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I jumped from the
plane and landed south of the river Douve. I linked up with Bob Harper and
Cornelius Connaghan and started to move in the direction our plane was
travelling.
We continued to
move North East. Around daylight we came upon a bivouac of Germans that
started popping out of foxholes. We attempted to withdraw without being
seen, but a sentry walking guard spotted us and started firing.
We ran back in the
direction from which we came from for about 2 miles, until we found cover
in a ditch in a patch of woods. We remained hidden until dark.
After dark we
awakened an elderly French couple in their home. I could speak French and
learned that we were near the river Douve.
We found a bridge
over the Douve and hid and watched German troop movement going over the
bridge. We waited until darkness to set our explosives to blow the bridge.
Meanwhile an
American glider pilot saw [the explosives] and explained how difficult it
would be for us to get to the main part of the bridge beyond the long
causeway through the flooded waters. We thought that we could swim or wade
to the bridge, so we hid along with the glider pilot until after dark.
The glider pilot
was right; we could not get to the bridge and keep our fuses and primer
cord dry.However we mined the approaches to the bridge and moved on.
Soon we spotted and
joined a group of about 20 troopers including other men from my company. |
