Fox Company
On This Day 78 years ago: A first battle at St. Oedenrode
Sep
Fox Company leaves Best
After the men of Fox Company left the area at Best on September 20, 1944, they went on foot to their second Dutch battleground at St. Oedenrode, where they were reunited with the troopers of the First Battalion, 502nd PIR. Though less intense and costly as the two days at Best, the men of the Deuce fought some arduous battles in and around the town of St. Oedenrode.
A first battle at St. Oedenrode
PVT Emmert Parmley had vivid memories of one of the company’s first main attacks at dawn of September 22.
“We were around St. Oedenrode a lot in the next week or two. Our next attack was close to St. Oedenrode. We had a Sherman tank attached to our platoon, this time with an English crew. It was a dawn attack. I was next to the tank on its right side. We just formed a line with the tank and moved out. It was through an open field, and we just walked at a normal pace with the tank, waiting for the Germans to open up.”
Another trooper’s memories of that day
PFC Patrick Fergus remembered the same attack in a letter to George Koskimaki, the renowned author of books about the 101st Airborne Division.
“Our next move was on Friday, on a small farm community. I was a head scout at the time. We were caught in an open field, held up in a ditch with a barbed wire fence in front. SGT Charles Pembleton was next to me when he got hit in the head by shrapnel from a 20mm cannon. I always remembered his favorite saying, ‘Someone has to come out of this war alive. It might as well be me and you. You notice I put me first.’ Damned if he didn’t.”
It may have sounded like a “million-dollar-wound” but Pembleton needed a treatment called craniectomy which involves removing a portion of the skull. His war was indeed over and SGT Pembleton was transferred to the U.S. just before Christmas, on December 21, 1944.
This is a short description of one of several battles Fox Company participated in at St. Oedenrode and that is described in the book: From the Frying Pan to Mittersill, Fox Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (1942 – 1945). If you are interested in learning more about Fox Company, order your copy now!
