The Art of Manliness - The Hell-Raising Leader of WWII's Filthy Thirteen

00:00:00.000 the art of manliness podcast if you have any interest in world war ii then you've surely

00:00:12.600 seen one of the most arresting photographs to come out of that conflict in it members of the

00:00:16.260 101st airborne division can be seen sporting mohawks and applying war paint to each other's

00:00:19.960 faces right before they're set to parachute into normandy the idea for that pre-battle ritual came

00:00:24.360 from jake mcneese part choctaw indian the section sergeant the army's notorious filthy 13 demolition

00:00:29.460 unit who had already proved himself a highly unorthodox leader long before the countdown to

00:00:33.520 d-day today on the show richard kilblaine shares the story of jake mcneese and the filthy 13 with us

00:00:38.320 richard is the author of two books about the unit the filthy 13 and war paint and is himself a veteran

00:00:43.000 of the army's special forces who served at every level in the military from private soldier to

00:00:46.720 company commander and ended his career as the command historian for the u.s army transportation

00:00:50.920 corps richard describes how you could already see the kind of hell-raising but effective leader

00:00:54.560 mcneese would become during his youth in oklahoma and why mcneese chose to become a paratrooper

00:00:58.720 richard then talks about all the trouble mcneese got into during boot camp how he ended up leading

00:01:02.740 a section of fellow renegades and why his superior officers kept him around despite his pattern of

00:01:07.340 engaging in deliberate disobedience richard then explains what was going on with the filthy 13's

00:01:11.760 pre-normandy invasion mohawks and war paint and what mcneese and his men did on d-day and during the

00:01:15.980 rest of the war richard explains why it was that mcneese got promoted despite never changing his

00:01:20.040 rebellious ways and we enter conversation with his surprising transformation after the war

00:01:24.100 after the show's over check out our show notes at awim.is slash filthy 13

00:01:27.900 richard kilblaine welcome to the show okay thanks for having me on so you've written a few books

00:01:45.140 about a world war ii call a squad part of the 101 uh they called the filthy 13 that became to be known

00:01:54.140 as that for big picture we're getting into detail the story because it's really remarkable who were

00:01:58.720 the filthy 13 like what was their objective and mission during world war ii and then how did you

00:02:03.020 discover the story of these guys well the filthy 13 was actually a demolition section there was three

00:02:11.300 demolition sections in the demolition platoon of the regimental headquarters company of the 506

00:02:17.020 parachute infantry regiment which the band of brothers was easy company 506 inside 101st airborne division

00:02:24.460 and jake mcneese was appointed as the section sergeant okay in a section included two six-man

00:02:35.260 squads and uh so that's 13 guys and their mission their primary mission is anything that has to do with

00:02:44.940 blowing stuff up okay that would be like a bridge mission or whatever but in the event that they

00:02:51.940 don't have a demolition mission they were pretty much security around the regimental headquarters

00:02:57.460 colonel zinc's headquarters okay and so there were two bridge missions during the world war ii that the

00:03:06.860 506 had responsibility for the first one was at the bridge of ribbons over the dove canal just outside it

00:03:15.820 cuts off the uh any retreat or attack from carrington and the other one was the market guard and and how

00:03:25.260 how i came to uh know about these guys well actually i first heard about the filthy 13 while i was in special

00:03:32.220 forces in the army and you know it was a friend that told me about it and i just plugged it in the back

00:03:39.040 of my mind until you know i got out of the army and i moved back home to bonka city oklahoma and lo and

00:03:45.880 behold the leader of that unit lived in my hometown so i got to know him all right and uh he was just a

00:03:55.400 prolific storyteller all right so let's talk about jake because he's like the main character of this first

00:04:00.060 book he became known as mcnasty and during his time with the filthy 13 let's talk about before he joined

00:04:08.100 up volunteered as a paratrooper what was he like as a kid i mean did you see glimpses of the the man who

00:04:14.780 would become known as mcnasty in a teenage jake mcneese yeah okay the teenage years is is where i would say i

00:04:23.040 started before that his parents were sharecroppers and actually successful share we tend to think of

00:04:29.880 sharecroppers were poor no his father was doing very well had bought a house when the depression

00:04:36.180 hit and then of course they lost everything and the kids had to go to work so jake had to grow up

00:04:44.360 fast and young all right so all the kids worked until they pretty much graduated from high school

00:04:51.380 he had two older brothers i think went in to college so jake when he was in jake was a superb athlete

00:05:00.880 if when you you look at the book war paint i've got pictures of him stripped down to just the shorts

00:05:07.860 going through the obstacle course the guy is solid muscle and when i saw his i read his discharge

00:05:15.020 he weighed 175 pounds and i think he stood by seven a solid muscle there's no fat on that guy he's top

00:05:24.920 so but a tremendous athlete both wrestling and football and i guess he had played a little bit

00:05:32.860 of football he'd gotten to the ninth grade and he's he's going to drop out of school so he can work full

00:05:37.440 time to support the family and oklahoma back then and there's a few places now high school football is

00:05:46.200 semi-pro okay and ponca city and its rival town blackwell both in the same county they had pretty

00:05:55.900 much professional football team because they the coaches went out to these smaller towns and recruited

00:06:03.040 athletes either offering the athlete a job or offering their parents a job and and see i say

00:06:11.080 blackwell and ponca city because blackwell had a uh i think a steel refinery and a steel meal and

00:06:17.580 ponca city had continental oil company and so the coach said look we'll get you a job with the fire

00:06:25.360 department said you play full time and then you'll work at the fire department we pretty much lived there

00:06:32.020 and when he joined the fire department it's like the majority of the the fire department were high

00:06:39.220 school football players so anyway very responsible and but tough he a fighter a serious scrapper but when i

00:06:51.380 got to know people like he was admired though i think they they elected him as the high school

00:06:56.540 his senior class president he went to work he went to school wearing like

00:07:02.020 uh what you call coveralls or like the bib coveralls and uh so everybody else started wearing them

00:07:08.660 he you know aside from his drinking and fighting and fooling around with loose women

00:07:15.020 he was admired because you know because when they got back from the war and he gives that up and he

00:07:23.140 becomes a born-again christian a lot of people said he changed and from everything i was hearing i said no

00:07:30.020 there was no change i said once you stripped those three vices from him you got down to the real jake

00:07:37.980 mcneese he's really a good guy he did the fights he got in with bullies with people who start in fights

00:07:44.340 with him but he would defend other people but the story that when i the narration actually my narration

00:07:51.900 which leads into jake's story begins with a football game in which it's they're playing for blood it it

00:07:59.860 it blackwell had beat them the last time so this is a rivalry game kind of like army and navy

00:08:06.500 there's there's zero score and jake is a problem solver and i love that story every everybody from who was in

00:08:15.980 high school remembers that one play and jake is because he's the team captain

00:08:23.500 but he's a lineman and he's just remember five seven he at that time he probably wasn't weighing 175

00:08:31.300 pounds but the quarterback was i think a sophomore he didn't have a lot of experience so jake would call

00:08:38.620 the plays and then the quarterback would run them and so jake says let's do a quarterback sneak and

00:08:45.140 and the quartermaster's like quarterback his question is logic because the guy he's going up

00:08:51.660 against is twice his size and jake says no just trust me just trust me he said you just call off the

00:08:59.280 numbers i'll hike the ball when i'm ready and what he does he chews tobacco so he's he's like saying

00:09:06.460 stuff to get this guy's attention and then he spit tobacco in his eye blinded him drives into his chest

00:09:13.960 drives him back into the end zone opens a hole the the quarterback runs through and then of course the

00:09:20.480 guys wiping the defensive players wiping tobacco juice from his eyes and claiming foul jake had to

00:09:28.120 swallow that tobacco in order to cover up the evidence well everybody knew he chewed knew it was true but

00:09:34.360 they had no evidence and it was someone else who was there it was actually truman smith who goes yeah

00:09:39.740 i remember seeing jake because he i guess he was a freshman or whatever that year he goes i remember

00:09:44.720 seeing jake puking his guts out in the shower after the game but that's the kind of guy that the first

00:09:52.860 sergeant and the company command the original company commander hank hannah that's what they saw they saw a

00:09:59.960 guy who aside from all this other stuff he is going to get the job done so does that answer your

00:10:06.800 question no yes yeah you already see a natural leader uh someone who will flit around the edges of

00:10:13.940 the rules to get a job done to be successful so that was high school what how did he end up joining

00:10:20.940 the paratroopers like what was going on there why did he decide to volunteer well as the as his story

00:10:27.340 pick is his version of the story picks up because he was a fireman he had total exemption from the army

00:10:36.460 policemen firemen you know mission essential well he's a fighter and he just can't stay out of this

00:10:44.060 fight so he decides to enlist and why he went into the airborne is because what little he knew about

00:10:53.840 the paratroopers is one he's going to be with others like him okay and he had properly he understood

00:11:04.860 the problem of combat and that is when you're kicking in a door you're you're getting up and moving

00:11:11.020 is everybody else going to be following you are you going to be the only guy running across that open

00:11:15.720 ground and he wanted men he wanted to fight with men who he could trust were going to follow him

00:11:23.840 we're going to be side by side with him and the other thing is he knew that probably some of the

00:11:29.640 heaviest casualties are actually taken on the front lines all right and it a lot of it is because of

00:11:34.420 who's on your left and the right he said by jumping in behind enemy lines he had no problem finding the

00:11:40.580 enemy they were going to be all around him okay he just had to find some of his his battle buddies in

00:11:47.540 order to and that's a modern term in order to uh help kill those germans so that's that's why he

00:11:54.200 enlisted he didn't have to enlist uh he volunteered and he wanted to go into the airborne because he

00:12:00.040 knew they would be a higher class of fighters and he liked the idea of jumping just jumping in behind

00:12:05.820 the enemy where everywhere you look was was a target rich environment and he also said i thought

00:12:12.160 this was interesting he said i he says if i was going to get killed i want to be able this is like

00:12:16.460 i want to be able to look the guy in the eyeball while he's killing me and he said i could get that

00:12:21.700 in the paratroopers because i'll be right i'll jump right into the into the enemy yeah that would make

00:12:26.940 sense yeah um all right so he signs up with the paratroopers and he gets sent off to boot camp

00:12:33.120 what was the experience in boot camp like and did you start seeing the formation this is where you

00:12:38.460 started seeing the formation of the filthy 13 yes all right boot camp wasn't like uh boot camp today

00:12:45.720 where you go through a collective training and you come out and you get individual assignments

00:12:50.920 that was actually that is a descendant of the replacement basic training at the end of world war ii

00:13:00.500 really from 41 to about 43 you went through boot camp in your unit okay so he ends up in the 506

00:13:12.880 and their boot camp was at uh tokoa georgia and colonel zinc he knew what these men were going to have to

00:13:26.400 face in combat and he created an intense weeding out process and the the normal attrition rate for

00:13:35.420 any school in the army is about 30 it doesn't matter how hard or easy it is if it's a really hard school

00:13:41.980 like ranger school or special forces school well you you got people who are that quality signing up for

00:13:48.960 it an easy school easy people who are that quality sign up for it well uh there's speculation that the

00:13:56.280 uh the 506 had lost twice as many people as has passed through it high weed out i think that

00:14:06.440 colonel zinc's weeding out process what he was left with were not just physically fit but mentally tough

00:14:16.320 men all right so boot camp is really rigorous and jake he excels at the physical aspect of it the

00:14:22.420 operational stuff but he really doesn't like the traditional military discipline aspect of it

00:14:28.400 like the saluting and standing in formation and something we haven't mentioned yet is that jake

00:14:33.480 is part choctaw indian and he tries to use that to get out of standing formation because he says

00:14:39.160 saluting the flag is against his religion because he's a nature worshiper and he also gets up into other

00:14:45.060 kinds of pranks and trouble while he's in boot camp uh can you tell us some more about that

00:14:49.160 so the shenanigans and he's always he's just funny you know he's there was one time they were

00:14:55.440 rigging oh they're blowing stumps that's what they're clearing they're clearing these stumps out

00:15:00.600 of the swamp well the swamp was full of cottonmouths and so they rigged they rigged some explosives they

00:15:07.840 said quick everybody because he's just it just comes to him like let's do this and everybody follows

00:15:12.760 so they go and hide they set up an ambush so here's these guys marching down the road with the swamp on

00:15:18.880 both sides and they blow it and as i think agnew told the story best he said they were showered with

00:15:24.840 mud and cottonmouth snakes and these guys were pissed but they couldn't find him okay he stole a train

00:15:31.860 okay you know they had taught him that once you jump behind enemy lines you know here's how to here's

00:15:38.080 how to blow track you know demolitions when you blow track i was i was cross-trained as a demolitions

00:15:43.520 man in my first special forces assignment and he taught me he says yeah where the joint is you blow

00:15:48.720 that because now you're a player two pieces of track not one but they also taught him how to you know

00:15:54.360 disable or operate locomotives because you're behind the enemy lines so he goes downtown and you know

00:16:01.640 they take the deuce and half into town and he overstays time this is the the truck back so he's going to be

00:16:10.700 written up and so he he's at this railroad station he's looking for a train he sees a tender which is a

00:16:16.760 small locomotive and they just move stuff around he's waiting for the operators to go get something

00:16:24.360 to eat when they do because the boiler's still running he goes in there and takes that thing and

00:16:29.240 takes off now he says in all fairness you know for to prevent an accident he puts out these toe

00:16:35.420 poppers or whatever torpedoes or whatever out there so if a train's coming it will pop off knowing that

00:16:41.540 there's another locomotive on the track well of course he's stolen a locomotive and there's a big

00:16:47.000 investigation on that and all the guys cover for him so they're in lockdown and they got like a couple

00:16:52.140 weeks before i guess they're shipping out and they all have demolitions they start blowing stuff up

00:16:57.880 okay i think another story let me think you know there's he was just getting fight oh where they say

00:17:05.660 the critics were going yeah he should have been kicked out well it came close and that was if you

00:17:13.060 remember the story about him refusing to stand formation claiming it was against his religion

00:17:19.120 which he made up and finally hank hannah whose company commander becomes a great a very successful

00:17:25.500 lawyer after the war basically hank hannah tells him you need to do you know i'm giving you a direct

00:17:31.920 order and jake's like okay the funny part is he said i only stood one formation then i got thrown

00:17:37.740 he gets in a fight and he's now in the stockade for another two weeks and then they go through dump

00:17:43.920 school so it's like yeah he only stood that one formation well him and shorty myelin both of them

00:17:49.700 were heavy drinkers so they go into an off-limits area to get drunk and they come out and jake

00:17:56.000 i went to the 506 reunions mainly to find out if jake was making this up and what i found is

00:18:02.280 everybody was telling better stories well i love getting the other stories on this well anyway

00:18:06.680 most people agree jake was the toughest guy and the only guy that would disagree with eddie shamus

00:18:12.720 who was i really believe was jealous of jake okay so jake and shorty are getting drunk and they come out

00:18:20.580 and they're in off-limits area and the mps go to arrest them and shorty takes a swing at that one

00:18:26.820 of the mps and he falls over and the mps pull their billy bats out decide to go to work on him

00:18:31.580 and jake grabs the bat and says look he's drunk he has no harm and they you know jake can't stand

00:18:38.440 bullies so like leave us alone we're going to beat this guy so jake takes disarms him takes their

00:18:44.320 billy bats away from him beats him into the ground and he's drunk and then he goes well now

00:18:50.560 these guys have 45s they're pissed off i can't allow them to have loaded 45s so he takes their 45s

00:18:58.440 and empties the round well if you're drunk how do you empty a 45 you just start shooting out street

00:19:04.340 lights funny story to that is is i was at that reunion and and jake would always freak begin him

00:19:12.360 and martha would have breakfast in the same mcdonald's and it was this local who came by and

00:19:18.240 you know we would sit and they knew it was the 506 reunion and people would come up and see these

00:19:23.480 old guys and sit down talk with him one guy sitting there he's going yeah you guys were wild and rowdy

00:19:28.400 i remember one night because he was a kid he said one night this drunken indian just shot up all these

00:19:34.100 street lights and martha's jake's they're quiet martha's laughing to go and point to jake said that's

00:19:40.360 the drunken indian so anyway hank hannah comes in and it goes look colonel zinc wants to break the

00:19:48.380 100 mile road march that was the record that was set by the japanese he said we know you could do it

00:19:54.340 he said i'm afraid if i you know because he was over the you know the company commander goes in and

00:19:58.680 bails your soldiers out i've had to do it okay as a platoon leader and so he goes yeah but i'm afraid

00:20:06.320 that you're just going to get more trouble and i need you for that road march so is it okay if i

00:20:12.400 just leave you a stockade and he goes yeah you know jake was just so reasonably going yeah that makes

00:20:18.420 sense sure i'll stay here and the first when i went to the first regimental headquarters company

00:20:23.580 reunion that was the story everybody was telling about is they're running up and down three miles up

00:20:28.980 three miles down you know mount curry and the stockade was at the base of the hill and every time

00:20:35.640 they're running by jake and shorty mile behind the behind the wire waving at him like and then

00:20:41.620 when they were coming back because hannah was a fast runner and they go heat heat heat which is a

00:20:47.400 which is a term like if you've got a horse race and it's neck and neck you go heat heat heat because

00:20:52.080 they're trying to get the other guys to beat hannah but i heard in when i interviewed the guys that

00:20:58.160 there was one point that they came close to this is where colonel zinc was said we gotta get rid of this guy

00:21:05.640 and now the first sergeant was top kick miller was not alive but he was just a true judge of

00:21:13.660 character but it turned out it was both hank hannah and miller who went to bat said no sir

00:21:21.040 we're not going to a parade field we're going into war and we're going to need this guy

00:21:28.540 all right so jake is something of a hellraiser and he ends up leading them section of guys who

00:21:34.720 are also kind of troublemakers uh how did that happen so what they did is anybody who was having

00:21:41.720 trouble in the other section they would give to jake you know before they kicked him out they'd give

00:21:46.800 him to jake well you know there are some guys that i mean a lot of your troublemakers are really

00:21:52.540 really smart the biggest problem they have is with stupid leadership so jake's not asking to do

00:21:59.300 anything that doesn't make sense and so a lot of them fit in and so what they're doing is

00:22:06.940 they're surrounding jake with guys just like himself and they're they're going to follow his

00:22:12.840 every lead and so what the filthy 13 is jake mcneeson 12 accomplices we're gonna take a quick

00:22:19.940 break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show all right so after boot camp jake

00:22:26.480 and his unit get shipped off to england and while they're there they're getting ready for d-day

00:22:30.220 this is when they actually get their nickname the filthy 13 and there's lots of legends how they got

00:22:35.520 that nickname one of them is that they promised each other that they wouldn't bathe until they were

00:22:39.760 dropped into france and they killed some some germans but the real story is different how do they

00:22:45.300 actually get their nickname the filthy 13 they lived in nisei hunts which is kind of like

00:22:50.920 quonset huts on little cut manor and it was a section 13 guys actually 14 guys because they put

00:23:00.360 the platoon sergeant in there thinking it would clean these guys up which it didn't all right and

00:23:06.000 they were refusing to they they got a small water ration and they only got a shower an actual shower

00:23:14.860 on saturday they trained till saturday afternoon and lunchtime and they got a small water ration which

00:23:22.040 were supposed to do a sponge bath but they did they also getting british rations which were terrible

00:23:28.820 spam living off the spam that that's as bad as living off amres and so they started poaching

00:23:35.980 deer rabbits trout they there was a fish hatchery there so they're as they say that we're poaching

00:23:43.680 the king's deer well they had to use their water to clean and cook it so they weren't bathing and

00:23:50.180 that's how these guys got filthy and that's where they got the nickname the filthy 13 there's a probably

00:23:56.720 saw the photo of these guys with that wooden shingle that they wrote the filthy 13 on it all right so

00:24:04.020 filthy because they're felt like literally physically filthy they were physically filthy

00:24:08.320 yeah yeah and then the other thing the filthy 13 are famous for or best known for also happened in

00:24:15.060 england right before d-day they're getting ready to get on the plane to drop into normandy and jake gets

00:24:20.240 inspired by his choctaw heritage and he he shaves his hair into a mohawk and then he puts some more

00:24:25.940 paint on his face and then the rest of the filthy 13 do the same thing what's the story there what

00:24:31.120 happened there they had just painted the black and white invasion stripes on the plane it was still

00:24:36.560 wet and jake went over and wiped the paint off with his fingers and started painting his face he just

00:24:43.480 does stuff on the spur of the moment he shaves his head and he puts on more paint guys go jake why are

00:24:48.840 you doing that and and everybody knew he was part indian they didn't know it was he was chocked on well

00:24:54.820 so when he says well you know and in uh in the indian culture we take each other scouts okay so

00:25:01.880 that's why the scout block and they go like well why the war paint he said camouflage camouflage okay

00:25:07.560 that's the guy's like yeah we'll do it the only one that didn't that we know of was jack warmer

00:25:13.200 because he came out of the ranger battalion the 29th ranger battalion so he had a different

00:25:18.260 mentality towards discipline than than jake did and then we've got a picture of trigger gan who was

00:25:26.380 attached to him for the jump but there were two engineer ncos a corporal and a sergeant who were

00:25:33.580 attached to him and oh they jumped in with it too hey shave my head paint my face and the only image

00:25:39.140 we have of jake with the war paint on is him painting sergeant moreno's uh face who is the uh engineer

00:25:46.420 sergeant but yeah these guys would just like follow him on a whim like that and and that's the filthy

00:25:52.660 13. all right so the filthy 13 they get ready for battle in a way that really fits their their

00:25:59.140 renegade attitude and then they get dropped into normandy as part of the d-day invasion what happens

00:26:04.160 to jake and the filthy 13 on d-day as i mentioned the filthy 13 was the first demolition section

00:26:10.160 of the demolition platoon the only battalion that had a demolition mission on d-day was the third

00:26:18.180 battalion first demolition section trains with the first battalion the third section trains with the

00:26:23.680 third battalion to validate jake's you know usefulness colonel zinc came to jake or had jake come

00:26:32.580 to him and ask him if he would do would take on that mission to do the bridges at brevance okay and i want

00:26:39.620 to point this out in the time we have is that those guys went out the plane early and i just got

00:26:48.320 my friend that found those two letters that i shared with you also sent me the troop carrier

00:26:54.840 after action report and it identified what planes dropped their loads early whatever and for the third

00:27:03.060 battalion mission it mentions two planes i think it said 17 miles from their drop zone

00:27:09.620 but they were scattered because they were not they hadn't slowed down at jump speed they were still

00:27:14.720 at regular speed and i've in interviewing these guys and they describe like what town they were near

00:27:20.680 they were spread out over eight miles and jake was eight miles from his objective and what you find is most

00:27:27.820 of these guys that on d-day the airborne wherever they landed that night they stayed there if they fought

00:27:36.720 they fought there they regrouped in the daylight and you look at the band of brothers they pretty

00:27:42.300 much fought where they were at and it's the next day they got together and they went and attacked a

00:27:47.920 mission jake was bound and determined he's by himself that he is going to get to that bridge

00:27:54.200 and accomplish his mission now he follows the path of the plane and he manages to pick everybody that went

00:28:00.560 out before him was either killed wounded or captured except trigger again but he's managed to pick up

00:28:06.920 most of the guys behind him that went out behind him except for jack warmer and plus other guys and

00:28:16.100 remember you know they've lost most because he's lost most of the guys he's lost most of the demolition

00:28:20.620 so every time they bump into a paratrooper everybody had demo so like give us our demo so by the time he

00:28:27.500 gets got to his bridge he had 13 guys and more than enough demolition to accomplish the mission

00:28:34.800 now i mentioned jack warmer see and i brought this up in war paint that jake's discipline was different

00:28:42.840 from others everybody expects someone to obey orders jake was in in all the antics he was doing he was

00:28:50.080 deliberately training his men to disobey orders but he focused on the mission and he he promoted

00:28:57.940 joe oliskiewicz who was 17 years old when he joined the army he was one of the youngest guys in the unit

00:29:04.280 and he made him one of the squad leaders and i said jake why'd you do that he said because i knew if

00:29:10.980 anything happened to me which he meant get killed that joe would accomplish the mission and it hit me at

00:29:18.660 that time jake was mission focused which is exactly how special forces is once you accept the mission

00:29:25.180 you don't fail them you don't come back you don't fail the mission okay i understood that and jack

00:29:34.480 warmer came out of the ranger battalion he was trained by the british commandos and the discipline

00:29:40.580 they had is you obey the order because your mission can change because for example you're going in to

00:29:46.680 attack one target but that target is so heavily fortified that it's suicidal to do it you you got

00:29:53.980 to be flexible and pick another mission so you have to obey the orders of your officers you know like

00:30:00.640 jake ends up walking through the 501st area sector and runs into colonel johnson and johnson says

00:30:06.700 your mission's changed you now belong to me i want you on perimeter security and he ignores him and

00:30:11.540 keeps going to his bridge jack warmer runs into the 501st first officer says hey you're now part of us

00:30:18.200 and he obeys and uh steve devito who wrote jack warmer's story you know he he pretty much subscribed

00:30:26.040 with jack warmer's idea of discipline and and was very critical of jake and i said let me put it this

00:30:32.360 way had jake and all those other guys had the same attitude of discipline obey your the orders of the

00:30:38.240 officers above you none of none of the demolition men would have reached the bridge that's why he

00:30:44.620 was the way he was all right so that was d-day and so this is you know they made that jump with the

00:30:49.060 mohawks the war paint jake again taking the initiative to make sure the job gets done even

00:30:54.560 disobeyed orders to do that what happened after d-day like when did they wrap things up there and where

00:30:59.360 did they where the the army send them next well after they recovered from the bridges they they pretty

00:31:06.280 much were security around oh well no they had to take carrington so the whole 506 regiment had to

00:31:12.640 take carrington he was part of that attack but they were pretty much security for the regimental

00:31:18.180 headquarters so they weren't like the band of brothers actually attacking in there they they did

00:31:23.380 get engaged but after that they pretty much performed security patrols things like that until they went

00:31:29.140 back to england and then they did the market garden jump and as i mentioned the demolition platoon

00:31:35.460 had three bridge missions so each one of the sections was assigned a bridge now an interesting

00:31:41.560 story of that is the bombing of the bridges if you watch the movie band of brothers and when they're

00:31:47.780 out there on this flank attack on this one town i think moose or whatever his name is gets captured

00:31:53.880 and recovered the scene ends with them looking at dark and they see this bombing of eindhoven well

00:32:00.780 that's the bombing of the bridges and jake's lieutenant you know when jake saw this mr spitz

00:32:07.300 fly over and drop flares jake recognized what was going to happen he was illuminating the bridges for

00:32:13.300 a bombing run and jake told all his guys to get in the bunkers the lieutenant's telling him no you got

00:32:20.140 to stay out here and defend the bridges and and there was a tank a german tank off in the distance jake said

00:32:25.640 no one's going to be attacking this bridges while the germans are bombing it trust me and he goes any

00:32:33.300 of you guys who don't want to get killed you know because you didn't tell them they'll do it now it's

00:32:37.900 like anyone don't want to get killed get in the bunker well they all got in the bunker now the other

00:32:42.580 two sections when you get it in you get the story in uh war paint they did as they were trained they

00:32:49.120 stayed out and the counter to strafing or bombing is you firing the hair so these guys have got m1

00:32:56.820 grands thompson submachine guns and they're just throwing bullets up that don't do anything

00:33:02.780 and several of them got us there was so many of them that got killed and wounded by the bombing

00:33:09.060 both ncos were killed many of the uh soldiers were seriously injured that what was left of that

00:33:17.960 platoon was rolled up under jake i mean jake had the only section that was left intact and that is

00:33:25.160 when he goes from being section sergeant to the platoon sergeant now he's up from going from buck

00:33:31.200 sergeant his discharge he was a staff sergeant that was a platoon sergeant's rank okay and then warmer will

00:33:39.480 replace jake as a section sergeant all right that tells you like okay he disobeyed the order of the

00:33:45.520 officer but that was the right thing to do he saved his section and what's left of the others probably

00:33:52.500 made another squad and it and they actually sent the officers away they distributed the officers

00:34:00.280 throughout the rest of the battalion or regiment and removed the platoon sergeant gave him other duties

00:34:06.140 basically they're going jake's the guy's going to keep everybody left and that's something else when

00:34:10.680 i met rags man cone robert cone you know he he was captured in normandy and spent the war as a pow

00:34:17.580 and it wasn't until somebody radio showed tracked him down or his son tracked him down anyway they he

00:34:25.920 goes to a reunion start selling and when i talked to him about joining the filthy 13 he said jake's the

00:34:33.080 only one he remembered but he goes i knew that guy was going to live you know there when you talk to

00:34:40.200 these guys these world war ii vets there's always like one guy in the company that you know he's going

00:34:45.880 to make it through and he's blessed with common sense but usually gets them busted because they're

00:34:50.940 smarter than most of their leaders and they're tough as hell and that was jake and and bob cone said you

00:34:57.300 know when i looked at jake i'm like that guy's gonna win the medal of honor okay that's the kind of

00:35:03.060 person jake was okay so after operation market garden jake joined a group called the pathfinders

00:35:09.000 and these guys they would jump in ahead of the main airborne body to set up things like beacons to

00:35:14.820 guide the rest of the planes in that were dropping off the main airborne body half of the filthy 13

00:35:19.880 joined him on that and they get dropped into the battle of the bulge and then jake ultimately he

00:35:26.360 ended up with four combat jumps which is that's really rare for a paratrooper after and then the

00:35:33.040 war ended after that what happened to jake what did what happened to jake after the war well by the

00:35:37.900 time they uh get to occupation in uh zelem z switzerland they get discharged on points and

00:35:45.640 they go home not discharged they go home on points and top kick miller you know career soldier stuff

00:35:51.480 that wounded in normandy he had a lot of points so they sent him home and the company commander who

00:35:58.400 jane brown at that time picks jake to be the acting first sergeant so here's this guy who they won't

00:36:06.620 jade brown is funny story in the book about when they're in when they're in uh new york port of

00:36:13.280 embarkation and jake is still a private not even private first class and they tell him you got to

00:36:19.940 promote this guy and he says you know jake was already awol downtown drinking and and jade brown says

00:36:26.420 they can send me to leavenworth the prison before i ever promote this guy to private

00:36:31.420 gene brown ended up promoting this guy all the way to first sergeant okay acting first sergeant his

00:36:37.060 discharge listed him as staff sergeant which was the rank of platoon sergeant after the war he travels

00:36:44.380 around raises hell and stuff like that till he moves back to ponca city falls in love with a good

00:36:50.620 hispanic woman and uh she knows his troubled background and jake says look he said my problem

00:36:59.160 is drinking and if i'm i he said i don't get in fights when i'm not drinking and so he says i give

00:37:06.380 that up i give it all well so here's jake he's given up drinking a lay preacher now i uh i did lit world

00:37:14.180 war ii living history and uh and uh one of the guys in my unit had just read the book and he says

00:37:21.120 is it true this hellraiser became a lay preacher i said yeah it was and so i told jake that and he

00:37:27.860 says jake had had a comeback his real calling should have been a stand-up comedy he goes yeah he said next

00:37:34.520 time you're asked that that question he said tell him this i spent the first 35 years of my life

00:37:41.320 sowing wild oats and the rest of my life praying for a crop failure it's classic jake yeah yeah it was

00:37:50.700 that's that summed up his life right there so what do you hope people walk away with thinking

00:37:55.680 after they they finish your books about the filthy 13 and jake mcneese well several things first of all

00:38:02.140 take it as a entertaining story okay now if you're caught up in discipline and stuff

00:38:10.080 read between the lines why do they not kick this guy out why do they keep promoting him why is he

00:38:18.760 made the first sergeant of the pathfinders why is he made acting first sergeant of regimental headquarters

00:38:23.560 company because he's a leader the only thing he had problem was was saluting and standing formations

00:38:30.580 in his mind he's looking like if this doesn't contribute to my training for the war

00:38:35.080 it doesn't make sense but he also is going to push the limit and he did and he got away with it

00:38:41.060 because they were trying to rationalize with him all right for all those people said i'd have kicked

00:38:45.340 him out well you'd have lost the war too okay i was a company commander i'd have had a hard time i'd you

00:38:51.140 know as much as like jake i'd have had a hard time protecting that guy we would have got along he you

00:38:57.500 know and i'm he would have probably obeyed what i told him to do anyway because i'd have been rational

00:39:01.900 with him like hank hannah but he would have definitely fitted as a team sergeant in special

00:39:07.380 forces because there was guys like jake that i knew but so read between the lines and look at the

00:39:13.680 leadership the mission focus this guy had and that i would say that's that's the and then of course at

00:39:19.660 the end yeah the guy the guy look there were two jakes when i went to his his funeral which was held in

00:39:27.300 the church that that he pretty much you know if they didn't have a preacher he would be preaching

00:39:32.340 in and everybody knew he he retired as a uh all those guys when i did the war paint and i followed

00:39:39.140 up on one they lived the american dream uh post-world war ii which is get married uh buy a home and get

00:39:46.480 a job with the big company and retire 30 35 years and he retired like 35 years as a postal worker

00:39:53.400 okay and the people who were in his church had no idea about the other jake mcneese until the book

00:40:00.780 came out and to sit there and hear the stories told you know the shark like we didn't know about this

00:40:06.440 guy you know my brother went to high school with human niece his son and he's like he's reading the

00:40:13.220 book he said uh i'd never figured this out because his you know hugh was a good church going guy i mean

00:40:19.840 he carried a bible around in high school dressed well he's like you wouldn't believe this troublemaker

00:40:25.600 was their father yeah jake straightened him out well richard this has been a great conversation where

00:40:31.120 can people go to learn more about the book and your work well amazon i've got a lot of books you can

00:40:37.500 buy them on amazon my next book coming out which is it's about the rough riders mostly from oklahoma

00:40:43.900 and it is now listed on amazon i like the cover title is they were the rough riders but it's coming

00:40:49.640 out in january i think both the filthy 13 is now in paperback is small print the hardbacks are hard

00:40:56.260 to get and i think war paint is still for sale on amazon but i have a as i retired as the army

00:41:05.040 transportation corps historian and i did a lot of research on gun trucks both vietnam and iraq and i have

00:41:12.920 uh several books on on those and with the with the convoy ambush case studies volume one vietnam and

00:41:20.780 korea i was interviewing guys 30 to 40 years after the fact and so it's a lot thinner than volume two

00:41:27.440 which is iraq and afghanistan my style of writing there was to put you in the vehicles it did get you

00:41:33.980 into the kill zone okay i do a much better job on the iraq volume because i mean i was interviewing

00:41:40.260 guys day because i went down range i wrote on convoys i was interviewing guys days and weeks

00:41:44.960 after the ambush at most maybe a year after the ambush but they uh they they give you a feel about

00:41:51.540 both the good you know how how soldiers react under fire good and bad heroes and cowards and those are

00:41:57.680 online you can buy them but they're online and uh you go to the army transportation corps and web page

00:42:03.900 click history click uh or you just type in my name in convoy case study and you click public history

00:42:09.960 and then there's a publications list and it has all those books and you could there you can read

00:42:14.740 them online well richard kilblaine thanks for your time it's been a pleasure all right hey thanks for

00:42:19.280 having me on my guest today was richard kilblaine he's the author of the book the filthy 13 and war

00:42:23.680 paint the filthy 13 they're both available on amazon.com also check out our show notes at

00:42:27.460 aom.is slash filthy 13 where you find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:42:31.960 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at art of

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

The Hell-Raising Leader of WWII's Filthy Thirteen

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