Glider Infantry in The Battle of the Bulge: 2Lt. Daniel Clark Part II

Ken Harbaugh:

If you like listening to Warriors In Their Own Words, check out our other show, the Medal of Honor Podcast. The link is in the show description.

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from 2Lt. Daniel Clark. Clark served in the Army during World War II as a Glider Infantryman. In this final part of his interview, Clark recounts Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and freeing the prisoners of Wöbbelin Concentration Camp.

2Lt. Daniel Clyde Clark:

When we loaded up there to go, the one thing that stays in my mind right off is the fact that we flew out over the White Cliffs of Dover. I hadn't seen them before. And then after I got over… it'd be France or Holland, would've been Holland. Yeah. Well, we flew over enemy territory there for a while. It was short, maybe five miles of enemy, that was occupied by enemy at that time. And now the plane ahead of me, it was carrying, I mean, it wasn't radar, but same thing as radar. It had a blister on the underneath side, which contained some radio equipment, and that was part of our platoon that was in that Glider. And so the enemy picked that up from the ground, was flying about 1100 feet high, and the enemy picked that up and shot that plane, caught it on fire, the plane caught on fire, and of course they had to cut loose from one another, and the plane went down. But the Glider kept going further on than the plane did, and the Glider landed in friendly territory, and I really don't know about the plane, but those are a couple of things that stays in my mind. The fellows in the Glider caught up with us that night, so they landed safely, and I seen the plane land and it didn't crash or anything. I mean, it was still smoking to beat everything when it went down, when it got to the ground, but then it didn't crash. So I assume everything was all right on that. That was the things that stayed in my mind.

I'll tell you that plane was, I mean, we were flying so close together up there, that anti-aircraft gun, we are looking right down the muzzle of the things, and it was just a fiery red charge coming out of that. And I just suppose it, I mean, I didn't realize that the thing, once you see that you're going to get hit, but I was afraid it was headed our way, but it happened to catch the plane next to us. So I was thankful for that. I'm thankful that everybody in that incident didn't get killed, but it's a little fearful. We'll have to admit that.

Some of the paratroops I've heard say that they would rather jump than go with Gliders, but I don't know because I wasn't a paratrooper. See, I mean, Gliders all I knew and wasn't trained for parachutes.

I guess there's one thing there that while we was going over, we got to see the Dutch Windmills and the big windmill wheels going around, just like you'd studied in geography and school. That was kind of a, in reality to see that, it was interesting to me, but you had to forget all about your purpose for being there to enjoy it, I guess.

So when we landed then, one thing I should say is that when we took off for Holland, the pilot said, another thing that I haven't discussed here or told you about is that in training, we always were sent a Glider co-pilot, the pilot and the co-pilot. But in combat, they don't send a co-pilot. So there's only, I mean, you've just got the one pilot. When we left for Holland, the pilot wanted somebody to come up to be in the co-pilot seat. So I went up and he gave me instruction all the way over on how to keep the thing from going nose down anyway, in case he got hit.

Of course, the controls of the Glider is very simple, and he would just give me instructions, showed me how, if he pushed his stick forward, well, it was a wheel. But anyway, you push the wheel forward and the Glider would go lower, go down, head down, or if you pull it back, pull the wheel back to you, Glider would start raising up, the nose of it would respond in that manner. And then you had the foot pedals for direct the wings either lower or one side or the other. And that really is about all there was to it. I mean, it was very simple. The altimeter and miles per hour and things like that, or air speed I should say, wasn't instructed much in that, but it was just mainly to, in case he got injured, that it would be kept from going straight down or possibly going spiraling down.

So when he told me at that time, he said, "I'm going to crash-land this. When we come down, I'm going to crash-land." So I told the guys in the back, there's 13 back there, and that's a load, 13 plus the two, pilot and co-pilot. So I told the guys back there to keep buckled up because we was going to crash-land. And so that's what he did. Just as soon as it touched the ground, of course, we had dropped the wheels, had no wheels, and it had skids under, that's normal. I mean, it was prepared for his skids, and then he dipped the nose down just a second that it touched the ground while he dipped the nose down and it just crushed the front, the nose of the Glider. Of course, they'd never intend to take them off again anyway, but nobody got hurt. It was just one of those things. But the reason for, in my estimation, the reason for crash landing is that you touch the ground and you know that you're going to, the spot that you've chosen is not occupied by somebody else. The only bad thing about, somebody might run into it from the back, but it didn't happen. So it probably saved lives rather than to go off. I mean, we've seen others that did have accidents.

I was up in the front part. The front of the nose of a Glider or the nose of a Glider is blunt, and there's nothing out there, just tubular. I mean, just very, very light. The weight of the men in it is heavier than the Glider itself. And well, just another scrape. But the pilot though, he knew that that was the better way to get safely to the ground than to get on the ground and to let it run because you let it run into somebody or something like this. But where you touch the ground and you stop within 25 feet, it's a much better way, even though it does wreck the Glider, and it is just better to have, to be stopped. I mean, nobody was hurt and the tail fell down and we just hopped out like we always would.

I think we landed in friendly territory. Now there was some civilians around when we landed. There was civilians there to help us in any way that they could. Had to organize and get in company formation, and I really don't remember just the details of how long, whether it was the next day before we got in contact with enemy or something like that, at least.

I guess the next big event was in the Battle of the Bulge, and we were in that on one corner of the nose, one side, and that was a big engagement that we had. Yeah, that was quite different because, well, first of all, when that was starting or beginning to take place, while I watched the enemy tanks going to what amounted to in behind our line, but they was a couple miles over on a ridge. All day long they kept going back behind our lines and of course, being two miles away, I didn't know where they was going, but I knew that our tanks, we didn't have tanks like that anyway. And so I reported it, took my compass and took a reading on where this was going on, and then that information, I'll give it to company commander, and he in turn should have, I don't know if he did or not, but should have reported it on back to Regimental. We didn’t, or I didn't know that it was the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. And in the day or so while the fog set in, real cloudy weather and then we had to retreat from our position about a 15-mile walk one night because the enemy was getting behind us and the fog, cloudy weather continued and you couldn't, our Air Force, fighter planes couldn't get out and do their job on these enemy troops that had gotten in position.

I would guess that the enemy knew that this kind of weather was coming and going to set in so that they would have just nothing but ground forces against them. And that's why then of course we got cold weather and snowy and it was just very uncomfortable. That part of it, I mean, it got bitter cold there sometimes, some nights bitter cold.

At that time, I was a lieutenant, second lieutenant, but I wasn't in head headquarters to where I had any knowledge of what was taking place really. I mean, as far as we were concerned, why we was to get back in a little closer unit where we could fight better, not being cut off completely. And that was what they were trying to do is capture a whole bunch of us. So we.. we just overcome that by getting back away and getting into a smaller unit. And later on, after it’s over, we come back the very same route and went past the same places where we had been two or three weeks before. So the weather cleared up and we was able to man handle them with clear weather, but with that cloudy weather where they had just ground forces and they was giving us a rough time on that.

Even today in civilian life, even if it's a car accident, it's not going to happen to me. And it's just same with war. I don't know. It just our nature. We certainly wasn't there to get wounded or killed. It might happen to somebody, but it won't happen to me.

I went on with the fighting across Belgium and Germany and came VE Day or Victory in Europe, and during the last couple or three days before that victory, we were getting close to or closer to the Russians. And so my particular unit platoon were notified to get on some trucks that they were sending us. And we got on those trucks and started north. And the first thing we knew here come ment going south. And so it was the enemy retreating, coming to our lines in place of Russian, being overtaken by Russians. They didn't want to, they preferred our army control to the Russian army control.

So this went on and pretty soon we came upon a group of people that were from a concentration camp right there, right by us. So we stopped there because of the people that's in the concentration camp milling around out on the road and all. And the gate had been unlocked a while before we got there. And they were out for freedom for their first time from this concentration camp, that concentration camp name was Camp Wöbbelin. This particular concentration camp was one that the enemy had chosen to starve the people to death. Other concentration camps were for gas chambers or rifle, do away with the inmates by rifle fire. But like I say, this one was for just to starve them to death.

Now I really don't know, but I think the people in here were Czechoslovakians, Polish and people like that. I don't know for sure, but I don't believe that they were Jews in that. I mean, I might stand corrected there, but I think I'm right on that. But those people were real happy. They would come up and kiss you. They just was thrilled. Felt sorry for them. But in their camp then, I'm going to say hundreds of bodies piled up, some of them crawling, and that's polite that they had been in for, I don't know really how long, but in a long time. Being the spring of the year, there was some grass that would sprout up and I witnessed where they would pick those sprouts of grass and put it in a pan, put a little water on it, drink the water for nourishment. So I mean, I don't know why I'm so nervous about it here, but it was a plight that I sure wouldn't want to be in.

Well, of course they were all in the striped suits or striped pajamas. And I was just glad that I wasn't one of them, wasn't born in that country as far as, it made me more of a bitter attitude toward the persons responsible for them being there. And I just hope that it doesn't happen again. That sort of thing developed to where it'll ever happen again. And the thing about it, I guess, I mean I realize what I'm saying here, but these bodies were taken into a City of Ludwig's Lest, that's about four or five miles in where it was at, where this camp is about four or five miles outside of Ludwigslust. And the people and the enemy soldiers were forced to dig big pits and they buried these people that had passed away in those trenches or pits, whatever you want to call that.

And therefore, our military, requested that the city or the town people or people in the surrounding area, I suppose, I mean, I don't know where they all lived, but come and witness this burial and they made them do it. But the word was that, or is that they weren't aware of this concentration camp out there just four miles out of town. Well, I'm sure if it would've been an ice cream place, place to buy some ice cream some evening, they would have been out there. They'd known about that. So I feel very strongly about that, that they don't acknowledge, that they didn't acknowledge that this happened. And of course, there was about 16 other concentration camps in Germany as well.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was 2Lt. Daniel Clark.

Thanks for listening to Warriors In Their Own Words. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We’re always looking to improve the show.

And if you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate and review.

Warriors In Their Own Words is a production of Evergreen Podcasts, in partnership with The Honor Project.

Our producer is Declan Rohrs. Brigid Coyne is our production director, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our Audio Engineer.

Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.