|
believe they could whip any two other armies. But, as he was floating down over Normandy, he began to seriously question the validity of that training. Dewayne Burns passed out drawings he had drawn of the 82nd and their planes at the 508th, Company F, 2000 reunion in Salt Lake City, Utah. Several of Burns’ drawings are in the 508th museum at Camp Blanding, Fl.
Hill 30
The following is an account of Shanley leading the men to Hill 30 and the action there from June 6 through June 10, 1944 as related in “Affair on Hill 30” published in the Marine Corps Gazette. These articles were two chapters from the book, “Night Drop” by Col. S.L.A. Marshall, a military historian.
By the noon of June 6 Shanley had collected a sizable group of men. He decided Etienville was too heavily defended to attempt destroying the bridge there. So, he began moving them through fields bounded by hedgerows toward a position on Hill 30 west of the Merderet River near the Chef du Pont causeway.
By mid-morning June 6, Shanley’s group was trapped in a field surrounded by hedgerows. Their only escape was through a glider with a bulldozer inside that had landed earlier in the day in the corner of the hedgerow. Shanley saw that the only escape was through the glider. One man at the time, they would have to run for it, climb into the door on one side, work around the bulldozer, and exit on the other side. It entailed a terrible delay at the very time it was necessary to move fast. The minutes dragged out. The force was halfway through this weird defile before the Germans discovered what was happening and concentrated fire on the glider. Then the trickle of men stopped, and Shanley went back through the glider to see what was the cause. He found the remaining men had formed a fire line inside the hedgerow, and had abandoned any idea of trying to make the glider passage. He booted them hard and told them they had to go.
Several of them started, the rest showed signs of following, and so he went along. But a few of the men from this hesitant rear guard were never seen again, and whether they quit in the field or were shot going through the glider could not be learned. The enemy made no further attempt to rush the withdrawal. The column moved along under cover of the hedgerows to a point about 800 yards east of Picauville. There it was stopped short by the spectacle of 200 paratroopers sitting together in an open field doing absolutely nothing. No orders had been given. So, this considerable body of men had merely marked time for many hours waiting on someone to happen along and tell them how to get started.
I asked Joe Thornton if he went through that glider. He said, “I sure did.”
At 9 P.M. June 6, 1944 Shanley organized his forces into two companies, with Major Shields Warren leading one and himself the other. In a two hour march they got to Hill 30 without incident. From the Hill crest there should have been a commanding view of the valley, the causeways, and the town of Chef du Pont on the far side. But the reality of the terrain belied the promise of the map. Hill 30 was criss-crossed by hedgerows of a particularly obtrusive sort. They were high banked and thickly sown with tall shade trees. The road which wound to the top of the hill was a deep rutted track of mud between steep banks. From the top of Hill 30, one had no sense of being on elevated ground because it was almost
|
