THE LAST GERMAN AIRBORNE OPERATION

BIRDS MIGHT HAVE been mistaken for German parachutists near Spa, but more than a thousand actual German airborne troops were due to be dropped north of Malmédy on Zero Day to further disrupt American defenses.

Nothing went right for the enemy. Half the pilots had never flown in combat, and many paratroopers either were novices or had not jumped since the attack on Holland in 1940. “Don’t be afraid. Be assured that I will meet you personally by 1700 [5 P.M.] on the first day,” General Dietrich had told the mission commander, Colonel Friedrich von der Heydte. After confusion and blunders delayed the jump for a day, a howling crosswind on Sunday morning scattered paratroopers up to fifty kilometers from the drop zone. Two hundred jumpers were mistakenly dropped near Bonn, and American gunners shot down several planes. With a single mortar, little ammunition, and no functioning radios, von der Heydte rounded up three hundred men, who stumbled into a losing firefight before fleeing in small groups; the colonel surrendered after briefly hiding outside Monschau. Two-thirds of the original thousand were killed or captured. That was the end of what proved to be the last German airborne operation of the war.

A patrol of U.S. infantry searches the woods near a known German parachutists’ drop.