The Blitzkrieg Defense: The Battle of Mook

Introduction

“The sole benefit that may be attributed to the conduct of this attack, may be expressed in the costly lessons that were learned. As a training exercise, this action was the most realistic in which [I have] to date participated.”

— Captain Robert H. Ward

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A paratrooper’s rendering of Mook

Although I am, and always will be, primarily a historian of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, occasionally other topics cross my desk. This is one of those times.

The Battle of Mook (or arguably more accurately, the Second Battle of Mook) took place on October 2, 1944. It was fought by the 325th Glider Infantry on the heels of Operation Market Garden, early in the transition to the defense.

Those transitions are what make this particular fight, and the events leading up to it, unique. In a recent interview, US Army Colonel Teddy Kleisner noted that anyone can attack. Anyone can defend. Fighting to transition between them? That is the hard part. On this point, the Battle of Mook is an intriguing study.

Immediately after assembling from a glider landing, the 325th relieved defensive positions on the airhead line. Four days later, they began a concerted effort to attack the Germans in the jungle-like Kiekberg Woods, which resulted in two separate attacks which ultimately crescendoed up to embroiling two-thirds of the regimental strength. In the midst of this, the other one-third of the regiment was bracing for a suspected German attack on the 82nd Airborne Division’s line of communication. In light of this threat, orders for attack in another sector were issued. Thus, the fight in the Kiekberg Woods was broken off, the units relieved in place. Two battalions then marched two-and-a-half miles to an assembly area, and under darkness with no reconnoissance and full light and noise discipline observed, relieved another unit on the line. A few hours later, a full-scale regimental attack commenced.

In light of these transitions, this series will be divided into four parts:

1. Shaping the Battle

2. The Kiekberg Drama

3. Bracing for Impact

4. The Push

The Personalities

• 1st Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment

  • Teddy Sanford - Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion

  • Robert Ward - Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion Headquarters Company

  • Robert Naylor - Commanding Officer, Company B

  • Leonard O’Brian - Company C

  • Ervin Kitchenmaster - Company C

• 2nd Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment

  • Max Bach - Intelligence and Reconnaissance Section, 2nd Battalion

  • Lewis Wilson - Company E

• 3rd Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment

  • Robert Eschbaugh - Company E

  • Richard Park - Company E

The Research

MAJ (R) Gerard Devlin, an accomplished historian and bonafide combat solider, envisioned writing a history on the wartime exploits of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment entitled, The Glider War. Unfortunately for history this book never came to pass, for reasons unknown to me.

A year or so after Devlin’s passing, I obtained some of the late historians research material. Included were invaluable, lengthy, detailed written accounts he obtained from veterans of the 325th while researching The Glider War. Most of them are dated in the mid-1980s. It is these written accounts that this forthcoming series was built around. Devlin did the research, I did the writing. It only required some cursory work in pulling and reviewing company morning reports to piece things on the timeline of events; Captain Robert Ward’s monograph written in 1946 at the Advanced Infantry Officers Course was also relied on heavily.

This will be fun…

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

PART 4: