between the trees, farms, dikes, and roadways, with tank duels taking place between German self-propelled guns and new British tanks. By the evening, the battalion was forced to fall back to St. Oedenrode. Yates’ mortar platoon played an important role in supporting these attacks, with Yates likely spending most of his time lugging the heavy shells back and forth to the front. 

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     Until September 30, Yates and his battalion fought fiercely to defend St. Oedenrode and did their part keeping open the road to Arnhem, which had quickly earned the nickname “Hell’s Highway.”

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     On the last day of September, the men of 1st Battalion were relieved and climbed aboard a set of trucks on a side road off of the main highway. They began moving northward, passing burned out hulks of tanks and destroyed buildings, as they drove to the bridge at Veghel. There the men stopped, turned off, and set up a large bivouac in a field to rest, clean up, and filter in personnel changes. One of the internal transfers was Yates. Although he had done well serving in the battalion headquarters, he was transferred to C Company as a rifleman, taking on a more direct frontline role. Thankfully, he was able to enjoy a few days of rest, allowing some downtime to mesh with his new company-mates.

     C Company was told to roll up their packs on October 3, following the battalion as it drove up to Nijmegen as a standing reserve for the 82nd Airborne. On the fourth, they moved again up the highway through Uden, detrucking at Groesbeck Heights, a wooded area of evergreens. It was here that the 1st Battalion began prepping to move onto “the Island.” The Island was a flat stretch of land well below sea level between the lower Rhine and Waal Rivers. By this point in Market Garden, however, it was clear that the campaign had failed to meet its primary objectives. The advance had stalled with the British failing to capture Arnhem, and now the 101st was slated to fill the line and hold off the Germans from making the situation even worse.

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     As Yates and the rest of C Company entered the line near Elst, they were forced to crawl up to the foxholes of British soldiers they were replacing in the early morning of October 5. German artillery across the Rhine had sighted in Allied positions all across the Island, with their new homes included. It was two men to a foxhole and, during daylight hours, neither could poke his head above the top of the hole. There was no way to move about in the day without drawing intense German sniper or artillery fire. With water regularly seeping into the bottom of their holes due to the low terrain, it was quite a dreary yet hazardous existence. 

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     By October 10, C Company repositioned itself, moving and digging bigger foxholes as rumors of a German attack spread through the ranks. A false alarm set off the whole company, but no Germans were found except for a small scouting party. Over the next several days, the company sent out a few small patrols to try and prod for German positions, with little luck. 

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     On the fourteenth, C Company replaced elements of the 502nd’s 2nd Battalion as the regiment split into three “phase lines.” The three lines staggered one after another. The battalions of the regiment would each be tasked to hold a line for three or four days before the entire regiment would shift, evenly balancing who was required to sit up front in the most dangerous positions. Yates, having been up front for the early part of the month, went to Aldtest, near an apple orchard, which sat in the middle of the middle phase line. This area was not quite as dangerous, with more cover around, but still well within the German firing range should someone step out of line.

     C Company’s turn to go back to the front came on October 17, where they once again crawled into frontline positions near a dike. At this point the Germans had retreated towards the distant Rehenen Bridge, but their artillery was still well aware of the American presence. The troopers of C Company greatly feared the German guns which controlled their movement. Since one could only move during the night, sleep was secondary to keeping an eye out for any German patrols. Artillery duels thundered around them during the day, while each pair of paratroopers sat in their foxhole, building off of each other to simply make it another day

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     The company went back to the rear on the twenty-first, getting to spend eight days recovering until they were back on the frontline. At this point, they were in positions way out in no-man’s-land. The weather was quite chilly in the late fall air, and C Company was responsible for a number of phone lines used to communicate with the rear areas. While in these positions, the men saw their first German jet planes as a pair of ME-262s soared high overhead. 

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     The back and forth of the phase lines continued for nearly the entire month of November, with C Company doing its part to rotate in and out of ever-more hazardous conditions to secure the sector. German troops rarely appeared, however, and their greatest enemy continued to be the ever-present artillery bombardments. During this period, Yates was awarded his first decoration: the Combat Infantry Badge. To recognize his service in combat since Market Garden began, C Company put him in for the decoration. Unfortunately there was no time to celebrate as they continued on in their defensive slog. Thanksgiving was spent in frontline positions, a rather poor situation to encourage thankfulness. 

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     On November 27, C Company was finally given the orders to mount up on trucks and cross the Waal River. After two months suffering through the Island, the men were given ten days off in Reims before heading to the large military base at Mourmelon, France, to rest and recuperate. Yates only got to enjoy a couple of days of freedom before getting sick in early December, rejoining the company from the hospital on December 10.

     Unbeknownst to the paratroopers, just a week later their rest would come to an end. In the early morning of December 16, 1944, roughly 400,000 German troops and over 1,100 tanks began pushing through the dense forests of the Ardennes directly into the American lines. The attack was a total surprise and American defenses quickly collapsed as battle-weary or inexperienced units along the front fell apart. Within hours, the frontline had been pushed back for miles and the famous “bulge” in the line was already beginning to form.

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     Two days later, on December 18, the men of the 101st Airborne Division were notified of this major offensive and warned to gather their gear for immediate redeployment. Yates and the rest of C Company loaded up on trucks and began the trek to Belgium. Their objective was the city of Bastogne.

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     Bastogne was a large town in the middle of the Ardennes sector. Most critically, it was a key hub connecting many major roads throughout the region. It was thus essential to keep the town out of German hands. With German forces rapidly approaching, the 101st Airborne was assigned the task of taking and holding the city no matter the costs. Unfortunately, in the rush to get the division into the city, there was not enough time to equip the men with proper winter uniforms, gear, ammunition, food, and other essential supplies. Nevertheless, the troopers would grab whatever was available and take it with them, hoping that in the following days they might be resupplied to keep up their defense. C Company, and most other units of the division, also had yet to recover their manpower from the losses in Holland. C Company alone was only operating at a strength of around 130 men.

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     Undermanned, underequipped, and outnumbered, each unit of the division took up its assigned sector around Bastogne, with the 502nd receiving the north and northwest portions of the line.

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     The winter was proving especially cold, as swirls of snow, sleet, and biting wind blew past the convoys of paratroopers while they moved under the cover of darkness. Their first night in Bastogne was spent camping along a roadside near the village of Long Champs, which soon became one of the focal points of the 502nd line of defense. On the morning of the nineteenth, C Company reached its final positions near a hill south of Long Champs overlooking the town. The 502nd was slated to serve as division reserve for the initial days of the operation.

     Various units of the 101st began combat operations on December 20, with C Company moving into the 506th Parachute Infantry area to act as a reserve unit west of Foy while the 506th and other companies of the 502nd attempted to take the town. Yates and his comrades were dug in along a winding hillside road next to the small town, and were on occasion subject to enemy tank fire. At the same time, the entire division became surrounded. German forces had worked around their envelopment of Bastogne and cut off all seven major roadways into the city. The paratroopers were trapped.

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     Around 0730 the next morning, they marched off once again to help G Company of the 506th for its attack on Recogne. The C Company troopers plowed through the snow all day until they reached G Company on top of a wooded hill, digging their own foxholes nearby to bolster the position. That evening they were told they could move to the rear once again. The next day continued the snowy marching as C Company moved to a wooded hillside along a main road two miles east of champs, where they were fortunate to receive their first hot meal from division as freezing heavy snow fell around them. 

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     The next two days took the company to Hemroulle, a village behind the lines of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment on the west side of the encirclement. Word had come through that elements of the 26th Volksgrenadiers had broken through the 327th and that there was a serious threat of a total collapse. Yates and the rest of C Company also wondered when they might finally be sent into action. Like the snow, rumors swirled around them, as passing troopers told stories of heavy combat all across Bastogne putting the division to the test. The company surely felt somewhat silly when they received extra supplies of ammo, medical supplies, gas, and other equipment, when they had not even seen combat yet. Even without directly witnessing the fighting, the waves of C-47s overhead on their way to airdrop supplies in Bastogne proper signaled the seriousness of their situation.