Bill Brown - Fighting Fox Company: The Battling Flank of the Band of Brothers

Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2013 by
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS
908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083
and
10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EW

Copyright 2013 Bill Brown and Terry Poyser

ISBN 978-1-61200-212-5
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-213-2

Cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

For a complete list of Casemate titles please contact:

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US)
Telephone (610) 853-9131, Fax (610) 853-9146
E-mail:

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK)
Telephone (01865) 241249, Fax (01865) 794449
E-mail:

___________________________

All maps courtesy Steve Bacon, Reno Nevada.

All photos are either property of the author, Terry Poyser, or contributed by the following indi - viduals: Tom Mulvey/Bill Brown, Mario Patruno, Tom Alley, Art Peterson, Ramona Bettelyoun, Bob Noody, David Bud Edwards, Jack Emelander, Helen Buchter, Don Replogle, Marion Grodowski, Brenda Thornburg, Nita Hicks, Flora Hogenmiller, Ken Hull Jr., Scott Hegland, Merlin Shennum, Marian Provenzano, Raul Ochoa, Robert Bossey, Sue Hisamoto, Juliann ?ompson, Anthony Supco, Homer Smith Jr., Lorna Tuck-Colbert, Bob Janes, John Taylor, Bill True, John Himelrick, Roy Zerbe, Cees Jansen, Nancy Shrout-Kaiser. Stick photos are courtesy of the AAF.

I n 1979, Bill Brown began a search for the facts and circumstances of the life and death of family friend Pfc. Orel Lev, a member of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division in World War II. Bill had visited with Ronald Lev, a high school friend, and the topic of Rons younger brother, Orel, was discussed. Not much was known about Orels death, and Bill felt there was more information that could be discovered if he could contact the right people.

What followed next was over twenty years of research, correspondence, and interviews with the members of Orels Fox Company of the Second Battalion of the 506thabbreviated as Fox 506th and F/506as well as the Army Air Corps. Bill spent years detailing the jump manifests for the company in the Normandy drop and exhausted every avenue of research at his disposal, with the intention of publishing a book for members of the unit and their families.

In 2000, I contacted Bill for any information he may have on Kenneth Hull, a member of Fox Company who was killed in action alongside Orel Lev back in October of 1944. Hull was from my hometown of Napa, California, and I was curious about who he was and what his life had been like before his unfortunate death. Bill asked for my help in researching his book and to assist in tracking down Hulls family.

What followed next was an amazing tale in itself. I located Ken Hulls son in Napa, who knew little of his father or his death. Being a parachutist, I had joined the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team and capped my time in that organization with parachute jumps in Normandy and Holland on the sixtieth anniversaries of D-Day and Operation Market Garden. Hulls son was in attendance for my jump on his fathers drop zone in Holland, sixty years to the day and hour when his father parachuted onto the battlefield.

I flew around the United States and interviewed every member of Fox 506th that I could locate, as well as the family members of those killed in action. I obtained the companys morning reports, after-action reports, individual deceased personnel files of those killed in action, map overlays, original maps, personal memoirs, historical questionnaires, plus over one thousand letters home and over five hundred photographs of members of the company from 1942 to 1946.

Bill and I have combined our efforts into this new book on Fox Company. yet without the following people none of this would have been possible:

George Koskimaki of the 101st Airborne Division, George Goodridge (F/506), and the USAF Still Photos Lab. From the 439th Troop Carrier Group: Col. Charles young, Lt. Adam Parsons, Lt. Wayne King, Lt. Martin Neill, and Lt. Ernest Turner. From the 440th Troop Carrier Group: Lt Russell Hennicke and Lt. Wilbur Leonard.

George Rosie (3/506), Charles Randall (B/506), Knut Ruadstein (C/506), Joe McMillian (D/506), Burton Christenson (E/506), Bill Guarnere (E/506), Carwood Lipton (E/506), Bob Rader (E/506), Harry Welsh (E/506), Richard Winters (E/506), Ed Pepping (E/506), and Lou Vecchi (H/506).

From Fox Company: Gaston Adams, Ray Aebischer, Tom Alley, Henry Beck, Eugene Brierre, Linus Brown, Matt Carlino, David Edwards, Herbert Eggie, Don Emelander, George Good ridge, Frank Griffin, Marion Grodowski, Leonard Hicks, John Himelrick, Joe Hogenmiller, Les Hegland, Kenith Hovorka, Charles Jacobs, Johnny Jackson, Robert Janes, Dick Knudsen, George Martin, Bill McNeese, James Mackey, Otto May, Tom Mulvey, Robert Noody, Vince Occipinti, Harry Ostrander, Mario Gus Patruno, Robert Perdue, Arthur Peterson, Paul Peterson, Huber Porter, Raul Ochoa, Walter Pusker, Loy Rasmussen, Herbert Rockwell, Don Replogle, ?omas Rhodes, Ralph Robbins, Russ Schwenk, Merlin Shennum, Ben Stapelfeld, Bob Stone, Alan Summers, Victor Tamkun, John Taylor, Bill True, Bob Vogel, Harry Warnock, E. B. Wallace, George yochum, and Roy Zerbe.

101st historian Mark Bando, Paul Adamic, Richard Wolf and the members of the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team. Jason Wolcott, Jerry Gomes, Dave Berry at Pathfinder Historical Consultants, Tom Potter, Dan Limb, Lori Berdak at Redbird Research, Paul Clifford, Brian Siddall, Rich Riley. Todd Schalberg, Mike Duggan, Bret Clark, Jim OConnell, Jeff Bassett, Eric Jensen, Josh Caitham, Kevin Kelley, Mike Ferguson, Dave Santi, Nick Provenzano, Rick Wanzie, Jack Allen, and Gordon Moore.

Ginny Novak (Supco), Anthony Supco, Charles McDaniel (Green), Scott Hegland, Jack Emelander, Sarah Robertson, Michael Taylor, John Himelrick, Lane and Martha Johnson (Ochoa), Julie ?ompson (MacDowell), Robert Bossey (Rhodes), Andrea Tamboer (Occhipinti), Brenda ?ornburg (Morehead), Blaise and Patricia Colt, Bill Mulvey, Scott Knudsen, Debbie Schunk (Mackey), Marian Provenzano, Helen Buchter, Sue Hisamoto, Barbara Webster Embree, Ramona Bettelyoun, Dolores Hovorka, and Nita Hicks. U.S. Congressman Mike ?ompson (representing Californias Fifth District and a veteran of the 173rd Airborne Brigade) was also helpful.

Team Holland: Cees Jansen, Peter Hendrikx, Tom Timmermans, Frank Van Lunteren, and Ben Overhand. Team France J.B.Valognes, Roger Delarocque, Alain Hasley, Denny Dennebouy, Jil and Dom Launay and Paul Woodadge at DDayhistorian.com. Team Belgium Joel Robert. Team UK Tony Fletcher and Jon Fletcher.

Fox Company 506th was a very unique and special group. Bill and I found its surviving members to be very open and candid about the events of 19421946. Without everyones help and contribution, and without the support and understanding of our wives, Lynn Brown and Josefina Poyser, none of this would have been possible.

This is the story of Fighting Fox Company.

TERRY POYSER

D rab Army trucks sat silent near the railroad tracks as a train pulled into the station in the small town of Toccoa, Georgia, in the summer of 1942. Volunteers for the newly formed 101st Airborne Division, dirty and tired from their travel, exited their train cars. As the trucks coughed to life, they loaded up for the short ride to their new home, Camp Toombs. Leonard Hicks, seeing a sign for the Toccoa Coffin Factory at the train station, and the name Camp Toombs on arrival to his new home, could not help but be more alert, and concerned. Fortunately for Hicks and the other worried men, the name of the camp was changed to Toccoa a short time later.