Sally and George, two of Hitler’s radio mouthpieces who had become “attached” to the 504 throughout the Italian campaign, informed men of the regiment in a farewell broadcast that they would never make it past the Straits of Gibraltar – German subs were on the lookout for the Capetown Castle, the ship that was to carry the regiment to England.
German submarine commanders, however, lacking the confidence of the microphone commandos, failed to make an appearance and the voyage to England was successfully completed when the Capetown Castle docked at Liverpool on April 22, 1944.
Past the flak towers that stood in the sea on long timbered legs like a family of herons, past the little boats and the big ships that call Liverpool home, past the green lawns that ran like carpets to the river’s edge, the neat red brick houses of a Georgian cut, and past the shipyards, grey, gaunt, and menacing where a freighter lay, its bottom glistening in a coat of copper.
This was England, and as the Capetown Castle moved upstream to its pier, 504 men hung over the rail and gaped at the panoramic riverbank much as they would at a technicolor travelogue of the High Llama’s secret heaven in the hidden fastnesses of Tibet.
Here was system, order, and reserve; the men saw it in the hedged fences that ran along the brick walks, and they saw it in the Bobby who paced imperturbably along the length of the pier. Above all they felt it everywhere.
There were no Arabs displaying watermelons on the dock, no ragged waifs begging for “caramelli”; the heavy sweet smell of fish and perfume that clung to ports fringing the Mediterranean was absent.
The Americans were unusually meditative; they were impressed perhaps because they were looking for the first time on England’s soil, and from where they stood it was beautiful – not dingy as they had expected. The Irish Guards, who with the 504 comprised the ship’s troop complement, were thoughtful, also. They were seeing England not for the first time in their lives, but for the first time in several years and they, too, pensively contrasted the serene and ordered beauty of the riverbank with the wreckage of impoverished and romantic Italy.
And then a ferryboat, crowded to the gunwales, glided by. There were girls aboard, lots of them, and in the warm sunlight red, blue, yellow, and white skirts and dresses blazed in carnival colors. The girls bent over the rail of the ferryboat and waved. The crisp tinkle of their voices fluttered lightly across the water.
This was what war bound soldiers had waited for. Hell, this was civilization! There was a dull rumble as five thousand boots, British and American, raced to the seaboard rail to get in a look, a whistle, and a wave. The Capetown Castle, 50,000 tons of her, listed heavily to port. The ship’s voice crackled and blared authoritatively in British accents, “Attention, attention! Trim ship. Troops positively must not congregate on one rail. If order is not maintained, it will be necessary to clear the deck…”
The ship was trimmed, and balance restored to the Capetown Castle, but there was a buzz of excitement among the paratroopers. “Did you see that one in the red sweater. Holy cats!”
Yes, they were like American girls and what’s more they said “Hello”; with a comic twist to be sure, but nevertheless an unmistakable “Hello”, not to be confused with “bonjour” or “buenas dias”. If there was anyone in the regiment who was sorry to be in England, he must have been gnawing bars in the brig for he was not in evidence on deck.
That night at 11 o’clock – it was still the 22nd of April 1944 – the troops tottered down the gangplank under two barracks bags and full field equipment, fell in on the pier and marched through Liverpool’s darkened streets to the railroad station.
It was an all-night ride on the train to Leicester and it was about 10 o’clock the next morning when the train pulled up at a little country station marked Thurnby. The band – the 82nd Airborne Division Band, not seen since General Ridgway’s review in Naples a year ago – was blasting “We’re All American” and already a line was forming at the Clubmobile. They were grimy with a day’s beard on their chins and the train’s soot in their eyes, uncomfortable in bulky overcoats and packs, but the paratroopers were happy; happier than they’d been in years. For were not the fenced houses and the walk bordered streets the nearest approach to home outside the continental limits of America?
The regimental area in Evington was pleasant, too. There were only tents, but the grass was soft and there were latrines and mess halls and there was no dust. There were gravel walks and company streets laid in neat fashion. Best of all, it wasn’t even necessary to drive a peg. Everything had been done, and in each tent were five brand new cots – strictly novelty contraptions so far as the 504 had been concerned during the past year – and on each cot were two brand new blankets.
The time passed quickly. There were dances, parties, picnics and a little training. Boots never had before sparkled so brightly. One could have shaved with the knife’s-edge crease that ran down the length of each paratrooper’s bloused pant leg.
The old intra-divisional rivalry that had bred so many fat lips in another year was forgotten for the moment. 504 men actually shook hands with members of the 505 and they drank beer together in the pubs. A note of respect was definitely discernable in the voices of 505 and 325 men when they addressed their brothers in arms, for names like Venafro and Anzio were but words in a headline to them.
Life settled into a pleasant groove. There was training during the day, but at night there were passes and they weren’t hard to get. With regular movies, sports, a well-stocked day room and Louise’s “donut dugout”, it was even possible to spend an occasional night in camp.
Leicester was grand; it wasn’t a fast town. There were no dives, honkytonks or even a respectable night club, but there were big American-looking movies – the Savoy and the Odeon were the best – there was Victoria and Spinney Hill Park, there were dance halls like the Corn Exchange and the fabulous jitterbug paradise, Palais de Dance. There were ten pubs to the block, and one could drink all the IPA he could hold; and if one got to be a “regular” at the Crown and Thistle he could even get drunk on spirits.
Golfers played golf at the Leicester. Golf Club and tennis players had the use of the Leicester Racket Club. There were girls – beaucoup of them. Pretty ones, who wore saddle shoes, swing skirts and sweaters like their American counterparts. There were smart girls, dumb girls, classy girls, plain girls, rich girls, poor girls. There was a girl to every man and one that suited his taste. English girls initially provided a pleasant shock to Americans, who had been brought up in the flat-chested, pale-cheeked, long-haired British girl school of thought. A night in the “Pally”, where swivel-hipped schoolgirls renovated paratroopers’ jitterbug steps gone stale on the Italian Alps, dispelled any preconceived notions about English reserve. The only noticeable difference between the British girl and the American was that in England they called it a “quick step”.
The Queens, the Royal Oak, the Swan with Two Heads, the Imperial Hotel and dozens of other pubs will linger long in the memory of 504 men. The Haunch of Venison on High Street was the established gathering place of those who followed the fight game in Leicester, and it was there that boxing matches between the American and British paratroopers were organized.
Sunday afternoons were spent cycling through the countryside with the “one and only of the moment” and of course they stopped for scones and crumpets at a country teahouse. Could these be the “Battered Bluebeards of Bagnoli” who ravaged the city of Naples only a year ago? Psychologists would have said that it was a case of subjection to environment.
D-Day was approaching. The indications couldn’t be seen but they could be sensed. The rest of the Division bustled about in a nervous sweat, but the 504 was unconcerned. Most men were sure that they wouldn’t be involved, and they weren’t, with the exception of a few dozen who jumped with pathfinder equipment. What they didn’t know, and it is just as well that they didn’t, is that only a lack of replacements prevented higher headquarters from carrying out a plan to use the 504 as the radar spearhead for the entire Normandy operation.
After Normandy, the training tempo increased. There were two practice jumps and then there were several weeks spent learning the tricks of loading and unloading heavy equipment in and out of C-47s. For a while it appeared that there was an air landing in the offing.
The door to the War Room was always decorated with a guard now and when Patton broke out of the Carentan Peninsula, “Good nights” became more lingering and more applications for marriage turned up in the Adjutant’s “In” basket.
View the list of men who jumped with the Pathfinder Teams in Normandy