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After my parachute
opened, looked up and saw a panel a panel had been blown off the C.47 that
I had just jumped from. I pulled my reserve chute and fed it out in
front of me to make sure it would open.
Our main chutes
were camouflaged and the reserve chute was white. The white parachute in
the moonlight really drew fire from the Germans. After landing, I crawled
out from under my chute in a hurry. The Krauts were still firing at the
chute long after I was gone.
The 1st
trooper I met was A. B. Cannon of A. Company who had jumped with the
pathfinders. Cannon asked, "where in the hell have you been?"
We moved from field
to field, and by daylight, the two of us had picked up 8 men. A little
later we joined up with Captain Adams and his group.
In an attempt to
get to Hill 30, we moved out with him [with] a guy called Hunt taking the
lead.
I reached a road
and stepped into it to find two trucks loaded with German soldiers bearing
down on me. They pulled over, unloaded and started firing.
Since we were
outnumbered, the order was given to pull back.
They spotted me
with just my backpack showing above the tall grass. Machine gun fire
ripped through my pack. I said, "I’ll get rid of that sucker!"
I unhooked my rifle
belt and turned on my side to slip the harness over my shoulder and a
bullet went through the sleeve of my jump jacket, just under the American
flag. I crawled away, flat on my belly and fast as a snake.
We withdrew to a
nearby field and set up an all around defense. It was 4 days before we
could get to Hill 30 and assemble with the regiment.
Of the 18 men who
jumped out of the plane with me, only 6 made it back to England. |
