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He stayed with us for the next few days. Each day he came up with
another part of a jump suit until he was dressed fully as a paratrooper,
including a pair of jump boots. Later he took up with another paratroop
company and by the end of the week I never saw him again. He made us
realize how terrible the German occupation had been and how much a human
could hate.
We spent the next day in Chef-du-Pont
and then on the third day, D+3 we were sent back to "The "Manor House"
to fight our way across the causeway. Again we jogged the distance to
the battle and arrived just as parts of the 505th Parachute Regiment and
other troopers forced their way across the causeway. American and German
soldiers were locked in hand-to-hand combat where they died on the
causeway. German tanks and other vehicles were burning as we crossed
just in the rear of the leading troops. The causeway was so narrow that
about six men were all that could fight at one time as they crossed
over. When one man fell another one took his place until the causeway
was in our hands.
When we walked off the causeway a guide
told me to take my men down the road that went to the left where I would
find the rest of E Company and the 2nd Battalion. This I did,
and after turning down the road and walking about a quarter of a mile we
found ourselves walking between dead Germans, some bodies still burning,
on both sides of the road.
The heavy artillery, 105's and larger, from
the beach had just come into range to fire on our area and Lt. Berry
Albright, of E Company, directed the fire on the Germans via radio.
They had decided to defend the area with a second line if the Germans
forced their way across the causeway. We were just getting organized
when Col. Lindquist sent me an order to take my men and go down the
railway to the village of Chef-du-Pont and join up with the men to
defend the village and bridge across the river. We were told to hurry so
we jogged the +/- five miles and moved into the backyard of a house on a
low hill. It was dark by the time we arrived so we dug in in the dark
and had a bite to eat. The first time we had a chance to eat all of
D-Day.
At least two batteries of guns had fired on the German Anti Parachute
Battalion killing each and every man of the German unit.
That walk between those dead Germans, at
least 500 of them, was our baptism into the killing war of Normandy. The
first three days had been bloody but only on a squad or individual
basis. Here we saw what our artillery could do. That night I took
parachute suspension lines (the lines that run from the canopy of the
chute down to the harness on the jumpers body) and tied each man in my
unit together so that if they went to sleep and we were attacked I could
awaken them by pulling on the lines and not have to crawl down the line
to where each man was dug in.
The next day the soldiers from the beach
moved through us and we collected all the strays from the company, went
into bivouac and took a bath at a well on a French farm. While we bathed
French ladies, young and old, came down to watch and giggle and point
their fingers at us.
In the middle of our bathing a German
ME-109 fighter came over us so low that the pilot waved at us as he flew
by. He had tried to bomb a bridge down the road from us. Within minutes
a flight of our P-51's were on his tail. We never got to see if they
shot him down or not. 1 will never forget the German pilot waving at us.
We were so close we could see his face ... he was a handsome young man.
D-day was over and we thought we would go back
to England and prepare for another jump but no; we stayed in the battle
for 37 more days
and when we left my company was down to about 20 men.
The Regiment had less than a Battalion of men. When we returned to
England many of the men who had been slightly wounded rejoined the
company and we were up to 40 men. More men returned to duty as the days
went by and then replacements came in to join us. Soon we were back to
full strength.
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