Jim Scotella – Fifth Marines – Iwo Jima
Jim Scotella was born in 1925 in Detroit, Michigan to parents who had immigrated to the US from Italy. His father joined the American Army in 1915, shortly after arriving in the States. He served in a field artillery unit in World War I. Unfortunately, Jim never learned much about his father’s time in the Great War. Many First World War veterans were reluctant to talk about their war experiences. They passed their stoicism on to their sons, the veterans of the Second World War, who also seldom spoke of their war time.
Jim had a great childhood, but like in so many other families, money was tight during the Depression. When he was six-years-old, he and his seven-year-old brother sold newspapers on the street to help support his family. He learned to be street-wise navigating his Italian neighborhood. When he was twelve, he got his own paper route, and in 1941 when he was sixteen, he was hired by the Detroit Times to be a branch manager. So many young men were joining the service at that time that openings were being created at the paper, and Jim was able to take advantage of the situation to move into a good office job. It didn’t hurt that he was also ambitious, hard-working, and smart. He did well.
Despite the fact that he hadn’t finished high school yet,* when Jim turned eighteen, he decided to join the Marines with a neighbor. After they had their physicals, however, his neighbor didn’t make the cut. In fact, a lot of hopeful applicants didn’t have what it took to get into the elite corps. Jim found himself with just five others destined for the Marines. About another 300 ended up in other branches of the service, including his friend.
Jim was transported to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego for boot camp. Due to a medical emergency that put him in the hospital for over a week, he graduated with a new unit. That new unit (A41) ended up becoming a part of the 28th Regiment of the Fifth Marine Division.
The Fifth trained at Camp Pendleton for about nine months, taking in veterans from Guadalcanal and Marine paratroopers, before shipping out to Camp Tarawa on Hawaii. Jim was assigned to Communications where he learned to encode and decode messages. He trained with the Navajo code talkers, as well as radio and signal men. In combat the Navajos had to be protected and shielded because their code talk was never broken by the Japanese. While they used a special version of their language to encode and decode messages, Jim learned how to use a cylinder to do the same.
In early 1945, the Fifth shipped out for Iwo Jima. Just a couple days before arriving at the island, the men were briefed on the invasion. Jim learned that he would be in the 8th wave, slated to land 35 minutes after the initial invasion boats hit the sand. Once they were on the beach, the 28th was ordered to take the sector closest to Mt. Suribachi
On the morning of the invasion on February 19, 1945, Fourth and Fifth Division men filled the Higgins landing boats, with the Third Division in reserve. Jim put on his pack and climbed down the rope ladder, being careful to grip the vertical sides of the rope to avoid getting his hands stepped on. Each Higgins boat held about 25-30 men.
The water was calm, and as they moved toward the beach Jim had no fear. The tension started to increase as the landing ramp went down. Wounded were waiting to be transported back to the ship. Jim and his unit reached the beach, but sunk down to their knees in the lava sand. They had a tough time getting traction, taking a step up the first incline, and immediately sliding back down. It was a grind to get up the 15-20-foot hill, and then they had to cross another 100 yards of lava sand.
After Jim crested the first hill, he saw an immobile Marine in an exposed position at the top of a mound. When he realized that the Marine was dead, the reality of combat sunk in. On a small island only seven miles long and five miles wide filled with thousands of landing Marines, the Japanese could lob anything over and be sure of hitting someone. Jim just tried to get as close to the base of Suribachi as he could.
Once he and his unit reached Suribachi, they dug in. The next morning, Jim and some of his unit returned to the beach to pick up batteries for the radios. A couple of close friends stayed back. There was still a lot of firing at that point; the men were always a target. It didn’t matter where they were on the island, nobody, even officers, was safe.
When Jim and the others came back to their positions, they found a mortar had hit their foxhole while they were gone. One friend was killed and another had his arm nearly torn off.
On the second night another of his friends, Ray, took a message instead of Jim, and while doing so got hit. Jim finished taking the message and made sure it was delivered, and Ray was sent to the hospital ship. Ray survived the war and died in 2011.
On the fourth day there, Jim saw the flag go up on Suribachi. He and the others cheered and yelled. It was an especially meaningful and inspiring moment in a tough battle that continued on for weeks.
Two weeks in, the Marines discovered that the Japanese had miles of sophisticated tunnels throughout the entire island. Many Marines went into an area they thought had been secured, including pillboxes, only to be killed when Japanese infiltrated from underground. Jim was there when one of his friends, Iggy, who had been captured, tortured, and killed by Japanese in tunnels, was discovered naked and mutilated in a cave. The tunnels were so well camouflaged, no one knows where he was taken down. Knowing that you could be hit from above the ground or snatched from below it into a hellish death anytime only increased the nightmare for these brave young men.
Eventually, after 26 days of hard fighting on the island, the frontline rifle squads needed replacements, and some were drawn from Communications. One of Jim’s friends literally drew the short straw, and was sent to up front. He wound up dead shortly thereafter. .
Jim was extremely fortunate throughout whole campaign, but many were not. There were 19,000 American wounded and 6,138 killed on Iwo Jima, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific. The great accomplishment of this tremendous sacrifice was that over 2,000 airmen lived because the crucial airfields on the island were now in American hands. Iwo Jima’s key strategic location was desperately needed for bombers and fighters who were attacking mainland Japan. Iwo Jima brought Americans one step closer to the heart of the Japanese empire.
On his last night there, after 36 days, Jim was on north end of the island with some airmen and pilots. He traded one of them a Japanese flag for a silver-plated .45 and jumpsuit. That night the Japanese, about 400, executed a Banzai attack against the airmen. Ray Kessler, a P-51 pilot, was there at the time, but did not meet Jim until 2011. (Read Ray Kessler’s hair-raising account of surviving this attack)
When Jim came back he decided not to go to college, but to return to his good job at the Detroit Times, where he by then had five years of seniority. Later he moved to California, working for papers in Los Angeles, and then became a successful entrepreneur. Now he spends his time investing in the stock market and enjoying retirement with the girl he married when he got back from the war.
*Jim did receive his high-school diploma while in the Marines.
George Naff – Hellcat Pilot VF-18 – USS Intrepid – Four Victories
George Naff: Knocking ‘Em Down on Offense and Defense
by Michael Fink
George Naff (June 13, 1923 – March 23, 2017) served as a fighter pilot with the United States Navy’s mighty Third Fleet. His carrier unit, Fighting Squadron 18, went aboard the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Intrepid to strike Japanese targets from the Palaus to the Ryukyus between September and November 1944. In that time, George participated in the Formosa Air Battle—one of the largest aerial engagements of the war—and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval action of the entire conflict. He also bore witness to the birth of the Kamikaze, as Intrepid was one of the first carriers stricken by this menace. Through it all George Naff stood tall, shooting down enemy planes where he found them, no matter how trying the conditions.
His first test came on October 14th, three days into Admiral Halsey’s daring raid on Formosa. The Japanese did not take carrier strikes on “Fortress Formosa” lying down. They sent out planes by the dozen to attack the fleet. Torpedoes churned through the water, slamming into USS Canberra and USS Houston. A formation of 25 enemy dive bombers was planning a similar welcome for Intrepid and its sister Hancock when Japanese pilots ran into George and the rest of Intrepid’s 12-plane Combat Air Patrol.
George and his fellows were outnumbered more than 2-to-1. Fighter pilots scattered to cover as many planes as possible, chasing Japanese bombers from 1,000′ right down to the wave tops. George attacked his first opponent from the side, peppering the bomber’s fuselage and wing root with .50cal gunfire. There was no time for celebration when it crashed down to the water below—George climbed for altitude then dove for speed, coming down atop the next enemy to “splash” it as well.
Still more were coming. One in particular caught his eye as it popped up from the ocean’s surface to begin its deadly parabolic dive. Gunners aboard U.S. ships noted the danger, too, and filled the skies with flak in a desperate effort to knock the bomber down. Heedless of the guns now trained his way, George chased the bomber into the storm of anti-aircraft fire until the enemy plane completely filled his gun sight. He scored hits at the wing root, where the wing met the fuselage, and literally sawed off the bomber’s wing with machinegun fire. As the Japanese plane spiraled out of control George pulled up and away from friendly ships still firing towards him. He zoomed his way out of gun range as quickly as possible, returning to his station protecting the harried ships.
George’s fourth and final victory came two weeks later on October 29th, when he and his wingman “Whitey” Ford encountered a lone enemy fighter over Manila Bay. The plane remained aloof, always keeping position next to a large cloud. George led the way in from above. When the Japanese pilot attempted to turn inside George to get on his tail, Whitey blocked him, forcing the enemy to change course. That was all the opening George needed. He whipped around and chased the Japanese fighter pilot down, leading his target so that gunfire ate through his enemy’s engine and cockpit. The Japanese plane veered crazily after the hits, plunging from 7,000′ down in a straight line into the bay below. As George and Whitey fled the scene, the hackles stood up on George’s neck. It was likely that behind that seemingly harmless, puffy cloud lay a gaggle of enemy fighters waiting to overwhelm the 2 Intrepid fighters.
After his ship was crippled by kamikaze attacks on November 25th, George served briefly aboard another carrier until his squadron was recalled to the U.S. for a brief respite. He stuck with Fighting 18 for its reformation and planned redeployment, which was canceled with the unconditional surrender of Japan in August 1945.
Ed Iglesias – Naval Aviator – Wildcats, Hellcats, Corsairs
by Michael Fink
Liberty. Justice. Fraternity. Equality. Victory. Peace. Light. America. For Edward Iglesias, World War II Navy fighter pilot, these words were more than just associated concepts: they happened to be the names of his 8 sisters. Edward’s father, Santiago Iglesias, was a prominent Puerto Rican labor activist, a member of the first Senate of Puerto Rico and a leading proponent of Puerto Rican statehood in the interwar period. Besides blessing his daughters with the names of these sacred ideals, Santiago Iglesias raised all his children to exemplify them. Edward’s long tenure in the Navy attests to that fact.
Edward “Ed” Iglesias was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on April 4th, 1921. In early 1928, he caught a lucky glimpse of Charles Lindbergh flying the home stretch of his Latin American tour. “That’s what I want to be when I grow up,” Ed told his sisters. At 12 years of age, he and his large family moved to the United States to settle in Washington, D.C., where his father served as Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico (an appointment to the U.S. House of Representatives).
Ed’s enthusiasm for aviation found an outlet in college. He began flying in 1939, during his freshman year at Virginia Tech, and as soon as he passed his course Ed signed up with a Navy recruiter on campus. By December 1943, Ed was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy and on his way to a fighter squadron. He spent his war years in Fighting Squadron 47 (VF-47) aboard the light carrier USS Bataan (CVL-29).
He was an exceptional pilot with a knack for gunnery. Ed was regularly chosen to fly as the fourth man in the strike leader’s division, which meant that he saw more than his fair share of action. Fighting 47 went aboard Bataan in the beginning of March 1945, as the mighty Fifth Fleet continued to push its way to the very doorstep of Japan. Ed got his first taste of air combat only a month later, on April 3rd.
Per the strike report, “As U.S. Marines and the Tenth Army forces pushed across Okinawa on the third day of the invasion…it was increasingly important…to prevent Japanese air attacks from the islands to the North and from the Empire itself.” To that end, 12 F6F Hellcats of Fighting 47—including Ed’s—took off from USS Bataan with bombs slung beneath their sturdy frames. The bombs were intended for runways dotting Amami Oshima and Kikai Shima, two of the tiny islands in the Ryukyu Archipelago dangling beneath Japan’s 4 principal islands. Though the aerial bombardment did minimal damage to facilities on the ground, it did stir up a beehive of activity from Japanese fighters. Close to 20 enemy planes pounced on the offending Hellcats.
The timing was particular bad for Ed. He’d been unable to locate his section leader after his bombing run and was now alone in the center of a swirling melee. To make matters worse, his plane was having serious mechanical difficulties. It shuddered and sprayed oil whenever he tried to apply full power to the engine, forcing him to slow down in a situation where speed often meant survival. Fortunately, just as a column of enemy fighters began closing, Ed spotted a fellow VF-47 pilot to join up with.
The odds were still against the Americans at two against four, but the Japanese pilots decided to break off pursuit in favor of bullying a lone Navy pilot who’d become separated from the pack. Ignoring his engine trouble, Ed dove down after the lead Japanese plane to knock him off the imperiled Hellcat’s tail. After chasing the enemy down to a mere 200’ above the waves, Ed started scoring hits that shred chunks off his adversary’s aircraft. The Japanese plane began belching smoke. Then it went belly up and nose down, crashing into the waves below.
One week later, over the nearby island of Amami Oshima, Ed and his VF-47 peers traded bombs for rockets in an attack Japanese shipping. Though the rockets proved minimally effective against targets that were already burned or burning, the Japanese again contested the attacks. This time it was a daring fighter pilot, all by himself in a Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” plane, who tangled with Ed’s 4-plane division. The Zero pilot missed his initial pass against the first 2 planes. He flew headlong into Ed and his section leader, Lieutenant Calton, who both peppered the back end of the Zero so liberally that its tail broke off. The plane went hurtling down into the waters below and exploded on impact. Ed and his section leader split credit for the kill.
Ed’s last confirmed aerial victory came on May 11th, 1945, on a Target Combat Air Patrol (TCAP) over Okinawa. Because their mission was defensive, the men carried only .50 caliber ammunition—no ordnance. They’d need every bit of it, too: more than 20 enemy aircraft were inbound. There were Japanese fighters, Japanese bombers, and even specially equipped aircraft carrying manned suicide rockets. The Japanese dubbed this weapon the “Ohka,” or cherry blossom. The Americans, on the other hand, called it the “Baka,” Japanese for idiot.
Ed spotted the threat first and inaugurated the action by opening up with his six wing-mounted machine guns. The first enemy fighter dodged out of the way, only to be taken down by other men in Ed’s division. Now Ed, again flying with his leader Lt. Calton, turned hard to starboard to chase after three more enemies. Calton’s plane was leaking oil, so he had to pull back, giving Ed the lead in the fight. The Japanese planes scattered before him, but Ed doggedly pursued one of them, turning with it, following his enemy in crazy up-and-down maneuvers as the Japanese pilot tried to shake him. It was to no avail. Ed clung tenaciously to his enemy and fired at just the right moment, lacing gunfire straight through his cockpit. The out-of-control plane spun wildly into the sea, giving Ed a finally tally of 2 ½ kills.
The end of the war came soon thereafter, and Ed participated in one of the iconic moments of the ensuing celebration: the massive show of U.S. airpower over Tokyo Bay. Given the sheer number of aircraft crowding the skies that day, flying wingtip to wingtip through wake turbulence, with no margin for error, Ed found that flight scarier than any of the combat that had come before. But soon it was back to the U.S. and into the peacetime Navy.
From World War II through Vietnam, Ed’s career in the Navy spanned 30 years and an array of commands that ended in his retirement as a Captain in 1969. He commanded jet fighter squadrons from multiple carriers in the early 1960s, served on carrier commands staffs, and even commanded a boat as part of Operation Market Time during the Vietnam War.
Though Edward’s name may sound more prosaic than that of his sisters—recall Liberty, Justice, Victory and Peace—his actions spanning three decades went a long way to contribute to the realization of these ideals in the country his family loved so much.
Date of Interview: March 13, 2011
Interviewer: Heather Steele
Format: Standard Definition Video
Length: 50 minutes
Ted Bachenheimer – A Tribute to an 82nd Airborne Hero
Ted Bachenheimer
If you’ve read Ross Carter’s Those Devils in Baggy Pants, you’ll remember Chapter 34, “A Salute to Master Scout Bachenheimer.” In Carter’s laconic style, he describes Theodore H. Bachenheimer’s exploits during the Market-Garden operation in Holland. “We had been at the bridge but a short time when the happy-to-lucky master scout, Bachenheimer, rode up on a bicycle. He looked over in the direction of Nijmegen, two or three miles away, which at the moment was being dive-bombed and strafed, and wistfully commented: ‘I ain’t been over there yet.’
“He straddled his bicycle and started off.
‘Bachenheimer,’ admitted the Arab, ‘you’re showing no more sense than usual. It’s daylight, the Krautheads hold the town and it’s being bombed. If you go over there by yourself, you won’t come back.’
‘Ah, hell! I’m going over there to see what the score is.’”
Bachenheimer so won the affection and admiration of his peers in the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment that they, most especially Fred Baldino, want to ensure that the memory of his exploits and courage will live on for the next generations. Fred has spent a significant amount of time gathering reports and information about Ted, and it is a great honor to offer a small eulogy, courtesy of Fred’s research as he compiled it and often in his (published) words*, of one of the most devilish heroes that ever wore baggy pants:
“Ted was born in Braunschweig, Germany on April 23, 1923. His father Wilhelm Bachenheimer was a German Jew; his mother Katherina was of German ancestry. Ted had one brother, Klaus Gutman Bachenheimer, who was born on July 24th, 1926. The parents were in theatrical work.
“Due to the Nazi pogrom against Jews in Germany in the mid-30’s, Ted’s dad fled Germany to Prague, Czechoslavakia. And, because his mother was not Jewish, she and the boys had no trouble joining him there. The family then went to Vienna for two years, and in 1934 they sailed on the SS Majestic from Cherbourgh, France, to the U.S.A., arriving in New York City, and soon after settled in Hollywood, CA. Ted studied drama at Los Angeles City College, and when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he join the U.S. Army. Shortly afterwards he volunteered for the army paratroops, and after taking his jump training at Ft. Benning, GA, he was assigned to the 504th PIR at Ft. Bragg, NC.
“I came out of Class Nr. 38 at Ft. Benning, and was assigned to “A” Co, 504th. It was there at Ft. Bragg that I first met Ted Bachenheimer. He was teaching an intelligence section that I was assigned to, taking us out in the woods and teaching us material from the German army manuals. I believe Ted was assigned to Regimental Hq Co because of his fluency in the German language which he had acquired as a child.
“I didn’t see or hear much of Ted until after we made the beachhead landing at Anzio. It was there that Ted seemed to find his niche. The beachhead was stationary for over the three months that we were there, and Ted just loved to go out on patrol and bring back prisoners. I was a Corporal at the time and with about 12 others we went out on a night patrol with Ted leading the way. As we slowly made our way through a German minefield, I remember one of our newcomers (to the front) saying, ‘Look, we are going through a German cemetery. See the crosses down there.’ I told him, ‘Cemetery, hell, those crosses say ‘Achtung Meinen’!’ Somehow we got through that minefield without any casualties.
“We were soon pretty deep in German territory, walking very quietly when we suddenly heard some gutteral voices, and we all hit the ground. About 20 yards away we could faintly see about a platoon of German soldiers. They were relieving their outposts with fresh troops. After they passed on, Ted told us to stay put, and he walked up to a German outpost and, speaking German, asked the two men in the foxhole for a light for a cigarette. When they went to do so, he quietly told them they were his prisoners.
“We headed back to our own lines, Ted got ahead of us with the prisoners and we lost sight of him. Meanwhile someone didn’t tell our own artillery that we were out there on patrol, and we started to get artillery coming down near us. That wasn’t bad enough, but every third or fourth one was a phosphorus shell. Now we’d been under German artillery fire before, but when it comes to firing for effect it is hard to beat American artillery fire. Those shells were dropping all around us, but somehow the worst that happened was that some of our guys got their jump suits scorched and that, sad to say was real traumatic for there were no jump suits available from supply. They had to wear ‘leg’ fatigues!
“That wasn’t the only thing that happened. On the way back, we came to a dirt road and had to lay down in a ditch beside the road to wait for two stragglers from our patrol. While laying there waiting we heard the noise of German boots coming down the road, probably a German noncom checking on his outposts. We had every intention of letting him walk past, but one of our men took the safety off his M-1 and the German looked over at the ditch and said, “Was ist?” Well about ten guys let loose, and our stragglers told us they saw fire coming at us from behind the German. Soon it seemed that every German outpost around there fired their weapons at or around us. Luckily we were all in defilade, and their rounds went over our heads!
“After a while when the fire ceased, we slowly made our way back to our own lines. Ted went out on many patrols behind the lines while we were at Anzio, mostly by himself and most of the time bringing German prisoners back with him. And only he, if he were still alive, could tell us what happened on those occasions.
“The 504th PIR was pulled off the Anzio beachhead about April 1944 to join the rest of the division in England. We landed in Liverpool about April 29, 1944 and were then put on trains and shipped to the town of Leicester. They quarantined us for two weeks before we were allowed into town. We trained there making several practice jumps, but because we were understrength we missed going into Normandy.
“Right before the Market-Garden jump into Holland, Bachenheimer and I were in the hospital together with minor ailments. While sitting around talking, I suggested to Ted that our commanders send in a platoon of paratroopers to try to assassinate Hitler. Ted said no, that wouldn’t do, it would only make a martyr of Hitler and the Germans would hang tough.
“After we jumped into Holland, Ted’s odyssey began anew, and he got quite a bit of publicity in U.S. newspapers for his exploits. It was during that time he became a ‘General’.”
According to A. Visser, who also cited N. A. Groot’s “Like Stars from Heaven,” it is presumed “that Bachenheimer entered the city of Nijmegen by the isolated railroad track. He ended up at the transformer factory of Willem Smit. There was a light burning in the factor at four o’clock in the afternoon. And Ted decided to take a closer look.
“To the astonishment of the personnel who were still present, Bachenheimer suddenly walked in, dressed in full paratrooper uniform. Again, it shows that master scout Bachenheimer had an excellent sense of where to explore, because these very factory offices proved to be the center of an underground Resistance group in Nijmegen under the direction of engineer Verlee. They immediately updated him on the activities of their group, and Bachenheimer decided to stay with them. They told him that they would willingly follow his directions, and that he should assume command of their unit, and thus he became ‘The General of the Dutch Army’!
“The next day, Tuesday, September 19, 1944, British tanks arrived in Nijmegen. The Dutch underground forces also came into action at that time. Ted managed that day to rid the railroad station of German troops. It happened this way. He and two others took some guns and ammunition from one of the trains, and thus armed with those weapons, they carefully crawled to Post J, from which post they could operate the loudspeakers in the platforms, ‘Come out, hands up, or you’re all dead!’ And Bachenheimer even fired a few shots from his Tommy gun.
“Later, when his friends asked him why he attempted this brave feat all by himself, he answered in a casual and cool manner, ‘Look here, this was probably the first time that these Dutch people ever saw an American, and I thought to myself, that it would make an awfully bad impression if this American ran away from a handful of Germans.’
The American Weekly journalist Martha Gellhorn wrote, “his headquarters was a small overstuffed room in an old Nijmegen school. Two other twenty-year-old boys worked with him in that room. They ate there, with their weapons and grenades hanging on the walls. The corner of the room was piled with souvenirs. I once heard Bachenheimer question a prisoner, and I never saw a job better done. Then he received a German informant from whom he wanted to obtain certain information about nearby German defense installations. After that, two officers from other regiments arrived. They also wanted to get information, but they ended up in a dispute over a patrol they wanted to send out. Bachenheimer insisted that he did not think the proposed soldiers were fit for the job. From time to time English officers, Dutch resistance fighters, and Dutch citizens came with various requests: to arrest a certain betrayer, or to release some person from prison who had mistakenly been arrested. No detail was too large, or too small for Bachenheimer, who was a very capable and serious human being. Neither could anyone shake his modesty. His previous experience for this line of work consisted of one little job in the United States. He had been press agent for a show, but the show was a total fiasco.
“Bachenheimer had an extraordinary talent for war, but, in reality, he was a man of peace. ‘In principle I am against any war,’ he would say, ‘I simply cannot hate anyone.’
“When I came to say goodbye to him, he was not in his office; he was in enemy territory.”
A. Visser picks up the narrative again: “During the last days of September Bachenheimer was again scouting…Again and again he crossed the Waal River near Betuwe which was still occupied by the Germans. Near the village of Tiel he became acquainted with the Ebbens family. Through them he made contact with a Canadian lieutenant, Heaps, and a British officer, Baker. These men, together with Dutch resistance fighters, had organized an escape organization called ‘River Line.’ The organization saved paratroopers who had been left behind in Betuwe following the unsuccessful action at Arnhem.
“That was just Bachenheimer’s cup of tea…
“The escape organization, ‘River Line,’ assigned to Ted the task of installing telephone cables behind the German front line. He worked closely and together with the Dutch underground organization at Tiel, which was led by the fruit farmer, Ebbens. The command post of the organization was established on the Ebbens fruit farm.
“On October 16th this command post was attacked by SS troops. Bachenheimer, Baker, a neighbor van Santen, and the entire Ebbens family were taken prisoner. Bachenheimer started talking immediately after their capture. He spoke in fluent German. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but Captain Baker and I folled the Ebbens family into thinking we were German officers. You must let these people go. They are innocent!’ The prisoners listened to Ted’s please in astonishment—but the SS troopers did not let anyone go. They laid an ambush around the Ebbens house and that same night a truck carrying ammunition slipped into the fruit farm and drove right into the arms of the Germans. There was an intense firefight. Luckily, the resistance fighters who were driving the truck all escaped, but out of revenge the Germans set fire to all of the Ebbens’ buildings. This caused ammunition that already had been stored in one of the buildings to explode. After that, of course, the Germans did not free any of the prisoners, for this had disproved Bachenheimer’s statement to them.
“They were taken to Heusden and tried before a military court. Ebbens received the bullet (In short, he was executed!) The neighbor was set free. Bachenheimer and Baker were carried away as military POW’s.”
An article by the name of “The Legendary Paratrooper” written by Bill Francois and published in V.F.W. magazine in February, 1961 takes the story a step farther. “They (Baker and Bachenheimer) were taken to an internment camp at Amersfoot, 45 kilmeters away, and held there awaiting shipment by train to Stalag XI B at Fallingbostel.
“Bachenheimer was placed in one railroad car with other prisoners, while Captain Baker was sealed in another. During the slow train trip that night the American private succeeded in prying screws from a wooden frame over a window and escaping.
“‘I thought of Ted and the three other British soldiers free once again within 30 miles of our two troops,’ Captain Baker said. ‘And I was extremely jealous.’
“But Bachenheimer never made it. After effecting the escape, the four POWs split up, each intent on making his own way back to freedom as best he could….Somewhere along that 30-mile dash for freedom, the legendary trooper came face to face with the enemy once again. Meekness, when confronted by the Nazis, had never come easy to Ted Bachenheimer. He probably chose to die as he had lived – fighting for freedom.”
A. Visser’s research does give some final insight into Ted’s death. According to the archives of the village of Oldebroek, on October 23, 1944 it was reported to townsman Johannes Huurman that an American corpse with two gunshot wounds, “one in the back of the head and the other in the neck,” had been found.
A. Visser states, “Bachenheimer had been shot on the evening of October 22, 1944 at about nine o’clock in the evening on the Eperweg. There, a German army armored car stopped in front of the house occupied by the Llange family. They heard a few shots but did not dare to go outside. Ted Bachenheimer had been shot there on the side of the road.
“Three weeks later Bachenheimer’s division left the Nijmegen sector…His fellow soldiers never learned what had happened to him. His name, throughout the remainder of the war, was carried on the records as missing in action. In 1946 or 1947 Bachenheimer was reburied in the war cemetery at Neuville, Belgium, fourteen kilometers south of Luik. At the request of the family, in 1949, the body was disinterred and moved to the United States where he was buried in the Jewish cemetery, Beth Clam, in Hollywood, CA.
“The pupils of Petra school (in ‘t Harde, Holland), the sixth graders (seniors) honor him, and all who offered their lives for the freedom of our country and our people, when on each 4th of May, as a silent homage, they put their flowers by the cross that marks the place where he fell.
“The place of Ted’s death and the location of the bullet holes in his head and neck indicate that his secret (that he was Jewish) may have been discovered by the Germans, and he may have been taken aside from the other prisoners and summarily executed in such a way that the Germans could not be held accountable for this death. It seems logical that a prisoner dying in the custody of his captors would, at the very least, have been accorded a proper burial by the military authorities and his body not just abandoned on the side of the road.”
Fred Baldino Visiting Ted Bachenheimer’s Grave
Fred Baldino finishes the account. “When I landed in the States in January, 1945, a Red Cross nurse came up to me and said, ‘Did you know Ted Bachenheimer?’ I answered, ‘Yes, why?’, and she told me she was his aunt, and asked if I knew what happened to Ted. I told her that all I knew was that he was reported Missing in Action. She gave me Ted’s mother’s address in Hollywood, and when I got convalescent leave I visited my sister in Burbank, CA and went over to Hollywood to visit Ted’s mother. We had quite a chat, and at that time she felt confident that Ted knew the German hills pretty well, and that he would find his way back to our lines. It turned out, as we all learned later, that Ted was captured and while on a German truck being taken to a prisoner of war camp, he tried to escape (presumably) and was shot. A friend of the 82nd Abn Div in Nijmegen, Jan Bos knows the story well and tells me there is a marker where they first buried Ted.
“After the war, his body was shipped back to the U.S., and he is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Hollywood, CA.
“I have visited Ted’s grave several times and have pictures of his gravestone. In my humble opinion Ted never got the full recognition that he so richly deserves.”
*Quoted verbatim from Fred Baldino’s records including “Odyssey of the Pfc ‘General”! (A Story of an ‘airbone’ Hero)” published by the The Airborne Quarterly Magazine, “Voice of the AAA and Digest of the Airborne World”, Summer 2001, by Fred Baldino and using accounts compiled by A.Vissier, a school principal in the Netherlands.
Commander Michael Kapnas – Ensign at 19
Midwestern boy Michael Kapnas joined the Navy in 1943 at age 17 and was commissioned as an ensign in 1945 as the youngest officer ever in the US Navy. He was serving as a skipper of LCTs (Landing Craft, Tank) in preparation of the invasion of Japan when the war ended. While stationed in Florida during his training, he was able to see the smoke rising from American ships attacked by German U-Boots scant miles off-shore. He served 28 years in active and reserve duty, and retired in 1971 after serving as Commander. Kapnas led a very successful life in public relations after the war and is still happily married to the girl he met in 1947. He often speaks in San Diego County high schools teaching our future leaders the value of service and contribution to the community.
