Behind Hitler's Lines by Thomas H. Taylor Page B

climb into an aerial armada.
    Here was the big roll of the main game, even though it had been Japan that had shoved the United States into World War II. Joe could see that priority right in front of him, behind and all around. He saw I Company on the tip of an immeasurable, irresistible spear. It was hurled from the heart and arsenal of democracy—Rosie the riveter, war-bond drives, around-the-clock shifts throughout Michigan—the entire wholehearted American effort at its zenith, circling to poise over the dark and choppy English Channel. Minutes before him, thousands like Joe were already flying off to their rendezvous with destiny.
Rendezvous with Destiny
became the name of the 101st's march and the title of its book recording the Screaming Eagles' wartime history. The rendezvous began with troopers strapped onto bucket seats in a surreal stateof mind where more was to be won than could be lost with their lives. *
    That was how Joe, Jack, and Orv felt, representing the bachelors. Family men had more on the line. Their bedrock sentiments were expressed, if at all, during some earlier time of contemplation, like those of Phil Wallace, Joe's buddy in a sister regiment:
    SUNDAY, MARCH ICJTH, 1944, NEW YORK CITY
    My Dearest Jo,
    You are now reading my last letter from NYC. All letters after this will be censored, so—if there is anything to be said I must say it now.
    You already know that my heart and thoughts remain with you there in New England. No matter what happens to me overseas, believe that your Phil has given all because of deep love for his wife and baby. To die for you both would be an honor, far surpassing the Jap's honor to die for his emperor.
    But to live would be an even greater achievement—and to this end I shall strive. Jo, you never need fear for my safety for it is far better to believe that God takes care of these things. What happens will happen, beyond our understanding. That's the way it goes and will.
    If it is written in the Book of Fate that I shall return to you then we will forget our worries, our sorrows, our heartaches, and forever enjoy that God-given day when your Phil comes home to spend the rest of our lives in happiness. This war will make me appreciate that so much.
    So your husband must leave you and Baby Sue for now. He has a job to do, a job that is not to his liking but he must do it to the best of his ability. You will see him again, even if not in this life. No power can keep us apart.
    I am not alone in my travels. Millions of American soldiers are crossing the waters this spring. May most of us return, God willing.
    * One of the smallest and most obscure—but far from the least important— battles in the ETO was for weather stations in Greenland, a Danish territory that fell to the Germans when they overran Denmark in 1940. For the purpose of reporting storms to their U-boats, two German radio teams set up clandestine transmitters on the frozen coast. By intercepting their signals, the British located those stations, then liquidated and replaced them with their own. Consequently, by 1944 the Allied high command had better foresight of impending weather than did Rundstedt and Rommel, who had to rely on irregular reports from U-boats.
    * When Ike showed up on D Night he nervously took very hot coffee from a Red Cross worker. She noticed his hand trembling so much that he was in danger of scalding himself, so she withdrew the cup till it cooled. “As the 101st took off,” she recalled, “tears rolled down his face and he didn't even accept a handkerchief. Ike just kept waving till the last C-47 disappeared into the night.”
    * Major General William C. Lee was named the 10 lst's commander when it was activated in August 1942. He may have recalled “rendezvous with destiny” as the phrase applied to the United States in a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt some years earlier. In any case Lee first addressed his fledgling Screaming Eagles this way: “The 101st has no