On This Day 78 years ago: 101st Screaming Eagles captured

Throughout WW2, Fox Company would not only lose men who were killed and wounded but at each of the three major battles it would lose a considerable amount of its paratroopers who were taken away as prisoners of war (POW) by their opponent. The deployment of Fox Company into the Netherlands was no exception to the rule, as it was for many other 101st Screaming Eagles units. 

Featured image: CPL Al Mazzeo, PFC Joe Pistone, and TEC5 Paul Silfies in Londen. Silfies was one of the 101st Screaming Eagles captured in the Netherlands (Picture: courtesy of Mark Bando). 

Prisoners of War 

In the confusion of the night drop at Normandy on D-Day, Fox Company lost 24 paratroopers. In the Netherlands, 2nd Battalion, the battalion Fox Company belonged to, had captured around 700 German prisoners at Best. The Germans were not the only ones being taken away as prisoners of war. Like in Normandy, Fox Company would again lose a considerable group of good men who were captured by their enemy during the Netherlands campaign.

Joe Pistone’s recollections 

CPL Joe Pistone was in the vicinity where these men were captured.

“LT Banker had ordered us to go back to the drop zone and get all the ammunition we could carry from the bundles that were dropped the day before. We had a regular wagon with us, and after filling it up, we headed back to where we thought our company was, but after some time it was clear we were lost. By that time, it was really dark, and the guys were looking for a place to sleep. PVT Henry Weston came up to me and said the others wanted to sleep in a barn. I immediately told him not to do so and to stay in the ditch, where I was. That was the last time I saw him until the end of the war. I went to sleep in the ditch but after about an hour I started hearing people whispering to each other. I discovered these people were Germans, talking with each other. They were only a couple of yards away from me, moving down the road towards the barn. The Germans opened the door of the barn, and hollered, ‘Either you give up or we are going to burn the building down.’ The guys would have been cremated with all the straw in there. I heard some of my friends saying in German, ‘Kamerad, Kamerad.’ The Germans rounded up our men together outside the barn, and then marched them off as prisoners of war.” 

Fox Company’s losses 

That night, Fox Company had lost nine paratroopers who were taken prisoner by the Germans. They were PVT Glon Crosby, PVT Michael G. Milinczenko, TEC 5 Paul S. Silfies, PVT Wallace J. Smith, PVT William D. Turner, PVT Henry J. Weston, and the medics PVT Marcelle C. Wilson, TEC 5 Jesse W. Moore, and SSGT Henry R. Fellers. These men were reported as Missing in Action (MIA) as of September 19 in the Morning Report of October 14, 1944. The status of PVT Donald Gallagher was later that month changed from MIA to hospitalized because he was reported Lightly Wounded in Action on September 19.

This is a short story about the operations of Fox Company’s paratroopers in the Netherlands, as 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 this courageous Fox Company paratrooper, order your copy now!  

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