JAKE MCNIECE

VETERAN LIVED FOR THE FIGHT

HE SAYS HIS STORY IS THE REAL TALE OF THE HOLLYWOOD MOVIE "THE DIRTY DOZEN."

By: ROB MARTINDALE, World Senior Writer
From "The Tulsa World," Sunday, January 30, 2005

World War II had its Eisenhower. Its MacArthur. Its Patton.

And then there were the likes of Jake McNiece, who apparently never saw a fight he didn't like.

An enlisted man, McNiece served 3 1/2 stormy years in the Army, and in Europe in World War II became knows as the leader of the "Filthy Thirteen."

McNiece said that during World War II he had a knack for fighting, whether it was against the Germans or while he was on leave or had gone AWOL.

When he was being separated from the Army in 1946, after the war ended in 1945, McNiece said he inquired about separation pay for the good time he had served.

He remembers a captain telling him that it appeared he had more bad time and he might owe the Army.

As a soldier, McNiece admits, he liked to fight, drink, chase women, go AWOL and often landed in the brig.

But, more than anything else, McNiece was in the business of fighting a war against the Germans.

The gruff-talking 85-year-old believes "The Dirty Dozen" movie starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson was loosely based on "The Filthy Thirteen."

In the 1967 classic, Marvin played a U.S. Army major assigned to train a dozen convicted murderers for an assassination mission targeting German officers.

"Hollywood," McNiece says of the movie.

"They were all good men," he says of the other 12 members of "The Filthy Thirteen," who were paratroopers.

But, he adds, "they were misfits. We didn't salute officers. We didn't mop barracks. We didn't do all that crappy nonsense that they had. But, we were all good combat soldiers," who often wore Mowhawk haircuts.

"We weren't there to play soldier. We were there to kill Germans," McNiece said.

The Ponca City resident is the author of a book titled "The Filthy Thirteen." It is subtitled "The True Story of 'The Dirty Dozen.'"

McNiece said his co-author in writing the book, Richard Kilblane, at first said several people "questioned whether these things really happened."

McNiece said Kilblane, a former Ponca City resident and now an Army historian, became convinced after around two dozen World War II enlisted men and around six commissioned officers said they did.

This story is based on the account by McNiece, who was a member of the 101st Airborne Division.

In World War II, McNiece said, a demolition team often comprised 13 paratroopers, which led to the nickname for his group.

The first jump he made, McNiece said, was part of an advance team of hundreds of paratroopers for the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The paratroopers were to secure the flanks and beach exits of the assault area.

McNiece said the jump came under the cover of darkness but the paratroopers encountered groundfire before they hit the ground.

"Quite a few were lost," he said. "I took 20 men in and only three of us got out."

He said he and other paratroopers fought at Normandy for 36 days.

His second jump came on Sept. 17, 1944, McNiece said, in the Invasion of Holland.

The paratroopers were used as "shock troops," whose mission was to make direct frontal assaults on enemy forces.

They were in Holland, he noted, for 78 days.

McNiece said he made a third jump on Dec. 23, 1944, between American and German lines into Bastogne during the pivotal Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

He said his group spent seven days at Bastogne, setting up an aerial supply route for the soldiers who were virtually encircled by the Germans and were without needed supplies.

McNiece said his fourth and final jump came on Feb. 13, 1945, into the Siegfried Line in what he called the "last big offensive of the war in Germany."

His group of paratroopers, he said, were there for six days.

McNiece said he was fortunate to have survived four jumps as a paratrooper because there was a theory that a World War II paratrooper survived only 1 1/2.

While training in Georgia before going overseas, McNiece's unit was tagged "The Filthy Thirteen" and the tag followed whatever paratroopers' unit he was in throughout the war.

The Filthy Thirteen, McNiece said, never had the resources to take prisoners.

"We didn't take prisoners. We killed all of them," he said. "We didn't have any way to take care of them. We didn't have any food for them. We couldn't guard them. We were fighting for our lives.

"When paratroopers jump in behind the lines, you kill everything between you and your objective. Paratroopers live like there is no tomorrow."

The war in Europe ended in May 1945, but the saga of Jake McNiece wasn't over.

"I was scheduled to come home on September 12," McNiece said, "and I decided I would go in and do Paris one more time."

So, he did on Sept. 11, 1945.

While there doing the town, McNiece said he went to the aid of another soldier who was in a street fight with several French civilians.

After he threw himself into the brawl, McNiece said, he noticed that the other soldier had fled.

McNiece said he was critically cut around the face and side of the head, virtually losing an ear. He said he spent time in a military hospital and then was shipped back to Fort Chaffee, Ark., for more treatment.

There, he said, trouble struck again.

He said he called some civilians draft-dodgers and other names and "they beat me up."

McNiece said he was court-martialed for being "drunk, disorderly and resisting arrest."

Despite the court martial, he said, after time in a brig he was allowed to stay in the Army and was sent to a Springfield, Mo., hospital where he underwent plastic surgery for the knife wounds he had suffered in Paris.

When McNiece, who is part Choctaw, returned from the war to Ponca City, he worked for the post office for 31 years before retiring.

He said he received over two dozen citations for his World War II service.

In 2002, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame.

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Rob Martindale 581-8367
[email protected]

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