D-Day with the Screaming Eagles

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D-DAY

with

THE SCREAMING EAGLE

George E. Koskimaki

With a Foreword by Gerald J. Higgins, Major General

U.S. Army Ret.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Gerald J. Higgins, Major General, U.S. Army Ret.

Introduction

Notes

Contributors

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

LIST OF MAPS

Dedicated to the memory of the members of the 101st Airborne Division who paid the supreme sacrifice in the hedgerow country and flooded meadows of Normandy on D-Day, the 6th of June, 1944.

General Maxwell D. Taylor: I congratulate you most sincerely on the quality of the reporting of this dramatic episode. To most of us there, I suspect it was the greatest day of our lives.

General A. C. McAuliffe: What a tremendous task of research you have accomplished! The quotes from the many participants ring true—no phoney heroics.

George E. Gorman, U.S. Military Specialist and consultant: Your book is outstanding and must become a classic someday. I do hope you may try a sequel on the Holland jump as you surely have the ‘charisma’ for writing it!

Former paratrooper James H. Martin: I cannot get over the fact that you could take all this laboriously gathered material and put it into a form that is so accurate, so exciting and which flows so well that it takes people there who were not in the army."

School Adm. Charles Stetter: I believe this work will be recognized as a major historical contribution to World War II since it pulls together so many facets of that D-Day operation from a very human and personal standpoint.

Author Robert Minick: After having completed my 12th year of study on the 101st, it is my opinion that your book ranks by far as the most comprehensive material covering a relatively short period of time to be written to date.

Long-time military career officer Todd Wheatley: I think you are one of the first to use the oral history technique in a publication dealing with our military history. You have one up on Studs Turkel.

General Gerald J. Higgins, former chief of staff of the 101st Airborne Division wrote the Foreword: George Koskimaki has compiled a truly amazing compendium of the activities and experiences of hundreds of individual members of the 101st Airborne on the occasion of their D-Day Normandy invasion. The series of events leading up to the loading of the planes, the emotions of the paratroopers en route and the reactions of the individuals during the period shortly after landing are vividly recorded and will certainly bring home moments of nostalgia to all those who participated in the operation…. the overall editing is highly commendable—to tell it as it was, and yet avoid a multiplicity of duplicated recitals could only have been accomplished by painstaking attention on the part of a dedicated writer.

FOREWORD

George Koskimaki has compiled a truly amazing compendium of the activities and experiences of hundreds of individual members of the 101st Airborne Division on the occasion of their D-Day invasion. The series of events leading up to the loading of the planes, the emotions of the paratroopers en route and the reactions of the individuals during the period shortly after landing are vividly recorded and will certainly bring home moments of nostalgia to all those who participated in the operation. Of particular interest is the recording of the actions of the pathfinders and the initial glider assault forces—to my knowledge this is the first comprehensive and authoritative resume of their vital contribution to the success of the operation. And while it would be manifestly unfair to single out any particular section of this personal experience record for special mention, the performance of the medical personnel—those Angels of Mercy—will certainly be eternally remembered for their unselfish devotion to their cause.

The authenticity of the book is self-evident—Mr. Koskimaki has performed an admirable research task in securing, analyzing, and synthesizing the firsthand accounts of more than five hundred individuals representing scores of small assault units in the division. The overall editing is highly commendable—to tell it as it was, and yet avoid a multiplicity of duplicated recitals could only have been accomplished by painstaking attention on the part of a dedicated writer.

This book will without question have a most personal reception by the thousands of American paratroopers who participated in the aerial invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, as well as the millions of servicemen who have undergone war experiences similar to those encountered at Normandy. I think it particularly apropos that this book should reach the American public at a time when certain individuals appear to have forgotten, at least temporarily, that just one generation ago thousands of young citizen-soldiers fought and died for their country without asking what’s in it for me? D-Day With The Screaming Eagles could well serve to remind the young man of today that the young man of yesterday was possessed of a courage that he might well emulate.

Gerald J. Higgins

Major General, U.S. Army, Retired

1969

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of D-Day as told collectively by former paratroopers and glidermen of the 101st Airborne Division.

The story begins with the marshaling area preparations in England and then proceeds with the flight across the Channel, the approach over the Cherbourg Peninsula, the actual drops and glider landings, and the first day experiences of these men as lost and lonely individuals, gradually assembling in small groups, then into company-sized units, and finally, into the skeleton battalions and regiments, which were assigned the missions. Connecting narrative and summations reveal the success or failure of these missions.

I wrote to over 1,300 former Screaming Eagles to get their recollections. Many of them sent me copies of their first letters (while others trusted me with precious originals) written from the battlefield when we were first permitted to describe our initial experiences. A total of 518 former paratroopers and glidermen contributed to this account. Each contribution has been placed in the proper sequence of events.

One chapter is devoted to the work of the pathfinders—those men who served as trail blazers to light the way and guide the main body of the 101st Airborne Division to its drop and landing zones. No one has ever written about them. Information concerning much of their operations was classified for many years after the war. Some of the material was released to me by the former chief pathfinder, Colonel Frank Lillyman, who edited the chapter. It contains the experiences of these selected men.

No one has previously related the experiences of these glider troopers. The material on the glider chapter has been edited by former Colonel Mike Murphy who was in charge of the American glider lifts into Normandy. He piloted the lead glider into the Screaming Eagle landing area. One of his passengers, Brig. General Donald F. Pratt, the assistance division commander, became the first Allied general officer to lose his life in the invasion.

An unusual chapter is one which is called Angels of Mercy describing the work of the parachuting chaplains and medics. Reports came from three chaplains, one from each of the three parachute infantry regiments. The medics are represented by regimental and battalion surgeons on down to the platoon aide men. Many of them received Distinguished Service Crosses and other high decorations, though none of them owned up to this information. I had to find this out from the fighting men who had such high praise for them and labeled them Angels of Mercy.

The accounts include those of the two surviving general officers (Generals Maxwell D. Taylor and Anthony C. McAuliffe), former chief of staff Colonel Gerald J. Higgins, now a retired major general who helped with much of the editing of the material, and those of other division staff officers. Reports have come from regimental staff officers, battalion commanders, company commanders, platoon leaders, first sergeants, and other non-commissioned officers on down to the privates who fought in the line companies. They represent 58 of the company or battery-sized units to get a well-rounded picture.

My own experiences are included. I served as radioman for General Maxwell D. Taylor, the division commander, and parachuted from his plane. Throughout the war I kept a daily log of my actions on onion-skin paper from the backs of Signal Corps message books. Later, as we returned to the rear areas for rest, I transcribed my notes into the regular diary which had been left behind. My fiancée, now my wife, saved all my letters from the battle areas.

During the summer of 1967 I returned to Europe to revisit the battle sites. I spent five days in Normandy. During that time I tried to locate as many of the battle areas as had been described to me by my contributors. It was amazing how easily I was able to locate the spot where the first group of pathfinders assembled, the spot where I dug my first foxhole, and the hayloft in which I took a nap during the late afternoon of D-Day. I interviewed many Norman farmers and townspeople who still recalled those first contacts with the American soldiers and their stories corroborate the paratroopers’ accounts.

The men have been listed with their D-Day rankings in the account. Many of them are still in the service twenty-four years later, some in high military positions. General Maxwell D. Taylor has served his country well in many capacities since he led his young Eagles into combat for the first time as a brigadier-general. Colonel Gerald J. Higgins retired from the army not long ago as a major-general. Battalion commanders Patrick Cassidy and Julian Ewell are today division commanders in the United States Army. Captain Leo Schweiter serves as a brigade commander in Vietnam. Former company commanders and platoon leaders are now full colonels in the army in both Vietnam and Europe. Enlisted men have risen high in the ranks.

For the most part though, the men are successful bankers, lawyers, doctors, farmers, teachers, professors, and small business men. To a man, they are still fiercely proud of the units to which they belonged. Former company commander LeGrand Legs Johnson is an executive in a trucking firm in Atlanta, Georgia. He wrote, "I am half blind, having been wounded in Holland. There has never previously been assembled a better group of men than those who comprised the 101st Airborne Division, and more particularly the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. Writing this letter to you has made me reflect with awe on the reckless courage and the sheer delight and mayhem that this group exhibited. I am glad they were on our side."

Being involved in the D-Day activities was terribly important for all these men. Elmer Brandenberger was a former platoon leader with Baker Company of the 502nd Regiment. Today, he teaches world history in a high school in Texas that is named in honor of the 101st Division’s first Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole. Brandenberger’s first day of combat was his last in World War II. He left the fighting with one arm hanging by a few bits of flesh. Many of his former troopers will be surprised to learn that through the work of some wonderful medics and doctors, he still has the use of that arm. He related, All of us, I believe, down to the least imaginative one, really felt a close affinity with history. Something big was about to happen and we were going to be a part of it. The most terrible thing that could have happened to any one of us would have been to be scratched from the loading manifest.

John Urbank was a mortar sergeant with George Company of the 501st. Today he is an optical lens grinder in Peninsula, Ohio. At the end of his letter he stated, I feel I’m holding faith with some of the boys who didn’t make it. I remember more than once hearing Perry and Mythaler say ‘If anyone asks what war is like, we’re going to tell them in the best way we know how—none of this crap about War is Hell and we can’t talk about it!’ So be it. So keep their faith.

Some paused to comment about their former buddies as their accounts ended. Waylan L. Pete Lamb went into combat as a medic with the demolitions platoon of the 501st Regiment. Today, he is with the sheriff’s department in Columbia, South Carolina. He ended his account with, I don’t remember names too well, but sometimes when I’m alone with my memories I can still see the faces of those wonderful guys, and get a lump in my throat remembering how I was a part of their team.

And so this is their story. They dug out their scrapbooks and looked over those old snapshots taken in basic training, in England, and on the Continent, some perhaps while on furlough, and remembered their old comrades. They dug through letters sent to parents, wives, and sweethearts in which they described first combat experiences. They sent clippings from hometown newspapers which proud parents had sent to editors in the form of first letters from the combat zone. Parachute manifests were sent along with comments about the fate of some of their close buddies. Always the admonition, Please take care of this material—it is my really great treasure of the war.

The feats of the airborne troopers may soon fade into legend as the helicopter replaces the parachute and glider, but while the tale can be told, let these exploits of the sky invaders of Hitler’s Fortress Europa become part of the annals of history. As Sergeant Urbank put it, Let’s keep their faith.

George E. Koskimaki

Detroit, Michigan

December 22, 1969

CHAPTER 1

THE MARSHALING AREA

The training period had come to an end for the Screaming Eagles. The rumor mills had been busy for weeks grinding out the endless chain of reports concerning the imminence of departure for the marshaling areas. The experiences were not new for the men in that all units had participated in several dress rehearsals culminating with Exercise Eagle during the period of May 11-14. The sky troopers had emplaned from the same airfields to which they were now being sent. During the last week of May, orders were received restricting the men to their unit areas. They packed their personal belongings, were assigned parachutes, refitted with some new equipment, and packed their equipment bundles.

Lieutenant Richard Winters served as executive officer of his unit on D-Day. He wrote:¹ Leaving Aldbourne was a tough job. A fellow couldn’t say a thing to anybody due to security. The English knew we were pushing off. When I went to say good-by, as if I was off for another maneuver, it got me to see them cry and take it as they did.

Technician 5th Grade Bill Finn, a D-Day communications wire-man said, When we were leaving the company area for the marshaling area, most of the people living in the homes surrounding Donnington Castle were out in the street to wave good-bye to us and wish us luck. They probably didn’t know the day we would leave England but they sure knew we wouldn’t be back for some time.

An intelligence soldier, PFC Richard M. Ladd wrote, Regimental Headquarters Company of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment was loaded aboard British buses May 30, 1944, at Chilton-Foliat, Berkshire, England, and driven perhaps 15 miles to Greenham Common Airdrome, where we were quartered until the evening of June 5 in a tent city. The. area was enclosed with barbed wire and termed a marshaling area. No one, other than a few high ranking officers, was ever allowed to leave this area until the evening of June 5, when we boarded C-47’s for France.

Corroborating that statement, Sergeant Louis Truax said, Our marshaling area was near Exeter, England, and was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by army troops not of our division. They had machine guns at the corners of the area and we were forbidden to talk to the guards.

Captain Charles O. Van Gorder was a member of the 3rd Auxiliary Surgical Group and had volunteered for the assignment to go in on D-Day with the 101st Airborne Division. His group had previously participated in the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy prior to arriving in England. The detached service with the 101st Division was in the form of an experiment to find out if it would be any advantage to take a surgical team in where the casualties were, rather than to take the casualties back to where the evacuation hospitals were located.

The eight men who volunteered for this mission called themselves the 1st Airborne Surgical Team and they were attached to the 326th Airborne Medical Company. Van Gorder provided his recollections of the marshaling area with these comments: Several days before D-Day, we were sent with part of the 101st Airborne Division to Aldermaston Air Field for staging and briefing. These were very trying days to remain crowded in a large hangar, going out in only small groups at intervals for chow. Latrines were in or somewhere under the roof of the hangars. Keeping us in the hangar and going out in small groups was to frustrate any enemy aerial reconnaissance.

An enlisted man who was in the same area was PFC George S. Schulist, who was a jeep driver for his platoon leader. His memories of the same staging area include these items: When we went to eat at the mess hall, we were always taken in groups, such as Battery A or Battery B. When we left the hangar, we had to pass the fence gates. Plainclothesmen were waiting on the other side of the gate to escort us to the mess hall. They were there so we could not talk to anyone outside of our groups at the marshaling area.

The primary reason for placing the men in solitude much like imprisoned men was the briefing for the invasion. With firsthand knowledge of the D-Day targets and objectives, the men were kept isolated to prevent any leaks to the enemy. Some of the men who prepared the briefing aids have good descriptions of these preparations.

PFC Richard M. Ladd of the 502nd intelligence group described, Regimental S-2 Section was one of the few groups that actually had duties to perform while in the marshaling area. This consisted of building crude tables with wooden sides. Sand was then shoveled into these boxes from some trucks that were driven in. From these crude beginnings, we began our sand tables which were located in each battalion area. On these were developed models from soap and other suitable materials to simulate houses, churches, etc., with paints and some coloring to simulate the general reliefs of the area in Normandy in which we were to jump. Each table was a bit different, in that, it contained different roads and hamlets peculiar to each battalion’s S-2 Section. We constructed these sand tables as accurately as we could from the latest aerial serial photographs supplied to us by the Air Force, to coordinate and orient them with wonderfully accurate British defense maps, as well as all the latest information supplied to us by various intelligence agencies, including the latest up-to-date ‘poop’ from the French underground Maquis.

Ladd added, After these tables were prepared and the various companies were broken down into platoons, the leaders and sergeants would be briefed in front of the tables as to their objectives, the terrain, directions of the roads, and a general familiarization of their target areas. Each unit would retire to tents and company streets to study maps that had been disseminated to them, and proceed to discuss, argue, and speculate the assigned squads and personnel for specific jobs to be accomplished. Then various trips were made back to the sand tables for restudy by the officers and noncoms.

A former member of the regimental demolitions section, Corporal Vinnie Utz, had been transferred to the intelligence section of the 506th Regiment for the Normandy operation. He recalled, The S-2 Section made the sand tables for the invasion and we assisted the officers in going over the objectives, company by company. I was put into a complete German uniform by Colonel Robert Sink and told to visit all the line company tents so they could get a good idea of what a Kraut looked like.

An assistant operations officer for the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, Captain William E. Brubaker, stated, I recall my part (and the entire S-3 Section) in preparing for the mission. We had plotted the location for the three firing batteries and spent several days in planning targets and computing the firing data for each target. The balance of our time was spent in briefing the rest of the battalion from sand tables and maps. I remember receiving very fine aerial pictures on a daily basis showing our main targets and objectives, and how delighted I was when we discovered that the Air Force had practically eliminated one of the coastal batteries we were to take.

Recollections of the detailed map reading provides some interesting information. Engineer Lieutenant Harold Young said, Every officer had maps at a scale of 1:10,000 plus oblique air photos of our landing and target positions. Every G.I. had a map at 1:300,000 of the whole general area. We had our men memorize a section of the map so they could get back if they landed in the wrong place. It was said that every private in a parachute unit knew as much as a colonel in a regular infantry outfit.

After the intelligence personnel had briefed the regimental and battalion staff officers and their men, the briefings continued down through the company commander, the platoon leader, the squad leader, and down to the last private—or almost, as we shall see later.

The commanding officer of the 501st Regiment’s Charley Company, Captain Robert H. Phillips, described the painstaking preparation: "Several days were devoted by the unit commanders, of which I was one, studying our assignments and formulating detailed plans for carrying them out. Each individual member was then thoroughly briefed on the detailed plans of his particular unit. Only general information was given as to the missions of the division.

My company’s mission was to seize and secure the road junction south of St. Come-du-Mont, a small village, thus securing a flank of the drop zone (DZ). This position also overlooked the main highway bridge north of Carentan, and later gained the name of ‘Dead Man’s Corner.’

A platoon leader with Able Company of the same regiment, Lieutenant Sumpter Blackmon, recalled, The intensive sand table briefing we received and gave to our sergeants and to the other men lasted for about a week. The mission for my platoon was to take and hold the La Barquette Locks on the Douve River about a mile north of Carentan. The remainder of the 1st Battalion was to blow the bridges over the river to the northwest of Carentan.

Minute details were not forgotten. Sergeant Pat Lindsay, mortar man with the same company, said, I remember the sand table work in which each man knew definitely which job he was to do, even down to the direction in which the fox holes would be dug.

Part of the briefing included familiarizing the men with the enemy uniforms. Private Robert Lightnin Hayes had this recollection to add: I remember the day we were assembled in a tent for the first time and an officer told us where we were going to jump. He then paused to watch our reactions. There was a sand table near by with a facsimile of the terrain on which we were going to drop. There were two dummies standing near the sand table. One was wearing a German Air Force uniform while the other was dressed in the black uniform of the Armored Corps. I tried on the black beret to see how it would fit me. I didn’t realize that a few days later I would meet a German face-to-face wearing one of those caps.

Reconnaissance photography had been so detailed that individual enemy soldiers appeared in recent pictures taken of the objectives. An airborne engineer, PFC John G. Kutz, whose assignment was to be the preparation for destruction of two wooden bridges northeast of Carentan, was briefed with aerial photos of the bridges. He said, On one photograph you could see a German guard standing against one of the bridges. It seemed he was trying to hide from the low flying plane. Kutz felt he had already met the enemy!

Map 1

No. 1—Capture of the four causeways leading down to Utah Beach (shown as Exits 1-4). No. 2—Capture and hold the locks at La Barquette. No. 3—Destroy the Douve River bridges northwest of Carentan. No. 4—Seize, hold, and establish bridgeheads at wooden bridges northwest of Carentan. No. 5—Silence the coastal battery at St. Martin-de-Varreville. No. 6—Capture artillery barracks complex at WXYZ (Mesieres). No. 7—Protect the northern flank of Utah Beach invasion area.

Two of the men called to mind that they had not received briefings with the rest. Captain Raymond S. Chappie Hall, Protestant Chaplain of the 502nd Regiment, said, I never had time for the briefings and didn’t even know the password when it was given nor was I issued a metal clicker.

A communications soldier with the 2nd Battalion of the 501st Regiment, T/5 Harry T. Mole, Jr., walked around the tented area and watched the men of Dog, Easy, and Fox Companies getting their equipment ready. He made this observation: "I watched them as they repeatedly cleaned their rifles over and over again. I watched these men as they sat on boxes and had their hair cut off Indian fashion. I didn’t have mine cut. I watched men in circles intently listening to an officer describe their objectives. Their eyes followed every line scratched in the dirt by a stick attached to the officer who was explaining their mission. The invasion was becoming real now. Training could possibly be called over. This was the time they had trained for. Me? Nobody briefed me. I wandered around the area watching the others learn their objectives. How envious I was of the line company men. They knew what it was all about. They belonged.

My machine gun platoon and our 81mm Mortar Platoon of Headquarters Company belonged. They were assigned to various line companies and were being briefed by them. Each man in my communications platoon had an assignment except me. I was technically a battalion code clerk, a Technician 5th Grade, a rather unimportant role in an invasion of this magnitude. They also gave me an SCR-536, press-to-talk radio probably because they had one left over. As a code clerk, I had a machine to code and decode messages coming to and going from battalion headquarters. Cloak and dagger, eh! One thing was wrong—they never told me what the code was!

Almost all of the men mentioned honing their trench knives, jump knives, bayonets, and special hunting knives to razor sharp edges. They took their weapons apart time and time again to assure perfect function.

Meals made a big impression. Most felt they had never eaten so well in the army. Others remembered the last two big evening meals. Most were happy not to draw KP details at this time. The sumptuous meal given to a convict in death row before his last walk was on the minds of several men. Captain William J. Waldmann, a surgeon, reflected, The meals were so good we felt we were receiving our last meal before the execution.

Technician 5th Grade Gordon E. King felt the best meal was served the day of the postponement. He said, We had our ‘condemned person’s’ fancy meal one night early on the night of June 4th.

One battalion commander was concerned about the effect pork chops would have on nervous stomachs. Pork chops were on the menu for the last evening and they were turned down by our battalion commander, remembered Sergeant Donald Castona. Colonel Julian Ewell said they wouldn’t sit well on ‘queasy’ stomachs.

Corporal Virgil Danforth of the same company lamented, They fed us well except for our last meal, which they took away just as we sat down to eat. We had been eating lots of fat pork and butter which was supposed to improve our eyes and they were afraid we would get air sick if we ate it just before our jump.

Being cooped up in a barbed wire enclosure for more than a week might have posed a problem had it not been for the usual pastimes found in army camps, such as boxing, wrestling, volleyball, and the ever present cards and dice.

At least one key officer missed out on the invasion because of an injury brought about in horseplay. Staff Sergeant Carwood Lipton recalled, Lieutenant Schmitz, one of the platoon leaders, hurt his neck while wrestling with one of the other officers in the marshaling area and had to stay back and miss the invasion.

Haircutting pranks developed in several areas. Captain Fred C. Culpepper, an artillery officer, recalled the loss of a prized facial possession. Just prior to loading out for the first time (which was postponed at the last minute) my officers caught me and removed my mustache with a dull razor. I had said that I would not shave the mustache until we were in France.

Two men who had been members of the same unit on D-Day related a combination boxing and hair-cutting incident that was amusing. Corporal Virgil Danforth related, We played volleyball and boxed to pass the time. I had started to let my hair grow long enough to comb, but Lieutenant Marks and the rest of my platoon ganged me and ran the clippers through the center of my head making one wide part.

Sergeant John Urbank mentioned, "We gave each other short haircuts and some Geronimo cuts. We wanted to give Virgil Danforth one, but he said no, and meant it, so I put on a pair of 12-ounce boxing gloves with Virg and sparred a couple of rounds with him. We had his gloves tied on real good; mine were laced loosely. On a given signal, Hillinger, Senter, Lewark, and I jumped Virg, held him down and started to give him a Geronimo cut. While we clipped his one side, he started cussing and telling us what he was going to do to us when he got free.

We grew most cowardly then and decided to let him up. He had long blond hair and we really scalped one side. When he was released by us we just lay on the ground and laughed. He was too much of a gentleman to kick us while we were lying there laughing, and we had the boxing gloves tied to him so he couldn’t hit us too hard. He then went to the company barber who straightened it out some, but Virg was rather skinned on one side.

Others resorted to the usual games.

I particularly recall the gambling—always the gambling, said Private Mike Ranney. I had a Longines watch that I bought for $150 in the States. Must have lost and won it back ten times in that period alone. Curley Robbins, then of Salinas, California, was a great crapshooter, while I was a fair blackjack dealer. Curley occasionally banked my blackjack dealings while I banked his crapshooting because the action was fast.

The most common activity for most was the ever-present game of poker using the invasion money that had been issued to us, the true value of which none of us knew or for that matter really cared about, remembers T/5 Bill Finn.

Music was provided in several forms in the marshaling areas. Regimental bands provided relaxing music. Loudspeakers blared out hit records of the day. Army buglers will always be remembered.

PFC Bob Paczulla recalled, Our regimental band was there to play for us at meal times and I know their music was enjoyed by all and was a significant contribution to the morale of the troops. A popular request was ‘Holiday for Strings.’

But others like Private Warren Ruedy, T/5 Charles D. Chapman, and Corporal Virgil Danforth, recalled that there were too many Spike Jones records like Old Black Magic and Chloe. T/4 Robert Burr Smith had memories of Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree blaring out from loudspeakers.

PFC Clair Mathiason related, One of the outstanding memories from the marshaling area was the bugler sounding taps. Our battalion bugler and another from the Air Corps got together and did the most beautiful job of echoing taps.

Religion played a very important part in the lives of servicemen and particularly at a time when they were preparing to face the enemy for the first time.

I was busy with confessions and mass everyday in both of our regimental marshaling areas, recalls Captain John S. Maloney, Catholic chaplain of the 506th Regiment.

Captain Raymond S. Chappie Hall of Regimental Headquarters of the 502nd was kept busy going from one area to another for religious services, baptisms, holy communions, etc.

To Private Sigmund F. Zalejski it seemed everybody went to church and made his peace with God. But Lieutenant Winters has contrasting recollections. Church services were attended a lot better than usual but not what you’d expect from a group about to start an invasion, which is something I really can’t figure out.

Last minute ailments threatened departures all the way from privates to generals. Chaplain Hall reported, Doctor Ramey stayed all night before our departure to give attention to a communications soldier who was badly needed for the invasion drop. The treatment worked.

Captain Arthur B. Lunin, the assistant surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the 501st, reminisced, I treated General Taylor for an ingrown toenail the day before D-Day. I stuffed some cotton under it and told him if I did more I couldn’t be sure if he would be with us, and we wanted him.

Nobody wanted to goldbrick at a time like this. Most certainly not Private Jack Schaffer, who related, I had a high fever but didn’t want to report it because I wasn’t sure I would get into action because of it.

Communications from loved ones and thoughts of home occupied many minds. Major Allen W. Pinky Ginder received a letter from his wife asking if he had changed the beneficiary on his G.I. insurance policy. He said, My father had lost his life as an officer during World War I and had failed to alter his policy in favor of his young wife. I was remiss in this particular chore just like Dad, and felt certain that history would repeat itself.

A new sense of responsibility descended on Lieutenant Sumpter Blackmon on the eve of departure. In the marshaling area, mail call arrived with a picture of my wife and newborn son and Colonel Kinnard remarked when I showed it to him, ‘Blackie, you’ve really got something to fight for there.’

Many of them exchanged home addresses and vowed to visit the families of close buddies if they somehow failed to make it. I thought we had a serious group as we took each other’s home addresses saying we would pay our respects to the folks back home if something should happen to any of us and we didn’t make it back, Sergeant Mike Cat Miller recalled.

PFC Lawrence E. Davidson and his buddy Corporal Gordon J. Laudick were scheduled to jump from the same plane. Davidson remembered, We exchanged home addresses and each of us vowed to visit the home of the other if one of us did not survive the war.²

PFC James Martin had many nostalgic memories. He wrote, During the last few days I thought a lot about home, the things we used to do, the places we used to go; those fishing trips to Greenville, those days of mountain climbing at Pike, and all the other excursions we used to take, and I wondered if all of us would ever get together to do those things again.³

Because of poor weather conditions, D-Day was postponed for 24 hours. This change was duly noted by three former members. A short notation in the diary of T/5 George Koskimaki stated simply: We are equipped and packed ready to leave today. Bad weather is said to have postponed the mission until at least tomorrow.

Personal couriers rather than telephone calls were used to transmit such an important change of plans. Major Lawrence L. Legere, an assistant G-3 officer for the 101st Airborne Division Headquarters, recalled, On Sunday, June 4th around noon, word came that the ‘go’ was postponed 24 hours; hence we would be jumping in the early morning of June 6th instead of June 5th. Major Paul Danahy and I each took a jeep and drove to the departure airfields—he taking half and I taking half. Our orders were to communicate only with the senior 101st officer at each field, who was the only one officially kept notified of exact times.

According to PFC Stanley Stub Shrodo, Spirits were high, morale was excellent. We wanted to get the show started. After the postponement I got to feeling a bit shaky. Tension did mount and some of the men became extremely touchy. It was not difficult to start an argument and pick a fight. After postponing for one day a lot of tension seemed to build up in the troops, recalled Platoon Sergeant John Kushner. I saw a lot of fights among the men. Captain Van Gorder agreed. We had a time with some of the men confined in the hangars. Some of them were like game roosters when it came to starting fights, especially with everyone under extreme tension and all trained in hand-to-hand combat. Sergeant Russell A. Schwenk recalls a serious flare-up, One of our privates was beaten severely by several members of the company for showing invasion currency to the cooks.

The rain also brought this memory to mind with one of the men. PFC Richard M. Ladd stated, For the most part the weather was sunny and pleasant. However, Colonel Bob Cole did keep his 3rd Battalion out in the rain for a few hours trying to find the man who put his map in a trash barrel. British civilians collected the rubbish.

Because of the postponement, some activity had to be quickly substituted to keep the men occupied. Several reported attending movies on the last afternoon in the marshaling area. A large number of men described an incident during a movie shown to the 3rd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Regiment. The account of PFC Clair Mathiason covers the details best: We were treated to a show that afternoon in the hangar at the airfield. It was a war picture and about the bombing of some enemy city. I don’t remember the name of the picture or members of the cast. It was a tense moment in the movie when the incident occurred. The bombs were dropping at the time and then there was a horrible hissing noise in the hangar and something came crashing down at the back of the darkened area. Because of the tenseness of the waiting for the invasion and the situation in the show, it caused a sudden commotion and everyone immediately thought there was a real bombing going on overhead, and in one great movement everyone started for the doors and outside. Chairs were knocked over. By the time everyone was outside and realized that there was no attack, we had suffered the first casualties of the war. There were a couple of boys hurt in the mad rush to get out and as I remember two had broken legs. It turned out that a fire extinguisher hanging at the back of the room had been knocked down and set off, causing all the hissing sound and a toppled chair caused the crashing noise. I can well remember the verbal going-over we got from Colonel Wolverton for being so easily shaken up, and how he wondered what we would be like under fire.

Another movie was in progress in the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion marshaling area. Staff Sergeant Edward Chief Benecke recalled, We were watching a movie called, ‘Is Everybody Happy?’ with Ted Lewis when we were called out to go to our planes and make ready.

One of the staff officers for that battalion, Captain William E. Brubaker, provided a very coincidental recollection, for it was he who disrupted the movie. On the evening of June 5th, he remembered, the battalion personnel were attending a movie when we received the alert. Major Courtney Neilson told me to go to the movie and order the troops to their respective battery areas to prepare for the mission. I recall breaking into the movie to so inform the troops and thinking to myself that this is just the way it would happen in Hollywood.

During the last days, division commander General Maxwell D. Taylor toured the marshaling areas and gave a last fighting pep talk to his men. Captain Thomas J. White served as aide to General Taylor. He reminisced, I toured all of the areas with General Taylor. He made an impassioned speech at each one. The troops (heads shaved, and faces painted on the last day) were not just ready—they were eager to go.

One of these visits was recalled by Lieutenant Winters: General Taylor gave the boys a little pep talk and asked for three days of hard fighting and then we would be withdrawn.⁴

The postponements gave various groups an opportunity to make some last minute changes. Lieutenant LeGrand Legs Johnson, commanding officer of Fox Company of the 502nd Regiment, said, F Company won a regimental competition and was given the ‘honor’ of being the lead company following the battalion headquarters planes. I was to be the jumpmaster in Plane Number 9. Crammed under the aircraft were six bundles of antitank mines and spare flame throwing equipment. My company mission was to destroy the coastal artillery guns and some other concrete emplacements. The guns were on railroad tracks, and were not completely ready to fire—at least two of them were not.

Johnson continued: "D-Day was postponed and on that day, some air force colonel notified me that radar was being installed on my plane and the racks and bundles must come off. This suited me, but I didn’t know they would load the bundles on the floor of the plane. Those bundles were five to six feet long, and weighed between 100-200 pounds. I fought this issue, including asking the Air Force colonel to step outside with me, but all to no avail. We were grossly overweight and the poor pilot swore the plane would never get airborne.

When we reported to the plane on the afternoon of June 5th, faces properly blackened and heads shaved, I met with another miserable circumstance—I had a naval observer assigned to my plane. He was supposed to spot for the navy and direct their fire. He had an SCR-300 radio bundled in a leg bag so padded and large that it took two men to push it in the door. You can imagine my state of mind.

Lieutenant Bill