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COMBAT SCENES IN HOLLAND

Downed Dakota
A C-47 (in circle) heads to earth after being hit by enemy weapons fire.  A Waco glider is seen at left with its nose door swung open.
(Photo courtesy: Lt. Jack French collection)
Devastated City
The entire city of Nijmegen as it appeared 11days after the assault jump.  While the city is in ruins, the strategically important bridge stands unscathed.

Liberated Town
Local citizenry watch paratroopers marching by.  A few of the troopers take interest in the ladies as they pass

508th Meets British 30th Corp
Gen Horrocks (L) talks with unidentified man while Col. Lindquist and Capt. Walt Silver listen in
  (Photo courtesy Tony Rogers)
German POWs are marched to an area where they will be held and ultimately relocated.
   1/Lt Rex Combs wrote on the back of the photo, "The 59 prisoners I took in Wyler, Germany on Sept. 17, 1944".
The prisoners taken was noted on the citation of his first Silver Star.
[Courtesy Rex Combs collection]
Devils Hill
group of Hq Hq men after taking the hill include:
[standing l-r] Colinos Morgan, Joe Ricci, Donald Morgan, George Fredrick, Millard Shull
[kneeling, l-r] Larry O'Connor, Lyle Smith, Joe Favela
Somewhere in Holland
November 1944, [l-r] Tony Waring, Ken Schroeder, Valentine McDonnell strike a pose before resuming their journey to their new base camp in Sissonne, France.

(Courtesy Irv Shanley)
Tower in Hunner Park
housed switches for demolition charges on the Nijmegen Bridge. Knocked out by Maj. (then Capt.) Adams and patrol on night of 17th Sept. 1944 (Photo taken 17 Sept. 1945.)
(courtesy Rex Combs collection)


Soup's (Almost) On!
Oliver Griffin (co H) "requisitioned" this poultry item and shared the delicacy with his buddy Frank Bagdonas and their platoon leader, Lt, John Leatherwood

Combat Changes things
  Men of the 82nd and regular infantry  discuss battle situations while a German casualty lies at their feet.  Only the GI at far left seems to take notice of the corpse.
  Just a few months earlier these men would have been horrified to find a body laying in the street.


David R Hollidge and John T. "Jack" Brammer
believed to be on LZ ca .October 18-19, 1944. Note the gunpowder around Brammer's nose and mouth.
(courtesy Barry Nichols)


"Somewhere In Holland"
[l-r] Andrew R. Golcher, William L, Blithe, Robert C Gundlach and  Joseph A. Gedeika (all of Hq Hq)

Tickling The Ivories
   pianist Tec/4 Donald Adrianson (505 Regt. Hq) plays
"Tea For Two" and other oldies on D+6 (23 Oct 1944) in the Café Hombergen in Groesbeek,
   About 10 days later he was in a patrol with 4 others going from Beek to the German border in a daylight assault.  They got into the area but 2 were killed and 2 others, including Donald, were captured.  The fifth man was wounded but returned to the unit.  
   The man leaning on the piano is Rollo Morris (also of 505 Hq Co). Rollo was in a house overlooking the area with binoculars at the time the patrol went out on this day.  Pvt Serge Capderoque and Stephen C Mason were killed , Adrianson became a POW and the squad leader Sgt Russell O'Neal got back wounded.
   Serge Capderoque's remains were recovered in the 50's.  He had been shot through the head while firing into the German positions from a foxhole.  Adrianson was with him in the same foxhole and saw Serge's head explode on impact.
   Mason ran up a dike heading into enemy positions and was mowed down by a German machinegun.  He was laying dead on the dike when they last saw him and his remains are still missing.
   Tec/4 Adrianson was released from Stalag 6J Krefeld Rheinland, Prussia 51-07 on 15 May 1945.  
   Since the photo was held by Rex Combs (4508, Co A), it is thought that the two others in the photo could be easily Co A men.  Both units were in the same sector at that time.

(photo courtesy of Rex Combs' collection, all personal details courtesy of Nico Jongeneel)