The Tale of Two Helmets

While on a visit to see the newest exhibit at the National WWII Museum, I took note of two U.S. helmets displayed in two different exhibits. One helmet belonged to a soldier in the 5th Infantry Division fighting in France and the other belonged to a U.S. Coast Guardsman fighting in the Pacific against the Japanese. This is the tale of two helmets with two different outcomes.

PFC Joseph "JK" Barrineau

 

Private Barrineau was from Andrews, South Carolina and arrived in Normandy, France in early July, 1944 with the 5th Infantry Division. During Operation Cobra, he was involved in heavy fighting against the Germans as the allies pushed to break out of the deadly hedgerows of Normandy. Barrineau was injured in both arms by shrapnel and machine gun fire in Vidouville, France while taking Hill 183. He was moved back to be treated by medics when they noticed something wrong with his helmet. It had a bullet hole in the front and a large exit hole to the rear. The web headband was also torn apart by the bullet. To the surprise of the medics, Barrineau did not have a head injury. He went on to survive the war and later moved to Corbin, Kentucky where he would become a pastor. Barrineau was awarded the Purple Heart. 

Yeoman Frederick Leon Ruckert, Jr.

Yeoman Ruckert was from Shreveport, Louisiana and was deployed to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. Ruckert was aboard LST-167 when it was strafed and bombed by Japanese bombers on September 25, 1943. Ruckert was killed by shrapnel as a result of the attack. According the display at the WWII Museum, he was an only child and his battle-damaged helmet was returned to his parents.

Incidentally, the attack on the LST-167 produced the largest loss of life on any U.S. Coast Guard vessel during WWII.

The Crickets of D-Day

Airborne Clicker Known as The Cricket

As Operation Overlord began to unfold in the early minutes and hours of 6 June 1944, a small noise producing device is credited with saving the lives of many American paratroopers. 

General Maxwell Taylor of the 101st Airborne Division wanted a way for paratroopers to identify each other in the dark on D-Day.  So by taking the idea of a 1930's Cracker Jack toy, Taylor had each trooper outfitted with a tiny clicker made of stamped metal with a tiny sheet of steel so that when pressed together, a "click-clack" sound was made. The British ACME Firm was commissioned to produce the small clicker.  Once issued, most paratroopers attached the device to their jump jackets for easy accessibility.

The paratroopers quickly named the clicker device the "cricket" because of the sound.  Here is how it worked.  When a paratrooper heard a noise in the dark after landing, he would make one "click" with the cricket.  If a "click-clack" was heard as a response, it meant a friendly fellow paratrooper was nearby.  The lack of a "click-clack" response usually resulted in the trooper firing at the source of the original noise as it most likely was an enemy soldier.  For fear of the Germans gaining knowledge of the cricket, the paratroopers weren't issued the device until just before D-Day.  There is some debate on whether the cricket was issued only to 101st paratroopers or to both the 101st and 82nd.  

The little cricket had one really short mission which lasted from the time a paratrooper landed until daylight on 6 June 1944.  After daylight, the mission of the cricket was over - completely.  It was no longer useful as the Germans caught on to the cricket's use and almost certainly were in possession of them from fallen paratroopers or POW's.

Only a few crickets are known to exist today and they fetch top dollar with verified provenance.  There are tons of fakes and reproductions available on the internet.  I own a toy reproduction that I purchased for 9 Euros at Dead Man's Corner and besides displaying it, I've discovered it annoys my cat.

WN62 and the Beast of Omaha

Amazon: WN62

A fellow Band of Brothers tour member wrote to me with a great idea to post about interesting books that I recommend.  So from time to time, I'll blog about books that I think you'll enjoy.  For the first book, I decided to post about WN62 by Hein Severloh.

Severloh's book is a memoir of his role in D-Day as well as his post war life. At age 19, Severloh was conscripted into the German Wehrmacht. He spent time in several areas including the Eastern Front and ultimately assigned to the defense of the Atlantic wall in an area later to be known as Omaha Beach. The exact location of his defensive position was called Widerstandsnest 62 or WN62 overlooking the Easy Red sector.

Severloh claims to have inflicted hundreds of casualties upon American troops with his MG42 machine gun. Over the course of about nine hours, he rained down a gauntlet of bullets onto American soldiers as they exited the landing craft. Most research agrees that Severloh was responsible for the majority of the casualties on Easy Red but the exact figure varies. The slaughter was so staggering to our troops that they nicknamed him the Beast of Omaha. It took Severloh almost 40 years to come to terms with his role on that fateful day of June 6, 1944.  His book gives an interesting account from the enemy's perspective of both the war and life after the war.

Hein Severloh

An American flag waves at Severloh's WN62 position
on Omaha Beach. Picture taken on June 5, 2015

The view from Severloh's WN62 position.
Picture taken on June 5, 2015

Hein Severloh circa 1990's.

If you have any book ideas related to WWII, feel free to comment on them below.  I'd love to hear from you.

Meeting Don Jakeway

Sgt. Don Jakeway was told on June 5, 1944 that his division, the 82nd Airborne, was about to be sent into an operation with an estimated casualty rate of 85%. Later that night, Jakeway boarded a plane with his stick as part of Operation Overlord heading to France.  Around 1 AM on June 6, Jakeway parachuted and landed in a tree a few miles outside of St. Mere Eglise.  He continued fighting in France until mid-June where he was sent back to England for more training.

In September 1944, he parachuted once again into combat and fought in Operation Market Garden. Jakeway was severly injured by shrapnel near Beek, Holland and was evacuated. He recovered and returned to combat during the Battle of the Bulge. He was injured again by German sniper fire and while he was in the ambulance headed to the rear area, the ambulance crashed. He was the only survivor in the crash.

For his service, Jakeway earned 21 medals including several bronze stars, a purple heart with oak leaf cluster and the French Medal of Honor.  

Don Jakeway returned to France a few years ago and found the very tree he landed in on June 6th, 1944.  

Don Jakeway at the tree he landed in on June 6, 1944

My signed picture of Jakeway

Don Jakeway greeting people at the 2016 Show of Shows

The Angel of Bastogne

Renee Lemaire

If you watched HBO's Band of Brothers series, a nurse was portrayed caring for the American wounded at a church-turned-hospital in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. In real life, her name was Renee Lemaire and she is often referred to as the "Angel of Bastogne." Renee was killed on Christmas Eve, 1944, during a German air raid.  She had entered the hospital during the bombing to rescue injured American soldiers and, ultimately, she was killed trying to save more soldiers from the inferno.

Renee Lemaire's Grave

Contrary to the HBO BoB series, the Bastogne Hospital was not in a church.

Today, the building is home to a Chinese Buffet.

 A memorial plaque to Renee Lemaire is on

the front of the Chinese Buffet building.

Bastogne Barracks

Bastogne, Belgium was headquarters to the 101st Airborne Division in December of 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. The division's HQ was located within barracks now known as the "Nuts Cave" because of Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe's reply of "NUTS!" to a German demand of surrender.

I was able to visit the Bastogne Barracks in June, 2015.  The barracks are still in limited use with a vehicle restoration facility being the most functional.  

 Entrance that descends down into "NUTS Cave"

 A hallway within the HQ

 A meeting with the staff officers in the HQ

  The famous "NUTS" reply was typed out here.

 Christmas Dinner with Gen. McAuliffe, December 1944.

  101st HQ mess hall in Bastogne Barracks.

KP duty in the division's mess hall. 

Here are some random pictures of the static displays at Bastogne Barracks.

Collecting Artifacts

One of my interests in WWII is collecting original artifacts especially German items. As time passes, these items become more rare and difficult to obtain. I mentioned the 6th Fallschrimjager Regiment in my previous post about Dead Man's Corner. Fallschrimjager basically means paratrooper and the 6th Regiment is most well known.

This is a picture of my German M38 Fallschrimjager helmet. It's hands down my favorite helmet in my small collection. The M38 helmet can be easily identified because they don't look like the traditional German helmet. Mine has a couple of names inside but I've not had much luck in tracing the names to the paratrooper it was issued to.

M38 German Fallschrimjager Helmet

*As a note, my interest in German or Nazi artifacts is strictly historical in nature and in no way condones the actions, atrocities, etc. committed by the Nazi's.

Dead Man's Corner

Dead Man's Corner at Saint Côme-du-Mont, France was one of my favorite spots in my visit to Normandy.  Elements of the 101st Airborne dropped nearby in the early opening hours of Operation Overlord.  The area was heavily defended by Col. Heydte's 6th Fallschrimjager Regiment and the 3rd Battalion 1058th Grenadier Regiment.  On June 7, 1944, a light Stuart tank entered the intersection and was taken out by German forces.  A body of one of the tank's crew members laid partially out of the hatch.  So as troops passed the intersection, they referenced it as "Dead Man's Corner."

It's home to one of the most unique museums in the Normandy area and includes the jump jacket of Lt. Dick Winters.

Dead Man's Corner - June 6, 2015

Dead Man's Corner - around June 8-10, 1944