After another short stay in the Nottingham tent camp, the 508^th PIR moved to the airfield. This drop was scheduled for Nijmegen, a city in the Netherlands.

After briefings, the men boarded C-47’s and joined an armada of hundreds of planes carrying paratroopers or towing gliders from two American and one British airborne division.

On September 17, 1944, about 1300 hours, a sunny afternoon, Hq1 men dropped south of Nijmegen, Holland.  As expected, German troops waited on the field. The Germans were quickly overcome or abandoned their positions. Within the hour Hq1 men had assembled and were marching toward their objectives.

All that night the First Battalion fought to capture the Nijmegen highway bridge over the Waal River. A dawn the battalion was ordered to return to the drop zone. German infantry with antiaircraft guns had occupied the area and was waiting to destroy the gliders carrying the 82nd Airborne Division artillery and engineer equipment that was scheduled to arrive about noon.       

A heroic frontal attack by the First Battalion killed, captured or routed the Germans and destroyed the anti-aircraft guns  - the entire glider force landed safely.  

Subsequently, Ralph Booth’s squad was tasked to support Company A in an assault on the German occupied and heavily defended “Devils Hill” --the dominating terrain feature in the Nijmegen area.

   Lawrence Fitzpatrick was awarded the Silver Star medal for his actions in the attack. Fitzpatrick says that Ralph Booth also should have received the Silver Star medal, as Ralph and he were side-by-side when he led the attack on Devil’s Hill.

On November 11, 1944, the tired 508^th PIR men marched 22 miles to OSS; Holland where they rendezvoused with vehicles that carried them to Sissonne, France. In Sissonne, the 508 lived in a French Artillery Post with warm rooms, hot food, mail, and no training.