Soldiers

This page is dedicated to Pvt. Bill G. Hahnen

Bill Hahnen's daughter, Nancy, wrote a book of her father's life. The following are excertps from that book, beginning with an interview and followed up with Nancy's writing.

Interview with The Appleton Post Crescent, June 4, 1994:

Bill Hahnen was the 13th man in his stick of 82nd airborne paratroopers to leap out of the door of a slow-moving C47 transport and into the night sky near Ste. Mere Eglise, France. It was about 1:15 a.m. on D-Day.

“There were so many tracer shells coming at me I thought I’d have to open my legs to let them go through,” Hahnen said.

Far below, the people of Ste. Mere Eglise, an important German communications and transportation center, were battling a fire in the town when paratroopers from the 82nd dropped in their midst.

German soldiers in the town killed the paratroopers almost as fast as they landed, including several tangled in trees around the town square.

For Hahnen, a member of the 505th Parachute Regiment, 13 didn’t prove to be an unlucky number as his group of more than 20 paratroopers dropped five miles short of the town in a farm field absent of any German resistance.

“My biggest fear was coming down in a tree and being hung there helpless,” Hahnen said.

“I was scared and just wanted to get on the ground, get going and hope I didn’t get racked up too bad on landing.”

Hahnen said each paratrooper carried at least 100 pounds of equipment. “Each man had a land mine plus ammunition and a rifle. I had a bazooka. Some of the other guys had machine guns to carry,” he said.

On landing, Hahnen immediately joined 20 other paratroopers,

“Our objective was Sainte Mere Eglise,” he said. “After we regrouped, we started out.”

On the way to town, the paratroopers made frequent use of a toy “cricket” given to all 82nd Airborne members for use as a means of identification in the darkness. One click of the cricket’s steel underside was to be answered by two clicks.

“It was a paratrooper’s walkie-talkie,” Hahnen said. “In the dark, we couldn’t always tell if they were Germans or Americans.” Hahnen and his fellow paratroopers walked with one hand on the cricket and the other cradling a gun, ready to fire in the absence of two answering clicks.

“We were ready to shoot. If you didn’t shoot, the other guy probably would. That’s the way it worked,” Hahnen said. “Some guys didn’t make it because they were too dumb to be ready to shoot.”

Hahnen’s group reached Ste. Mere Eglise about 10:00 a.m. and saw the dead paratroopers hanging in the town square.

“We were under the command of Lt. Col. Ed Krause of Neenah. He told us to get our asses over there and cut those troopers down,” Hahnen said.

“The sight of those guys hanging there scared us, but it also made us mad. We took it out on the Germans. If we caught one of them, we’d just shoot the SOB. We didn’t mess around with them.”

Set up in a perimeter that night, Hahnen, a 22-year-old Private First Class, shot his rifle for the first time since that morning’s landing.

“We were dug in along a hedgerow just outside of town,” he said. “I was standing guard duty and there was a big tree in the field about 100 yards in front of us. I thought I saw something down there. I had a tommy gun at the time, so I opened fire. “The next morning, we found a dead cow in the field.” (Dad always kept his war memories “light”, very seldom sharing the true horrors he saw and faced on a daily basis.)

Hahnen said German tanks and infantry tried to regain the town the next day but “never got in.”

Hahnen stayed in France for 33 days before being pulled out with the 82nd to prepare for the airborne invasion of Holland in August.

“I’m proud to say we went in there (Normandy) first,” Hahnen said. “We gave everything we had and we took a lot of dead Germans and a lot of German prisoners.”

Hahnen earned a Silver Star for action in Holland, (Incorrect ~ as Dad earned his Silver Star in St. Sauveur le Vicomte, France.) where he used two shots at close range from his bazooka to disable a German tank threatening to stop an advance by paratroopers. He earned a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in Holland.

So, to reiterate … After landing, the veterans of the 505 PIR converged on Ste. Mere Eglise from all directions. Every trooper remembered Lt. Col. Krause’s sendoff talk to “make your way to Ste. Mere Eglise….”

Krause’s troopers established blocking positions on all roads leading into Ste. Mere Eglise, then cleared the town after a short fight. (Dad had yet to arrive.) All of this was done without any serious resistance; and, by 0500 hours, Krause personally cut the main communications cable, walked to the city hall and raised the old American flag over it – the same flag which was raised in Sicily and Naples. The people of Ste. Mere Eglise proclaim to this day that theirs was the first town to be “liberated” in France.

As troopers moved into town, they saw a number of dead troopers still in their harnesses, hanging from trees and overhead wires. The dead troopers from Company F, 505, had dropped into the town square as a raging fire engulfed an adjacent house. Illuminated by the flames, the troopers were shot as they were in the air or struggled to get out of their harnesses. It was slaughter! (As indicated above, Dad was in a detail which helped cut down his comrades.) One of the troopers, Pvt. John Steele, became famous due to his part in the epic movie, “The Longest Day”, as he hung from the steeple pretending to be dead. To this day, a “trooper” still hangs from this steeple!

By mid-morning, the bulk of the 3rd Batallion had made their way into town. As fast as it could be done, men were dispersed to their own companies so that platoons and weapon teams again became cohesive units and the main road blocks strengthened. Later in the morning, a German force estimated at two companies of infantry, along with 2 or 3 small tanks and mobile guns, hit the G Company roadblocks. This surge was successfully repelled with the use of a 57 MM anti-tank gun. The Germans then began outflanking moves, but well-placed machine gun and rifle fire inflicted many casualties on them and they pulled back. By this time, the 2nd Battalion had also moved into Ste. Mere Eglise and relieved those 3rd Battalion units on the northern and eastern roadblocks so Colonel Krause was able to strengthen his line on the south and west and the German attack petered out. The Jerries did continue to hit the G Company positions with heavy mortar, artillery, and small arms fire for the rest of the day, however, as they became more organized.

As night approached, the general situation appeared to be more satisfactory. A few snipers had to be ferreted out of the buildings and roving groups of enemy delayed the free movement of messengers and supply personnel. But these did not constitute a serious threat. Except for a critical shortage of water, supplies were adequate. Considerable quantities of food, ammunition, antitank guns, and other supplies were gathered from crashed gliders whose occupants had been killed. After the morning attacks, the enemy had exerted no serious pressure against the town during the rest of the day. It was not until after dark that he began to probe half-heartedly at the roadblock outposts. These attempts were defeated without difficulty.

A hard fight had been fought on D-Day – a fight that had not gone entirely to plan and had cost heavy casualties. (By the end of D-Day about 130 3rd Battalion men were hospitalized in Ste. Mere Eglise.) Not one battle, but 15 or 20 separate engagements had been fought.

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