So once again I returned to the Regiment to receive another downer. I was
told to go to the supply room and get a set of gas impregnated O. D.'s
(dress uniform), and the rest of the Company was being issued gas
impregnated jump suits. Well, I smelled a rat and made some inquiries. I
was informed that all the people who took part in the C. P. X. (Command
Post Exercise), the aborted mock flight to Southern England, were to be
used to bring the Division's equipment to France by boat. They reasoned
that there would be a lot of injuries on the C. P. X., and they just
wrote all the troopers off who were involved in the aborted drop. I was
fit to be tied, after training for a year with all my buddies, having
them jumping into combat, being exposed to all the hazards thereof, and
my going in by boat safely days after the Invasion started. I had very
mixed emotions. I felt through no fault of my own that I was letting my
friends down, I went to the First Sergeant, and he said nothing could be
changed, I tried to see our Battalion Commander, and he was having his
afternoon nap. The following morning I was summoned to the Orderly Room
and was told a situation had unexpectedly developed. One of the
replacements was refusing to go into combat on the grounds that he had
inadequate training. Our 1st Sgt., Richard Slagel, told me if I wanted I
could jump in his stead, and he would go in seaborne or else he (the
replacement) would get a General Court Marshal, I acquiesced, and
Normandy awaited me.
It has been forty years since the Invasion, and total powers of recall
are almost impossible to accomplish. However, certain scenes keep
repeating themselves through the years over and over again until they
are so indelibly etched in one’s mind, that there seems to be no time
span at all between 1944 and 1984. I can unlock certain scenes from long
ago that seemed to have happened yesterday.
I recall being at the airfield in England for a few days behind rolls of
barbed wire, that served a dual purpose. It kept spys out and it kept us
from sneaking off to some local pub and inadvertently letting the secret
of the Invasion out. We slept on army cots that were set up in the
hangars. The fluorescent lights overhead gave everyone a sickly
deathlike look. If that wasn't bad enough the movie they showed the
night before the Jump was the Song of Bernadette, which did nothing to
take one's mind off the inevitable grave that awaited some of us within
hours.
Before we put on our equipment and parachutes our Regimental Band played
a bit of a concert, and we all had coffee and donuts. They were using 55
gallon drums with the tops cut off to hold the cooking fires. We rubbed
our hands inside the top of the barrels getting soot on our fingers and
then transferring it to our faces for camouflage. I remember at this
time talking to my friend, Frank Tremblay from Milford, Connecticut,
about our chances of coming through alive, he thought he'd get a slight
wound and survive. I thought I was going to be killed. That was the last
time I saw my friend, Frank. I did receive a picture of Tremblay's grave
marker in the Normandy cemetery a few years ago from my old buddy, Jack
Downes, which stated simply on a white stone cross –
FRANK A. TREMBLAY
Pvt. 508th Prcht. Inf. Regt.
Connecticut June 11 ‘44
I went into combat on a plane that carried our Company Executive
Officer, Lt. John A. Quade [note the consistent misspelling of Quaid
throughout this document], and a mixed bag of Communications people whom
I didn't know too well, the reason being I took the replacement's place.
The flight across the Channel was uneventful. The whole Channel
glistened as a result of the full moon. I watched parts of the Invasion
Fleet through the small windows that ran the length of the C-47s. It was
comparable to watching a radar screen. You just saw the wakes mostly,
and they didn't seem to be going in the same direction. They must have
been still assembling into different formations.
Well, we got over land all of a sudden and the moment of truth was
drawing near. The order was given - "Stand up and hook up!" - and it all
happened fast. The ride was very bumpy with flak concussions bouncing
the plane up and down, and our pilot must have had a heavy date back in
England, because we didn't slow down for the jump. I had to climb up the
plane's aisle to the door, fighting the Gs holding me back, and when I
finally tumbled out of the door, I had the sensation of being on the end
of a cracking bullwhip. The opening shock ripped my helmet off (I had
one strap at the base of my skull and another with a cup supporting my
chin). It spun down with such force it smashed my nose and then when
whirling earthwood [earthward]. As I was descending with a face full of
blood I heard it hit the ground, and in my mind I had Germans waiting by
my helmet for me to come down. Tracer machinegun bullets were spewing
from the surrounding shadows, and it looked like a fireworks display.
The higher they went the slower they appeared, and went into an
illuminated glow arc during their descent. I hit the ground hard and lay
in the middle of a grassy field with hedgerows bordering it. The moon
was very bright, so I tried to get out from my illuminated position
quickly. The only weapon I had was disassembled in a carrying case under
my reserve chute and my musette bag which was loaded down with an
anti-tank spider mine, grenades, etc. I tried cutting through the
harness with my trench knife that was strapped to my leg. Somehow I
dropped it in the grass, and for the life of me (literally) I couldn't
find it, so finished cutting myself out with my bayonet.
There was an American C-47 plane on fire .overhead, and it was going
into a death bank towards the earth, and made the loudest, weirdest
sound as it fell through the sky. I don't know if it was full of
troopers or not but the shadowy, orange light it threw on the ground and
the engine scream was quite eerie! I crawled toward the shadows with
what felt like a mouth full of cotton. I assembled and loaded my M-1 and
started to move out very slowly, I had a feeling that all the ground was
planted with anti-personnel mines. I walked very warily, then saw a
silhouette coining towards me in the shadows. I laid down and aimed my
M-1 at him and gave the pass word, "Flash" and waited for the
counter-word "Thunder" which didn't come. Once again I said, "Flash",
and no reply. I was very close to pulling the trigger when I heard a
faint, guarded "Thunder". It was a Sgt. [Desmond A.] Matthews from my Company. He was
part of a group that included my Co. Exec. Lt. John Quade, who during
the next few days would be responsible for my not being killed on more
than one occasion, it was very dark in the wooded area and very bright
in the fields. We were bordering a hedgerow in the dark when this
trooper came up to me and said, "You've made me the happiest fellow in
the world." I was the first contact he made. General Maxwell Taylor,
Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division, tells of the feeling
of being alone after parachuting Into Normandy. In his writings he
relates how after being by himself for a time, he came upon a Private in
his Division. He was so overjoyed to find a friendly face, he hugged the
Private upon first contact, so that was how lonely the trooper must have
felt upon finding me. He was from l Company and was named Red Fately
[Glenn A. Fateley]. A few days later he would be by my side dying of
machinegun bullets in his stomach.
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