It was the night before one of the most transcendental military invasions in human
history, and hundreds of C-47 Skytrains darted across the English Channel carrying
thousands of brave paratroopers about to face the darkest chapter of their lives.
The warplanes carried a group of paratroopers unlike any other,
with mohawk haircuts and tribal face paint. The outfit led by the rebellious and untamed Jake
'McNasty' McNiece laughed and joked even as their aircraft was engulfed by fierce German flak fire.
As the Skytrain lost altitude, McNiece ordered his men to prepare for the jump. The lights
inside the cabin then turned red, and the men scrambled to their feet amid fire and thunder.
As McNiece and his comrade Willy made it to the door, flak burst through the warplane's belly,
hitting Willy's backpack and unraveling his parachute inside the plane.
Now significantly damaged, the C-37 continued to lose altitude as Willy desperately tried to gather
his parachute and move away from the door so other paratroopers could jump. McNiece then jumped into
the flak-lit skies over France, and the Skytrain exploded in midair only a few seconds later.
There was no time to mourn, as McNiece and the rest of the notorious Filthy Thirteen outfit
were now behind enemy lines in Normandy, and they had a crucial mission to finish…
Hell-Raiser
Jake McNiece grew up during the depths of the Great Depression and had to work to support
his family from the age of ten. Hunting and fishing to feed his kin gave the young man
a formidable physical condition that helped him stand out when he finally went back to school.
In high school, McNiece joined the football team and found work as a
fireman. He soon earned a reputation for being a defiant teen who would do anything to win.
One of his teachers would remember him:
(QUOTE) "He was not afraid of the devil and was always doing the unconventional thing."
Soon after McNiece's graduation, the US entered World War 2.
Then, after a nasty brawl in his hometown in Oklahoma,
where he beat a man to a pulp, he decided to enlist to get the police off his back.
McNiece did not want to join the infantry and instead decided to join the emerging
US paratrooper experiment; he figured he would be dropped deep inside enemy
lines and obey no one while engaging German soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.
He would later say: (QUOTE) "If a man wanted to kill me, I wanted to look him in the eye ."
And thus, the mischievous Jake McNiece became the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment's problem…
A Wild Bunch
Including paratrooper units in the US military was a risky and ambitious experiment, as the
American authorities knew many troopers would not make it to the ground alive.
The recruiter told McNiece as such when he asked to join, going as far as letting him know that
only 10 out of a thousand would-be paratroopers made it past the excruciating physical training.
Still, McNiece excelled during training and quickly became the best recruit in his unit. But
he was as reckless as he was fit, and soon became known around the camp for his defiant antics.
Afraid that he would influence other recruits, McNiece was put into a particular
"troublemaker" unit, where five would-be paratroopers were assigned to a single tent.
The accommodations were derelict, with the tents having no flooring besides the muddy dirt of the
Georgian countryside. But McNiece and his men didn't care about appearances, opting to save
water for cooking instead of cleaning themselves and soon earning the nickname of the Dirty Five.
McNiece and the Dirty Five continued to gain a reputation as rebels: missing roll calls,
getting drunk, and participating in bar brawls regularly. One night,
after causing a significant fight inside a bar, two military police officers intervened. When
the MPs started to beat one of McNiece's friends into submission, he assaulted them, disarmed them,
and fired in every direction to empty the guns, leaving the officers injured and perplexed.
McNiece was severely punished and was the only recruit not to be promoted during his training.
Still, the authorities knew he was the best, and they needed him. When someone suggested to
McNiece's commander that he should discharge him, he responded: (QUOTE) "McNiece isn't
hurting anything, there will be a time when you'll be awful glad to have MacNiece around."
Mohawks and Warpaint
By the time they made it to England, the Dirty Five had grown into the Filthy Thirteen.
The group then continued rehearsing jumps in preparation for the Normandy landings.
Even out of combat, McNiece had lost several friends to parachute malfunctions.
Still, the Filthy Thirteen relished in the danger and risk that came with the job, and when they
were not jumping out of a plane, they were causing mayhem in camp as their way to let off steam.
During an advanced demolition training session a few days before D-Day, McNiece set up a charge
in a nearby tree that was triggered when a soldier on patrol walked by, sending the man into a panic.
The top brass arrested the entire group,
but they were released to take part in the Normandy operations.
The thirteen men had now formed a unique and feared unit.
Before taking off for Normandy, the men saw McNiece wearing face paint and a mohawk haircut.
He told them he was part Indian, and it was part of his cultural and spiritual heritage.
The paint, he said, would be an excellent camouflage once they were behind enemy lines.
In truth, only part of the story was genuine;
Jake's mother was half Choctaw, but everything else was made up.
Encouraged by McNiece, the men cut their hair and painted their faces.
They then boarded the warplane sporting a daunting look that would be spread around the world as the
press released images of the peculiar warriors about to be thrown into Nazi-occupied France.
Everyone wanted to know what the Filthy Thirteen were really capable of…
Normandy Jump
Before deploying, McNiece's mission was shifted;
the task he had been assigned was changed into a much more vital role: he and his men had to
blow up the bridges below the Douve Canal and then capture and hold the main bridge.
The crucial mission required additional support, and McNiece asked for six more
paratroopers knowing that he would lose at least half his men during the jump.
The unit took off from England at 11:00pm on June 5, 1944, along with nearly a thousand
other C-47s loaded with thousands of paratroopers. They enjoyed a clear and
bright night for about 20 minutes before seeing the first flak set off around them.
The following minutes were hectic and savage for the young paratroopers;
their aircraft was heavily engaged and losing altitude, forcing them to jump prematurely.
McNiece barely escaped from the plane before it exploded, and many of his friends
lost their lives, including Willy, whose parachute had been unfurled by enemy fire.
The entire paratrooper operation was plagued with tragedy, and half the troopers that took
off from Britain would never return. It was no different for the Filthy Thirteen,
and McNiece lost over half of his men during the jump and the minutes after that.
Still, three of the surviving men managed to reunite on the war-torn fields of Normandy, and
they were joined by twelve other US paratroopers who had been separated from their units.
From the moment they landed, they were targeted by German soldiers, and they
had to react quickly and defend themselves. The Americans identified themselves by the sound of
their rifles in contrast to German fire; as such, they were able to regroup and repel the Germans.
Holding the Bridge
Once they were on their feet again, McNiece and his men managed to reach the main Douve Canal,
blow up some smaller bridges, and move to the main bridge. The objective was to capture it and
hold it so it could be used by American troops. If they could not keep the crossing,
they had orders to blow it up so the Germans could not use it to reinforce the beachheads.
Against all odds, the Filthy Thirteen dug in on one side of the bridge and maintained control,
preventing the Germans from crossing. Then, after three days of holding the bridge under
constant German fire from the other side of the canal, the US authorities decided
that McNiece's unit had been wiped out and sent a squadron of P-51 Mustangs to blow out the bridge.
The Mustangs swept in and destroyed the bridge while also striking the German and
US positions on each side of the canal. McNiece and his men were well dug in and
survived the strike, after which they continued to defend their positions.
Two days passed, and the Germans were significantly pushed back from the beachheads.
A large group of Germans was then trapped in a flooded area near where McNiece and his men were
positioned. There were over 700 enemy soldiers, and McNiece had managed to assemble a team of 40.
Fortunately, the German commander sent a messenger asking McNiece to surrender,
thus avoiding a complete wipeout. However, McNiece responded by
saying they would never yield but were more than welcome to submit to them.
The German officer was livid and felt insulted, so he decided to attack.
McNiece then ordered his men to hold their fire until most Germans left their trenches.
By now, Jake had machine guns, mortars, and all the equipment he needed for a formidable defense.
Still, when the Germans were mid-way in their charge towards McNiece,
he ordered his men to open fire. The onslaught was devastating for the Germans,
and McNiece claims to have taken the lives of nearly 700 enemy soldiers.
Continued Mayhem
The Filthy Thirteen were made up of over 30 different men throughout the war,
and continued to wreak havoc on the Germans while enjoying every minute of it. Despite grave
injuries and incredibly antagonizing odds, McNiece survived and accomplished numerous missions.
He credits his rebellious attitude and daredevil approach to his survival;
paratroopers were already some of the best, most aggressive US soldiers in the war, and McNiece
took that perception and scaled it up to become a genuinely fearsome threat to the Axis powers.
McNiece's father would later comment about his son's war accomplishments: (QUOTE)
"I think he was trying to build upon the idea that 'if they're scared of
us as crazy paratroopers, well, this just makes us look crazier.’'
McNiece became one of the only paratroopers to make four wartime jumps and live to tell the tale.
After Normandy, he jumped as part of Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.
Then he was dropped in Germany before the Battle of the Bulge for reconnaissance duty.
As the war waned, he volunteered for pathfinder training,
anticipating he would sit out the rest of the war in a training camp in England.
To his surprise, his unit was called for one last jump into Bastogne to guide in resupply drops.
He was eventually awarded the French Legion
of Honor Chevalier class for his brave actions in France in 2012.
At the end of the day, the officers that put up with McNiece's antics during training were
proven correct; the war needed men like him. The Filthy Thirteen became an iconic and legendary
unit not only for its over-the-top looks but also for its incredible combat deeds.
Jake McNiece, with the help of historian Kaleo Griffith,
would eventually document all of his wartime adventures in the book 'The Filthy Thirteen:
From the Dustbowl to Hitler's Eagle's Nest,' which only added more fuel to the legend.
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