Theodore Herman Bachenheimer

Bachenheimer was born in Braunschweig, Germany.  His father Wilhelm, born in Frankenberg, Hesse, Germany, was a musician, a singer and a lecturer of Jewish descent who served in the German Army during World War I . His mother Katherina Boetticher  was an actress.

Following Hitler's rise to power, the Bachenheimers moved, firstly to Prague and afterwards to Vienna, sometime in September 1934 they boarded the Majestic in Cherbourg, France, and sailed for America, arriving in New York City on 19 September and finally settled in California. He registered aged 18 years old as an arts student at the Los Angeles City College.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for military service (13 December 1941), and in May 1942 he was allocated to the 504th Infantry Regiment after successfully obtaining his parachuting certificate. In August 1942, he was transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina together with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment which was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division. While the 504th was training at Fort Bragg, he fluent in German, taught an intelligence class, where he would read out of a German infantry training manual. He Bachenheimer was granted U.S. citizenship on 23 October 1942 by the United States district court of Atlanta, Georgia.  On 23 March 1943, in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, he married Ethel Lou Murfield, whom he called Penny.

He took part in Operation Husky, fought in the battles for Salerno and Anzio, where his bravery behind enemy lines made him a legend in the 82nd Airborne Division, earning him the nickname of The Legendary Paratrooper. From 1942 to 1944, he was the subject of articles in newspapers such as Star and Stripes, Collier's Weekly and the Los Angeles Times, and some of his exploits were broadcast in radio dispatches.

In action during Operation Market Garden, he landed near Grave, the Netherlands, on 17 September 1944. After successfully avoiding being captured by a band of German soldiers, he reorganized the Dutch underground organizations and went on to become the leader (with the underground rank of Major) of the Dutch resistance group in Nijmegen called K.P. (Knokploegen, or Fist-Fighters, part of the newly formed Netherlands Forces of the Interior, Prince Bernhard led as chief commander), where he gained the name of The G.I. General, his army was known as The Free Netherlands Army, a Battalion consisted of more than three hundred fighters. His partisans dubbed him Kommandant, Bachenheimers's HQ was set up in a steel factory situated in Groenestraat, south-west part of Nijmegen, by the end of September, Bachenheimer had moved his HQ to an infant school situated further south of the steel factory. Bachenheimer's second-in-command, two other 504th paratroopers, were known as Bill One (Willard M. Strunk of Abilene, Kansas) and Bill Two (Bill Zeller of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killed in action, Apr 7, 1945). Bachenheimer's resistance group successfully gathered intelligence about the occupation forces and the information was then transmitted forward to the 82nd Airborne Division.

For his heroic actions in Nijmegen, Bachenheimer was recommended for a battlefield commission and was directed to report to division for an interview by a board of officers, on his way to his interview he picked up an helmet with a first lieutenant's bar on it instead of his own helmet, he was sent back for reconsideration. Finally he agreed to a battlefield commission as a second Lieutenant.

On the night of 11–12 October, he volunteered to accompany British intelligence officer Captain Peter Baker across the Waal river at Tiel to contact the Ebbens family, the IS 9's mission, the last under the command of James Langley, was to deploy Operation codenamed the Windmill Line on site (The Ebbens's family farm, near the village of Drumpt), bringing back British paratroopers hidden by Dutch resistance in the Arnhem area (Ede, Netherlands) safely to the Allied lines using guides. He was also determined to establish telephone contact between areas of Germany and the Netherlands opposite his divisional front. But both men disobeyed a written order from Major Airey Neave (codenamed Saturday to remain in military uniform and not leave the safe house in daylight. They went for a walk in plain clothes and were spotted by German troops passing nearby. Operation Windmill might have been used by the British Secret Intelligence Service as a justification for a Covert operation. In addition to Bachenheimer and Baker, the other boarders at Ebbens's house were a group of young Dutchmen, a Jewish family, a wounded British paratrooper, Staff-Sergeant Alan Kettley of the Glider Pilot Regiment and Canadian military officer, Lieutenant Leo Jack Heaps. 

On the night of 16 October, three days after glider pilot Kettley left, the Ebbens's farm was raided by the Wehrmacht, two German soldiers were killed and during their search, the Germans found a stock of arms and some papers. On the same night, Ebbens had a meeting with the resistance leader for the Betuwe region. Bachenheimer and Baker were brought to a local school in Tiel where they were interrogated for some hours, but they remained unmolested. They managed to establish a false identity and said they were cut off from their units and had lost their way in a no man's land between the Waal and the Rhine. The two men were taken to a POW transit camp at Culemborg, from where they and other captives had to march 30 miles to another POW camp situated at Amersfoort. Afterwards, Bachenheimer and Baker were put on a transport train to Stalag XI-B, Fallingbostel. During the transport, the two men were put into different boxcars. and as for the Ebbens, they were moved on 14 November to Renswoude where they shot by firing squad in retaliation for terrorist activity, Ebbens was incriminated for having ordered to blow up a railway and his farm was burned to the ground.

Bachenheimer managed to escape at night (20–21 October) from his boxcar with three other British soldiers, shortly after they split up but on 22 October, he was recaptured for the last time by the Germans near the village of 't Harde while laying a telephone wire possibly trying to reestablish contact with his resistance force. About 9:00 PM, a Wehrmacht truck stopped on Eperweg in 't Harde, in front of the house of the De Lange family when two gunshots were heard but the occupants of the house were too frightened to look out to see what was happening. The next day, German soldiers found Bachenheimer lying on the side of the road, his dead body exhibited marks of two gunshot wounds. Among the few items retrieved from Bachenheimer's body, his Dog tags and a silver ring engraved with the following inscription, Ik hou van Holland (I love Holland). The same day, Dutch officials performed a post-mortem examination and established that one bullet went through the neck and the other one through the back of his head. 

A memorial monument marks the spot where he was shot dead. Every year, on Dutch National Remembrance day (4 May), a wreath is laid at his memorial monument site at Eperweg in 't Harde.

In April 1946, Bachenheimer's remains were recovered from Oldebroek General Cemetery and reburied at the U.S Military Cemetery at Neuville-en-Gondroz in Belgium. In April 1949, at the request of his family his body was repatriated to the U.S and reburied in the Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery located at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

Military decorations

On 14 June 1944, Bachenheimer was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action demonstrated during the fighting for Anzio, and on 7 January 1952 (by Royal Decree n°24, signed by her HRH Queen Juliana of the Netherlands), was awarded posthumously the Bronze Cross for distinguished and brave conduct against the enemy at Nijmegen.