We’re thrilled to welcome 103-year-old 82nd Airborne veteran Gene Metcalfe to talk about his extraordinary World War II experience, which included a combat jump in Operation Market Garden, being counted among the dead at the Battle of Nijmegen, a face-to-face meeting with Heinrich Himmler, and months as a POW in Stalag VII-A.
Gene’s story began on On November 10, 1942, at DeKalb (Illinois) High School, when he stood up, walked out, and joined the Army, inspired by what he’d seen at the movie theater while watching Parachute Battalion.
Gene trained at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, then more training at Fort McClellan, Fort Benning, and Camp Mackall. Eventually he was assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. He didn’t reach England until June 6, 1944—D-Day itself—joining a veteran outfit that had already fought in Sicily, Italy, and Normandy.
Three months later came Operation Market Garden, the ambitious Allied plan to leapfrog into the Netherlands, seize a string of bridges, and open a highway into Germany. On September 17, 1944, Metcalfe climbed aboard a C-47 bound for Groesbeek Heights outside Nijmegen. When Gene jumped, German 88s and machine guns were already zeroed in. He watched his own aircraft roll over in the air and slam into the ground in flames and realized the planners had badly underestimated German strength around Nijmegen.
Once on the ground, Gene and his comrades of the 508th fought through scattered woods and villages around Groesbeek and Nijmegen, taking fire from German tanks and anti-aircraft guns used in a ground role. During a night battle, he pushed forward into an advanced position and, partly deafened by shellfire, never heard the order to fall back. A German shell detonated nearby and hurled Gene through the air. Gene was listed as killed in action, the only member of his patrol who did not make it back.
But he wasn’t dead. When he came to, he was a Prisoner of War. Elements of the 10th SS had overrun the area. Taken behind the lines, he was brought to a 16th-century castle where he found himself standing in front of a senior SS officer he recognized from photographs: Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. Gene stuck to what he’d been taught—name, rank, and serial number—while Himmler’s men quizzed him about his unit and mission.
From there, Metcalfe was sent deeper into the Reich. His first stop was Stalag XII-A, a transit and labor camp, then he moved to the Luftwaffe POW camp Stalag Luft III, and from there crammed into a boxcar for a five-day, five-night journey without food, water, or sanitary facilities to Stalag VII-A near Moosburg, outside Munich.
At Stalag VII-A, Gene did some of the ugliest work the Germans could find for POW labor: clearing roads and digging out corpses from the rubble of bombed-out Munich after air raids. Later he was assigned to a farm detail with a German family.
As Soviet forces approached in 1945, Gene was recalled from the farm back to Stalag VII-A. He escaped with two fellow POWs and headed toward Lake Constance, aiming for the Swiss border and neutral territory. They got as far as the lake but were captured trying to cross and marched back to the camp. Not long after, in April 1945, American forces liberated Stalag VII-A.
Liberation didn’t mean going straight home. Gene and a fellow DeKalb soldier, Billy Carey, “borrowed” a convertible from the liberated area, stopped in Munich, and even met General George S. Patton before making their way to Paris. He spent about ten days there, then was processed at the American Camp Lucky Strike staging area and shipped back across the Atlantic. He hitchhiked the last leg home to DeKalb in late May or early June 1945—the same way he’d left, only now with a Bronze Star, a future Purple Heart and POW medal, and months of combat and captivity behind him
Metcalfe has said that World War II showed him both the depths of human cruelty and the everyday beauty still left in the world. His story became the subject of an acclaimed book, Left for Dead at Nijmegen: The True Story of an American Paratrooper in World War II.
We’re grateful to UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!
