Below is the story of Marvin C. Wolfe, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion, Company I. Marvin fought from D-Day through Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. In 2004, six years before he passed away, Marvin wrote his story down and also recorded it on a cassette tape. Marvin’s daughter, Lucy Williamson, passed along the story. We’re grateful to Lucy and to her Aunt Jane Bradshaw, Marvin’s sister, whom we met while doing a presentation on the Veterans Breakfast Club in April at the Pennsylvania DAR’s 128th State Conference in Pittsburgh.
Country Life in the Great Depression
I was born on June 12, 1924, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the small town of Slate Run in Lycoming County. Slate Run was a tight-knit community back then. I went to a one-room schoolhouse for grades 1 through 8, then moved on to Williamsport High School. Times were hard—it was the Great Depression—but we made do. Folks found work wherever they could: in the flagstone quarries, cutting paper wood, laying railroad track, or doing roadwork. It was tough work, but we ate well and were happy.
There was a grocery store in town run by Henry Carson. He kept people going by letting them charge their groceries on a tab and pay later when they had the money. That kind of trust kept the community alive.
My family was Pentecostal—what some folks called “Holy Rollers.” Their services were loud and spirited, often held in homes or in a rented church across from the Sweigarts’ place. Eventually, someone who didn’t like Pentecostals burned that church down. After that, they met in the Methodist Church or under a tent pitched in a field. People didn’t have a dime to spare for most things, but somehow, they always had money for evangelists.
Slate Run was a lively place when I was a kid. Pine Creek was full of eels back then. People built dams across the creek with a gap in the center and a net stretched across it. They’d haul in bushels of eels and fish.
Hunters and fishermen came up every season. Aunt Ann Wolfe lived across the creek in a house that doubled as a boarding house run by Mrs. Tomb. For $2 a day, hunters got breakfast, a packed lunch, and supper. There was even a big garage out back to store their cars. Others came up from Williamsport on the morning passenger train and went back in the afternoon.
Neighbors like Miles and Dave McWilliams walked miles to dig up ginseng, which sold for $5 a pound—a good haul back then. Uncle Bill Wolfe would go fishing with Dave, and if the fish weren’t biting or it started raining, he’d just lay down in the woods and fall asleep. Every year we’d have reunions with tables full of food. Not anymore.
Back then, the paved road ended at Waterville. From there, the road was dirt—icy in winter, muddy in spring, and dusty in summer. There were logs along the steep roadside to keep cars from sliding into the creek. You had to find a wide spot to turn around or back up if you met another car.
Folks would sit on the porch at Carson’s Store and talk about the war in China or Hitler’s moves in Europe. Us kids didn’t care much. We fished, swam, and raised a little hell.
Evelyn Ross was our grade school teacher. She taught all eight grades in one room. If you didn’t behave, you stayed after school. She was strict but good. She boarded at Mrs. Tomb’s house—Mrs. Hattie Tomb. Her husband was Lafe.
After grade school, I went to Williamsport High, but I dropped out in my junior year. We didn’t have much money, and I needed to help the family. I worked for Charles Young at a machine shop in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, making airplane parts.
When I turned 18 in 1943, I was drafted. They tried to get me a deferment because of my job, but I told them no—I wanted to go. And I did.
In the Army
I reported to Montoursville and took a bus to Harrisburg for my physical. On the ride back to Williamsport, we stopped at a bar and got drunk. Next day, Uncle Bill took me back to Williamsport, and I boarded a passenger train to New Cumberland, where I was officially inducted into the Army.
From there, we were shipped by train to Little Rock, Arkansas for 13 weeks of basic training. They gave us lectures about the war in Europe and what lay ahead. I was supposed to go to Italy, but when they asked for volunteers for the paratroopers, I signed up. It meant $50 extra a month. Four of us joined together, including the captain.
They bounced us around on trains before finally landing at Fort Benning, Georgia for jump school. I was assigned to Company F, 82nd Class. That first week, it was eight hours a day of calisthenics. Guys dropped out fast. Not me. I was used to hard work. Only the best made it through. For every man accepted, three were turned away. Even then, one in four didn’t make it to the end.
Every morning before breakfast, we ran five miles. Then it was back to calisthenics all day. After a week, we started jumping off a 250-foot tower in parachute harnesses onto sawdust. That lasted five weeks. Then came the real thing. Planes took us up and kicked out 12 men at a time. After the first jump, we packed our own chutes. Five jumps got you your wings—and the right to blouse your pants into your boots.
After jump school, I went to Camp Mackall, North Carolina for hand-to-hand combat training. Then came maneuvers in Tennessee—over a month of it. We stole a few chickens from farmers and got rained on for days. One night we hiked 32 miles with full field packs through swampy fields. We were eaten alive by chiggers.
Back at Camp Mackall, we learned map reading and compass work. In December, I got a pass to see my mother in Philadelphia. I took the train from Charlotte to the 33rd Street Station and stayed with her three days before heading back.
Then I was ordered to Boston to ship out overseas. We boarded the USS George W. Goethals at Camp Miles Standish. It was cold as hell.
The trip across the Atlantic took 13 days. I didn’t get seasick, though most of the guys did. I stayed out on deck and never missed a meal. Below deck was hot, filthy, and packed—canvas bunks stacked eight to ten high. I avoided it when I could.
We were part of the largest troop convoy of the war. German submarines stalked us. One ship ahead of us got hit in the bow but kept going. Our destroyers sank the sub.
We landed in Glasgow, Scotland, and were put on trains to Lambourne, England. They cleaned out the horse stables and converted them into barracks. Horses on one side, us on the other. It was an elegant estate—made for the rich and their horses.
Now and then we got passes to Reading, about 40 miles away. We rode crowded trains into town, standing all the way. The pubs didn’t stay open all day—just in bursts. The beer was warm, mild, and bitter. Whiskey and scotch were cheap—$2 a fifth in the stores.
We trained some, but not much. Mostly, we waited.
Operation Overlord – The Invasion of Normandy
In early June, they called us to the airport to begin the invasion—but then canceled. We were sent back to base under tight guard to make sure nobody leaked the plans. All we could do was sit around and play pinochle.
One guy in our unit, Radack, from Titusville, Pennsylvania, had a dark sense of humor. He kept singing this line: “There is no other, send word to your mother, your son isn’t coming home.” He sang it over and over. Some of us cried.
On June 5th, they called us back. We lined up, had what they called our “last supper,” and headed for the planes. We knew this was it. General Eisenhower was there. He addressed us right before we boarded.
“You’re going to be dropped twelve miles behind enemy lines,” he said. “Whatever you do when you land is up to you—cut wires, blow tracks, burn houses—anything goes. God bless you.”
You could see it in his face—he felt terrible sending us off like that. None of us knew if we’d make it back. Truth is, if Rommel hadn’t been on vacation, I don’t think we would’ve.
It was dark when we took off for Normandy. Our plane was towing two gliders. I was glad I wasn’t in one of those—they had it rough. I remember we barely cleared the treetops. Then the left engine caught fire. The crew chief knocked out a window and put it out with an extinguisher. We kept flying.
I sat by the door. Moonlight lit the Channel below, and I could see thousands of ships crossing. Thousands. It was like something out of a dream. Then we hit France—and it was the Fourth of July. Anti-aircraft shells burst everywhere. One shot punched right through our plane without exploding.
“Holy hell, they’re shooting at us!” I yelled.
Sgt. Edgar just said, “What the hell did you expect?”
The pilot panicked and dropped us at 500 feet instead of the planned 1,100. Too low and in the wrong place. We were just kids—18, 19 years old. The green light came on, and out we went. I was second out of the plane, right after Lt. Ell. I landed in an apple orchard, hit the ground hard, but I was fine. I had a machine gun strapped to my leg, and when I landed, I felt it and knew I’d made it.
Not everyone was so lucky. Captain Hotchkiss and his whole planeload came down in a swamp and drowned. He was the one who had volunteered with me back in Arkansas.
When we jumped, we carried a heavy load: backpack, rifle, knife, helmet, machine gun—mine weighed about 40 pounds—and gas mask. First thing we always did after landing was dump the gas masks and packs. We carried no food. We lived off the land.
After I landed, I met up with Henry Taylor, who had carried my tripod. We used the crickets to find others. Slowly, we gathered into small groups. Most of our platoon didn’t make it. But we were lucky—we moved around all night and didn’t get shot at.
One guy in our group could speak French. He talked to a farmer and figured out where we were. We set out for Heisville, our rally point. Some of our guys had dropped far off, in St. Côme-du-Mont and Sainte-Mère-Église—way off course. Some drowned in the Channel, others landed in German lines and were captured or killed. The casualty rate was high.
Eventually, we met up with the invasion forces. But until then, we took no prisoners—we had nowhere to put them. Later, once we had trucks, we loaded them in. If a prisoner refused, we told them, “Stand over there, and we’ll shoot you.” They got on the trucks.
We fought our way through St. Côme-du-Mont and then moved to take Carentan. That meant crossing a swamp under smoke cover. We were halfway through when the smoke lifted and they opened fire. Still, we made it into town. We set up our machine gun on the railroad tracks and let them have it.
That night, we got orders for a bayonet attack. I don’t remember much—I’ve blocked most of that out—but I was scared. One shell landed 30 feet from me and didn’t go off. I was lucky again. I didn’t get hit by shrapnel the whole time we were in Normandy.
The Germans had those 88s—damn good guns. They could fire from ten miles off and punch through our tanks like nothing. No wonder the French peasants preferred the Germans. They didn’t like us. But in Holland, it was the opposite. The Germans treated the Dutch terribly.
From Carentan, we moved on to Cherbourg. We had to fight the whole way. There were four or five of us in a jeep when they ambushed us. Shot up the jeep bad, but we made it through and got them. Another close call.
Eventually, we pulled out and went back to England, probably around mid-to-late July. We’d been through hell and come out alive. Most of us, anyway.
Operation Market Garden – The Holland Campaign
We jumped into Holland on Sunday, September 17, 1944. It was a rare thing—a daylight jump with clear skies—so we could see exactly where we were landing. We dropped near the town of Zon, and the plowed fields below made for soft landings. That meant very few injuries during the jump.
At first, there was no resistance. Dutch civilians came out cheering, waving at us in the streets. That didn’t last. Once the Germans regrouped, they came back hard.
We were in Holland for 79 days, and right from the start, we had to take the town of Veghel three separate times. Our main job was to hold the road for the British tanks trying to get through to Arnhem.
But the plan was flawed. The British jump at Arnhem was a disaster. Our orders changed: hold the dikes and keep the corridor open. Problem was, we didn’t have enough men to both hold the road and fight forward toward the British airborne units trapped across the Rhine.
After the British broke through into Veghel, we were ordered to march to a village called Eerde. Intelligence told us the Germans had pulled back from the town, and we could push our line out with little trouble.
That turned out to be dead wrong.
We dug in around Eerde, setting up a perimeter. That evening, the Germans opened up with machine gun fire. A heavy attack followed. We held them off. For the next week, the fighting around Eerde was non-stop—hit-and-run battles that kept growing as German reinforcements poured in.
Then came the worst of it.
On the day Lt. Ell was killed, we thought the Germans were surrendering. That was the first mistake. They were coming four abreast in column, hundreds of yards long. They weren’t giving up—they were attacking in force.
I fired so many rounds from my machine gun that the barrel overheated and bent. The bullets started dropping only thirty feet in front of me. We ran out of ammo and had to pull back. I had to leave the gun behind. Later, Sgt. Edgar warned us not to touch it—it might be booby-trapped. When it was over, we counted 480 dead Germans.
Laurence Burgoon reminded me of a night patrol he and I were on. He tripped over a dead German who had been lying there for days. The stench was unbearable. Night patrols were terrifying. You couldn’t see a thing.
Lt. Ell died the next morning in heavy fighting along the railroad tracks near some sand dunes. We had moved into position without trouble, but that morning the Germans came at us. Quinlan was shot through the stomach, his spine shattered. We got him to an aid station four hours later. Too late. Lt. Ell was killed by mortar fire, walking among the trees.
I was a machine gunner. Henry Taylor was my assistant. We were covering the company’s right flank near the tracks. That’s when the biggest German I’d ever seen popped up with a burp gun. He looked right at us, dropped his weapon, and ran. We let him go—he was already across the tracks. Lt. Ell told us to run for it. He said he’d stay behind and cover us. And he did. That’s when he was killed.
Later, we moved up to Eindhoven and dug in along the dikes. We held those positions for over 60 days. The Germans could’ve flooded us out, but they didn’t. Not until after we pulled out. Then they broke the dikes.
The fighting eased off for a bit. The Germans were in retreat, and we served mostly as a guard force. The British had jumped across the Neder Rhine and got slaughtered. We lost plenty, too, but not like they did.
One night, our officers wanted intel on the German positions across the river. They sent out a volunteer patrol—eight or nine guys. One of them spoke German. They managed to sneak in with a German patrol, followed them for a while, and got the information we needed. It was pitch black. Nobody got shot that night.
On another night, as we were heading out, I ran straight into a German. He was raising his rifle to shoot us. Sgt. Edgar was about to fire when the guy suddenly turned and bolted. We let him go. That time, nobody got hurt either.
I got wounded not long after. We were still on the dikes, and mortar shells were coming in heavy. Shrapnel tore into my leg and face. At the aid station, they jabbed a six-inch needle into my back—never knew why—and patched me up. Then they sent me right back to the line.
That night, I had to walk through six inches of mud in total darkness, just to find my way back. It had been raining non-stop. I was alone. I couldn’t see a thing, and the lines were active—constant gunfire in both directions. That’s the first time I was truly scared. I didn’t know if I’d walk into our guys or the Germans. But somehow, I made it back.
We had a dog during Holland. A stray that followed us around, and we took care of him. He brought a little comfort during those days. Everyone liked him. Eventually, shrapnel killed him out on the dikes. We all felt that loss.
After 79 days in Holland, we were pulled out and trucked back to Mourmelon, France, for a break. I was completely worn out—physically and mentally. I was near a breakdown.
Father Francis Sampson, our Catholic chaplain, had a sense of humor about it all. When we got back from a leave in Paris, he said, “You come to me with a bottle in one hand and a girl in the other and want a blessing?” He said when he volunteered as a chaplain, he didn’t know he’d have to jump with us into combat. “I thought I’d come in after you guys landed.”
He got captured in Normandy, along with Gregwald and a few others. The Germans lined them up to be shot. Gregwald looked up and said, “Move over, Lord, I’m coming up.” Just then, we showed up and took out the Germans. Saved them by minutes.
Father Sampson was captured again during Bastogne trying to retrieve medical supplies. He spent the rest of the war as a POW.
Reverend Engle, our Protestant chaplain, came to one of our reunions years later. Said he quit the ministry after the war. I guess the war changed him too much.
Eventually, they gave out passes to Paris while replacements came in. When I got back from leave, they woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to pack up. We were headed to Bastogne.
Battle of the Bulge – Defense of Bastogne
The move into Bastogne happened fast and under extreme conditions. Hitler had taken us all by surprise. Our lines in the Ardennes were thin—stretched across 40 miles. For a while, both sides just stared at each other without much action. Eisenhower and the brass thought the Germans were about done. But Hitler had been planning.
On December 16, 1944, thirteen German armored and infantry divisions launched a massive surprise attack. Our front lines began to collapse, and the whole northern wing of the Allied army was in danger. The next night, December 17 at 8:30 PM, the 101st got the call: move to Bastogne.
Bastogne was the hub of key roads through the Ardennes. The Germans needed it to move their forces. Our job was to hold it—stop the Germans cold and buy time.
We’d just gotten back to Mourmelon from Holland. Our gear was being repaired, we were getting replacements, and we were trying to rest. Then everything changed.
We were rounded up and loaded into cattle trucks—over 200 miles to Bastogne, riding all night, standing shoulder to shoulder. No sitting, no rest. Just cold and crowded.
As we neared Bastogne, we passed streams of American troops retreating. They looked shaken—disorganized and scared. A lot of us didn’t have full gear. So, we took what we could from the guys falling back—guns, ammo, warm clothes. They warned us not to go forward. Told us we’d get slaughtered. But we just laughed and pushed on.
Once in Bastogne, Col. Ewell gave I Company a mission: probe into the town of Wardin and set up a command post. Captain Wallace led us there with little resistance at first. Then he sent me and two others into the center of town to scout.
That’s when I turned a corner and found myself staring at the whole damn German army. Tanks and troops everywhere. It was a nightmare.
I tried to get back to Wallace at the CP, but it was too late. The Germans had seen us. We ran. Wilbrod Gauthier grabbed a bazooka, ran down the hill, and blew up the lead tank. Then the second tank’s machine gun cut him down.
We had to hide until nightfall, crossing a stream and laying low in a creek bed while fire raked the fields above us. When it got dark, we made a run for it and got back to Bastogne. That’s when we learned Captain Wallace had been killed—blown up at the CP.
Lt. Harrison tried to hide in town, but some local farmers turned him in. He was captured and sent to a German prison camp, where he later tried to escape and was shot.
We were down to a fraction of our original strength. Out of 200 men who went into Wardin, only 83 of us made it back to Bastogne two days later. Everyone else was dead or captured.
Looking back, I think Col. Ewell’s decision to send us to Wardin was the right one. We delayed the German advance just long enough to give our forces time to dig in around Bastogne. We didn’t even know we were surrounded yet.
But we were.
The Germans hit us from all sides, again and again, trying to take the town. Bastogne was key. If they broke through, they’d have a straight shot west. But we held. We had deep foxholes and a perimeter we weren’t going to give up.
Then came the cold. Miserable, bitter cold. Day after day, night after night, holding the line in frozen ground. No warm clothes. Frostbite and trench foot spread fast.
On December 22, under a white flag, the Germans delivered an ultimatum: surrender or be annihilated. That’s when General McAuliffe gave his famous reply—“Nuts.”
For days we were running low on everything. Ammo, food, medical supplies. There were over 400 wounded troopers laid up in civilian houses with no way to evacuate them. The skies stayed cloudy—no resupply, no air cover.
Then, finally, the weather cleared. Supplies were dropped, and fighters bombed German positions. That broke the back of their offensive, but we were still cut off.
After General Patton’s men broke through, we were pulled back to a semi-rest area. There, we dug deep foxholes—some lined with pine boughs. One day, Patton came by with General Taylor to inspect us. He stood in front of our foxhole and said we should be sent back for rest and recovery. Taylor replied, “These men don’t want a rest—they want to keep fighting.”
I thought, “Speak for yourself, white man.” I could’ve shot that SOB. I was done. I wanted out.
I remember one night in the Ardennes, Henry Taylor and I were ordered to dig in. Henry said he wasn’t going to—maybe he’d get wounded and sent back. He didn’t dig, didn’t get hit, and nothing happened that night. The next morning, we were resupplied and back on the line.
The Germans didn’t quit. They attacked and counterattacked until January 18, 1945, when VIII Corps relieved us. By then, the 101st had suffered 3,458 killed, wounded, or missing in action at Bastogne. And that didn’t include the losses from other units.
We had held. But it had cost us everything.
The War’s End
After Bastogne, we moved on to Reims, France, and from there traveled through Germany. Part of the trip was by truck, part by train. We ended up at Hitler’s mountain headquarters—Berchtesgaden.
There wasn’t much fighting left. Hitler had killed himself, and the German army was coming apart. We passed thousands of German soldiers on the roads, walking with their rifles, looking for someone to surrender to. Nobody was fighting anymore. A lot of them were Russian conscripts, old men, or kids.
The Hitler Youth were the exception. We’d seen them at Bastogne. They were fanatics, raised from birth to fight and die for the Reich. They never gave up. For them, it was fight or be killed—and we obliged them.
The way I saw it, the German army had been trained to follow orders, nothing more. Once they lost their officers, they didn’t know what to do. That’s why we always tried to shoot the ones with the whistles—they were the ones giving the orders.
After the surrender, the Army started sorting out displaced persons—slave laborers, political prisoners, Jews, all kinds of people. I escorted a trainload of them back to Budapest, Hungary. Most of them were in rough shape.
At Berchtesgaden, we stayed in the SS barracks. They were top of the line—Hitler’s personal bodyguards had lived there. We ate well, drank plenty, hunted, and even did some sightseeing. After everything we’d been through since June 6, 1944, it felt like another world.
We were supposed to ship out to the Pacific next. Col. Ewell told us, “You boys will be vomiting in the Pacific before long.” But then President Truman dropped the atomic bombs, and just like that, the war was over.
We also came across what they called a German “baby hospital.” It was full of pregnant women—Aryan girls raised and chosen to have children for the Reich. A Nazi baby factory, plain and simple.
Compared to everything else, that might have been the strangest thing we saw.
Back Home
I was finally discharged from the Army on November 19, 1945. I moved in with my aunt in South Williamsport, and while I was staying there, I met a girl named Ruth Haus. She was originally from Canton, but she was living with her grandmother in South Williamsport and had found work in a sewing factory. I wasn’t working at the time—I was drawing unemployment from the government. Ruth and I dated for a while. Eventually, I got a job, and in 1946 we got married and moved to Slate Run.
Today, I have three daughters, six granddaughters, and five great-grandchildren.
I’ve had a good life—a real, real good life.
I remember turning 19 over in Normandy. We got bombed that day. I expect I’ll be spending my 80th birthday there to see it once more.
