Ian Gardner - Deliver Us From Darkness: The Untold Story of Third Battalion 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment during Market Garden

THE UNTOLD STORY OF THIRD BATTALION 506 PARACHUTE INFANTRY REGIMENT DURING MARKET GARDEN

IAN GARDNER

FOREWORD BY MARIO DICARLO

I firmly believe that my service with the Third Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (3/506 PIR), 101st Airborne Division, during World War II, set the standard to which I have adhered for the rest of my life. It turned me from a clueless youth, still wet behind the ears, into a combat veteran able to make split-second decisions that would separate the quick from the dead although some of our bravest were not quite so fortunate or perhaps lucky.

From the very moment I was ambushed and wounded in Normandy on June 6, 1944, my powers of concentration grew beyond all previous recognition. While I was totally unaware of it at the time, my parents played a huge part in arming me with the attitude and mind-set I would need to cope with the demands of military life. My contemporaries have often been referred to as The Greatest Generation but I beg to differ to me the greatest generation was the one that preceded, and produced, us. The ones from many different lands and cultures, who came to America to breathe free and climb the financial ladder, through nothing but hard work and a selfless devotion to their new country.

Before immigrating to the USA in early 1917, my father had been wounded and invalided out of the Italian army during World War I. When he discovered that the quickest route to American citizenship was through the armed forces, he quickly enlisted and by the end of the year, was on his way to face the same old enemy, but this time wearing a different uniform. After being honorably discharged, he married my mother, Anna, who had just arrived in the United States. My parents may have come to America as unschooled immigrants but they brought with them a love for freedom and a work ethic unmatched by any generation before or since. Multiply Alfonso DiCarlo and Anna Lolli by several millions and one can more fully understand the impact they had on a growing nation.

In 1941, I was graduating Wildwood High School in New Jersey when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. Like most of Americas youth, I was anxious to get into the ongoing war and went to Philadelphia, where I enlisted into the fledgling 506th PIR. Suffering from acute agrophobia, I reasoned that this was a sure way to conquer my fear of heights! When I informed my parents of my fait accompli I was surprised by their response. Having been there and done that, my father was lukewarm but my mother, whom I had anticipated would burst into tears, simply kissed me and said, God be with you and dont dishonor your name.

What follows on these pages accurately describes and explains the trials and accomplishments of 3/506 through its most extended single period of combat during World War II in the Netherlands. With Allied forces solidly entrenched in France, the high command was looking for ways to expand upon their successes and shorten the war. General Bernard Law Montgomery had envisioned, and sold General Dwight D. Einsenhower and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), a plan for a bold strike up the EindhovenArnhem highway, to penetrate into the vulnerable factories of the Ruhr and deliver a fatal wound to the Nazi regime.

The plan was to fold the Germans back from the road that became known universally as Hells Highway and throw a steel spear across the Rijn (Rhine). Eindhoven and the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnhem were the keys to that success. In essence, we were to open the road to enable the armor from the British Second Army to speed unimpeded to its intended targets in the Ruhr.

The 3rd Battalion of the 506th started out by successfully attacking and investing Eindhoven and ended up almost 70 days later at the northern end of the Allied penetration, engaging the enemy in the ferociously fought battle for Opheusden. Through the recollections of the remaining veterans and the meticulous research that has been the hallmark of the author, the reader can relive the actual events that occurred presented with clarity and a passion for the facts that is not often encountered in military histories.

As I write this, it occurs to me that we were all members of two separate but inseparable families. The one we were born into and the one we voluntarily joined in a time of national peril. Our obligation and commitment to each aspect was total. Yet one was centered on life and growth and the other dealt with death and destruction. Despite the disparity in goals the core of our innermost conviction was the unspoken willingness to imperil our very existence to preserve the continuation of the lives of other members of both our families. I never heard any of our guys say it out loud but I think their actions under fire prove my thesis.

Our regimental commander, Colonel Robert F. Sink, showed his pride in our performance when he said about us in the attack, When they fell, they fell face forward. Scared witless or not, we did what had to be done, even when we really didnt want to do it, and, as I recall, there were times when we really didnt want to do it. But we did it anyway. The one immutable fact is that the young boys who marched so blithely off to war in 1942 bore little resemblance to the weary men who came home in 1945.

Read and enjoy.

Mario Hank DiCarlo July 2010

Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, USA

My relationship with the Netherlands began in the late 1980s, when as a member of 10th Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (V), I first took part in the annual parachute drop north of the Neder Rijn (Lower Rhine), near Oosterbeek commemorating the battle of Arnhem. At the time, I was completely unaware of the American struggle that had taken place just a few miles away in the Betuwe, an area on the southern bank of the river also known as the Island.

Nearly twenty years later, in 2005, when I was researching my first book, Tonight We Die As Men, I arranged to spend the day with 3/506 veteran Bill Galbraith. At the time, Bill was visiting the Netherlands on a tour for the Remember September celebrations; while I was on a pilgrimage to Arnhem with a group of friends from 10 Para. Bill made special arrangements with the Dutch Airborne Friends for me to join him in Eindhoven.

However, the plan began to unravel when I was late for the coach rendezvous, due to an unexpected party the night before in Belgium! After spending three hours hungover on a train, I finally arrived in Eindhoven, where Bills hosts, Jenny and Jan van Hout, kindly picked me up. Despite the fact that they had sacrificed most of the mornings events, Jenny and Jan graciously accepted my apology and drove me to Sint Oedenrode, where the tour had stopped for a late lunch. It was wonderful to see Bill, who introduced me to his family, and another historian, John Klein, who was a close friend and neighbor back in the States.

After the celebrations, I should have caught the train back to Arnhem but Jenny invited me to her house for dinner, along with the Galbraiths, John Klein and fellow Dutch airborne friend Wim Klerkx. Like Bill, my hosts had also experienced the liberation of Eindhoven and during the course of a wonderful evening I began to understand what September 18, 1944, really meant for them. That night I stayed at Wims with Bill and the following day instead of going back to the boys, elected to stay with the Galbraiths and their Dutch Airborne Friends. I have no regrets because over the last six years, Jenny has not only become my Dutch mum but also my powerbase in Eindhoven, and it is mainly down to her incredible enthusiasm that this book has become a reality.

It was through the Van Houts, that I grew to know Geurt van Rinsum, a retired police officer from Zetten who has been instrumental in helping me understand and record the social history of the island. Since we first met in Sint Oedenrode, John Klein has also become a close friend, whose generosity and loyalty over the last few years has been truly humbling. In June 2009, when John came to Normandy with Bill Galbraith and Manny Barrios to help Roger Day and me launch