They were made familiar with French arms and equipment, which to some suggested a raid into German-occupied France.

15

Snafu in the Desert

On November 4, 1942, 2nd Battalion of the 503 Parachute Infantry Regiment was put on a train. They'd removed their unit patches. Their equipment, even their jump boots and jump suits, was sent separately; no one was to know they were paratroopers.

Their route was indirect, and of course they spent a lot of time waiting. On November 7 they arrived at two small airfields in the southwesternmost corner of England, Lands End There they learned what their mission actually was, and what the circumstances were. In small groups, again to be inconspicuous, thirty-nine twin-engined C47 transports arrived, to fly them to French-ruled Algeria, in North Africa.

At that stage of the war, there could be no adequate fighter escort for slow, unarmed transports flyin over Nazi-occupied France. So the small armada was to fly well out over the Atlantic, and then, without Spanish approval, cross neutral Spain and the western Mediterranean, to capture two key airfields in Algeria, to keep them out of German hands. Meanwhile seaborne attacks would take place at the city of Oran and elsewhere.

There were complications of course: the French defense forces. "Free France" was ruled by a Nazi puppet dictatorship under 86-year-old Marshal Henri Petain, who'd sworn allegiance to Hitler. An American general, Mark Clark, had been landed covertly at Oran by submarine, to negotiate a secret agreement with the French commander there, allowing allied forces to land unopposed. But considering Petain's attitude, it wasn't certain the French commander would be obeyed.

If it seemed the French would fight after all, the planes would leave England early enough to jump their troopers while it was dark in Algeria. If it seemed the French would not fight, the planes would leave later, and land with their troopers in daylight. In either case, the battalion was to secure the airfields from possible German takeover.

There was also the problem of the planes finding the drop zone, 1,600 miles away over water and across Spain, without benefit of beacons enroute, or familiarity with Spanish geography. The pilots hadn't been trained for that sort of navigation. Most wouldn't even be given a map; they were to follow the leader. On the plus side, compass bearings should keep them approximately on course (unless it was windy), and the British would have a beacon ship some miles off the port of Oran, near the targeted airbases; the planes should pick up its signal as the crossed the southeastern coast of Spain. It would also notify the planes if the French changed their minds. (Unfortunately its radioman was given the wrong frequency, and its signals were never received.)

The drop zone itself was to be marked by a spy-placed radar beacon to be activated shortly before the troop planes arrived. (However, the intelligence officer who placed and activated it was given the wrong expected arrival time. When the planes didn't appear, he blew up his top-secret device, as he was supposed to, and slipped away dressed as an Arab.)

At almost the last hour, word came that the French would cooperate. Thus the planes waited an extra four hours before taking off, in order to arrive at the landing site in daylight.

It was not a joyride. The troopers sat shoulder to shoulder on metal bucket seats, the only upholstery their packed chutes. At the head of the troop compartment were two strapped-down barrels of aviation gasoline, backing up the fuel tanks and reminding the troopers that this would be a long flight.

The November night was chilly, and not only was the compartment unheated, the doorways held no doors; the propwash sucked out and blew away whatever body heat they produced. Furthermore they were flying at an altitude of nearly two miles.

Despite the cold, they dozed, Macurdy better than most because he drew heat from the Web of the World. From time to time he'd waken, to peer through the small windows behind him. The only lights were one or two glowing cigarette tips marking wakeful troopers. On almost none of those occasions did he hear a word from anyone, and for the first several hours, all the window showed him were ocean and stars, and the blue lights of other lanes in the formation.

After some hours his dreams became restless, and he awoke to bouncing and swaying. Turning to the window again, his eyes found darkness, rain, and cloud. What he couldn't see was the thirty -knot east wind. They'd run out of their good weather. If there were other planes nearby, he couldn't see them, either.

At 4 AM the compartment lights came on and field rations were passed around-crackers, canned meat, and candy. Then the lights were turned out again. Macurdy was wakeful now, waiting for a dawn that seemed slow in coming. When it did, they were over water-not the Bay of Biscay this time, but the Mediterranean.

They'd flown out of the storm; the sky was merely overcast. Men turned in their seats to peer out the small windows. As the light strengthened, Macurdy could see brown hills ahead. The others saw them too; what they couldn't see were the other thirty-eight planes. Four others, yes, but not thirty-eight. Had they gotten lost in the storm? The talk picked up. Oran was supposed to be up ahead somewhere. Had the pilot gotten the signal from the beacon ship? Where was the invasion fleet? Dead ahead maybe, someone suggested, where only the pilot could see it.

Lieutenant Warner was the senior trooper on board, and getting to his feet, he went to the cockpit. A few minutes later e came back out. "At ease!" he shouted, and the talking stopped. "The pilot doesn't know exactly where we are, or where the other thirty-four planes are. The storm winds blew from the east, which means we blew off course to the west. When we get closer to shore, he and this group are going to fly east for a while, till they see some landmark they recognize from the map."

There were groans and a few oaths. "What about the beacon ship?" someone asked.

"They haven't heard a peep from it. They'll know Oran for sure though, when they see it." Then he moved on to his seat. The Pratt amp; Whitney engines continued their reassuring roar, smooth and constant, as if they could go on forever.

With land close ahead, the five planes veered eastward, continuing on a line of flight that allowed the troopers to make out Arab villages on the shore. Half an hour later, the Lieutenant disappeared into the cockpit again, and this time stayed a while. while. Finale stuck his head out, grinning.

"They know where they are now. They're going inland, and et to La Senia from the west." This didn't bring actual cheers, ut Macurdy felt the tension ease. The airfield at La Senia was their primary target. Engines droning steadily, they flew inland over barren rugged hills.

Soon he could see a large flat area with a whitish look, that he thought might be a salt flat, a dry desert lake. He'd never seen one before, but it fitted the description. Warner came out of the cockpit again. "They've spotted more 47s ahead," he said, "sitting on the ground with guys around them, and our gas gauge reads empty. We're going to land."

There were no cheers, and not much was said, except the wry comment that, if that was La Senia Airfield below, or any other goddamned airfield, they'd sure as hell camouflaged the hangars well.

Other groups of C47s arrived after they did. The lakebed, which their pilot said was 35 miles long and 7 wide, consisted of a salty crust beneath which was the stickiest mud Macurdy had ever experienced. Walk fifty feet, and each boot had ten pounds of it stuck on like glue. None of the pilots had heard a sound from the beacon ship, or picked up the radar beacon that was supposed to mark the drop zone.