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D-Day
Landing
was the gunner of a mortar squad led by Sgt. William L.
“Bill” Snapp. Other members of the squad were Pvt. Rex Spivey - Asst.
gunner, Pvt. Dave Orcutt - Ammo bearer, and Pvt. Freddy Ryan - Ammo
bearer. All these were part of the “stick” who at about 10 P.M. June
5, 1944 boarded a C-47 transport named “Pearle”, Joe’s mother’s name,
bound for Normandy. The “stick” was a line of paratroopers attached
to the plane's static line.
Seventy two C-47 transports took off from
Saltby Airbase in England beginning at 11:13 P.M., and that was just
part of the armada carrying the 82nd and 101st to Normandy. The planes
carrying the 508th encountered a cloud bank and heavy anti-aircraft
fire as they crossed the Normandy coastline. Many of the pilots took
evasive action and thus dropped their 508th paratroopers miles from
their targeted drop zones. Many of them were dropped on the wrong (east)
side of the Merderet River.
Joe said his plane took a flack hit right
in the middle of the stick as they neared the drop zone. Half the stick,
including Joe, were knocked to their knees by the blast and had to crawl
to the jump door to exit the airplane. A few days later he saw a downed
plane named "Pearle" lying in the French countryside. He wondered if
the air crew got out, but he knew then that the plane was going down
as he jumped from it. Joe apparently landed near his targeted drop zone
thanks to the pilot of the “Pearle”, who apparently flew through the
heavy flak rather than take evasive action.
Joe said, “As I dropped
to the ground I could see tracer bullets coming at me. I thought for
sure they were going to hit me because I knew for every one I saw there
were four more I didn’t see. But they didn't, and I landed in a narrow
dirt road somewhere in France. I wasn’t sure where I was at the time.
We had been warned in training to stay off the roads because Germans
patrolled them on horses. After I landed and was still attached to the
chute I heard a horse whinny. I almost cut myself bad trying to cut
the chute harness and get out of there. I headed for the hedgerows to
avoid the Germans. After climbing several of the high, thick hedgerows
I found out the Germans were in there and shooting at me. I decided
to just take my chances walking down the road.
I walked by myself for
about two hours before meeting up with two other troopers. The three
of us later met about 10 others. While we were wondering around as stragglers,
we came under German fire. We jumped into a ditch to get away from the
fire. This Lieutenant, I didn’t know him, told me to climb up on top
of the ditch and draw fire so the others could see where the fire was
coming from, and knock it out. I told him, ‘Lieutenant, you can court
martial me of you want to, but if you want somebody to go up and draw
fire, you go yourself. I ain’t going. He didn’t court martial me, and
we got away from the German fire.”
This 10 met larger groups, and all
were soon part of a group under 508 PIR, 2nd Battalion Commander, Lt.
Col. Thomas J. B. Shanley, Jr. One of the other members of Company F,
Dewayne Burns, said on D-Day he could hear the flak hitting the wings
and fuselage of his plane, and he desperately wanted out of that plane.
However, once he jumped, he immediately wanted back in the plane. Dewayne
said the airborne had been trained to
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