American Valor Quarterly Issue 5 - Winter 2008/09 | Page 21

fourth, or fifth. Finally, after several days, they pushed the Germans
up to the other side of the bridge from us, across a pasture
where there were several drainage ditches about 500 yards away.
When the Krauts got pushed back to us, they wanted us to
surrender. There were about forty of us at that time on the bridge,
and we had lots of firepower; we had mortars, we had
machineguns, we had everything. But they thought they could get
us to surrender, then move past to escape. We declined, and said
we would not surrender though we would allow them to
surrender to us honorably. Well, they had about 700 men against
our 40, so they were insulted that we would suggest such a thing.

Men of the Filthy Thirteen - Jake McNiece, Robert Cone, and Jack
Agnew - with kids from the Young Marines program following a
wreath-laying ceremony at the National World War II Memorial as part
of the 11th Annual Conference.

We made up our minds that we would let them cross the first
ditch and come about halfway to the second ditch then we would
all open up at once. We ended up wiping out almost all of them
in about 20 minutes. After it was over, we combed back through
the area to see how many were killed and wounded.

of me, and he took off. The next man I met was Mike Marquez.
They had told us the irrigation ditches around there were twelve
feet wide and two feet deep. Well, it proved to be just the opposite!
Mike took a step into one, and he was gone. I had to yank him
out with his rifle.

One of the men with us was a Catholic chaplain, who walked
around with Jack and me. I heard this funny noise that sounded
like bubbles. I looked over, and I saw this Kraut laying face down
in the ditch, hanging up over the edge of it. He had been shot
through his chest. The chaplain said to give him a shot. Well, each
We were supposed to store our rifle in a bag, which we would of us carried six rounds of morphine, which we called a shot,
open after we hit the ground and got out of our “Mae West” which you could give it to a wounded buddy to reduce his pain.
lifejacket. The rifle was in three pieces which had to be put together
and loaded before we could fire back at the enemy. I knew a little I looked at Jack and I said, “He says give him a shot. Use your
bit about shooting and wanted no part of having to go through .45, it will save morphine.” He aimed down, looked away, and
all this, so I managed to get hold of an M3 submachine gun. That fired, but he missed. So I said, “Stick that thing in his ear and
meant that I could have one in the chamber with the gun locked; blow his head off.” So he did, and the chaplain said, “You knew
all I had to do is hit the safety and I could fire back right away. what I meant, McNiece. I met give him a shot of morphine.”
But when I landed, the muzzle hit the ground and the stock went
up and knocked my shoulder out. I got it back in, but it was I said, “You do whatever you want with your morphine. We are
painful. Anyway, I gave Mike my rifle, and we soon ran into saving all of ours for paratroopers.”
Clarence Ware and another guy.
He was a little unhappy with that, but that German was dead
We met Jake a little while later, but the first thing that we did was anyway. The first time that I met Jack after the war was about 25
blow up the power lines between Carentan and Cherbourg. Then years later. I said, “What do you do now with your spare time?”
we found the manhole over the telephone cable, and we blew
that up too. Our objective was to take the bridges over the Douve He said, “I am working with the National Rifle Association.”
River from Carentan to the beaches. This particular bridge was a
wooden bridge, though a big, strong one for the time.
I said, “Well, what do you do with the NRA?”

Publishers.

Jake McNiece: Our forces were supposed to have