D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (30 page)

Machine gunners carried their weapons broken down, and extra belts of ammunition. Mortars, bazookas, and radios were rolled into A-5 equipment bundles with cargo chutes attached. Every man carried three days' worth of field rations and, of course, two or three cartons of cigarettes. One sergeant carried along a baseball. He wrote on it "To hell with you, Hitler," and said he intended to drop it when his plane got over France (he did).
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There were gas masks, an ideal place to carry an extra carton of cigarettes (Capt. Sam Gibbons of the 501st PIR stuck two cans of Schlitz beer in his).
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The men had first-aid kits with bandages, sulfa tablets, and two morphine Syrettes, "one for pain and two for eternity." They were also handed a child's toy cricket with the instructions that it could be used in lieu of the normal challenge and password. One click-click was to be answered with two click-clicks. Pathfinders would go first to mark the drop zone with a gadget called the Eureka/Rebecca Radar Beacon System, which could send a signal up to the lead C-47 in each flight. Cpl. Frank Brumbaugh, a pathfinder with the 508th PIR, had not only the sixty-five-pound Eureka to carry, but two containers with carrier pigeons. After he set up his Eureka, he was supposed to make a note to that effect and put it in the capsule on the first pigeon's leg, then turn it loose. He was told to release the second pigeon at 0630 with information on how things were going. But when he got to the

marshaling area, he discovered he had no way to feed or water the pigeons, so he let them go. Stripped, Brumbaugh weighed 137 pounds. With all his equipment, including his main and reserve chutes, he weighed 315 pounds.
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Around 2000 hours, Axis Sally, the "Bitch of Berlin," came on the radio. "Good evening, 82nd Airborne Division," she said. "Tomorrow morning the blood from your guts will grease the bogey wheels on our tanks." It bothered some of the men; others reassured them—she had been saying something similar for the previous ten days.
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Still, it made men think. Pvt. John Delury of the 508th PIR talked to his friend Frank Tremblay about their 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 him."
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Pvt. Tom Porcella, also of the 508th, was torturing himself with thoughts of killing other human beings (this was common; the chaplains worked overtime assuring soldiers that to kill for their country was not a sin). "Kill or be killed," Porcella said to himself. "Here I am, brought up as a good Christian, obey this and do that. The Ten Commandments say, 'Thou shalt not kill.' There is something wrong with the Ten Commandments, or there is something wrong with the rules of the world today. They teach us the Ten Commandments and then they send us out to war. It just doesn't make sense."
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When every man was ready, the regiments gathered around their commanders for a last word. Most COs stuck to basics— assemble quickly was the main point—but one or two added a pep talk. The most famous was delivered by Col. Howard "Jumpy" Johnson, in command of the 501st PIR. Every man in the regiment remembered it vividly and could quote word for word his conclusion. As Lt. Carl Cartledge described Johnson's talk, "He gave a great battle speech, saying victory and liberation and death to the enemy and some of us would die and peace cost a price and so on. Then he said, 'I want to shake the hand of each one of you tonight, so line up.' And with that, he reached down, pulled his knife from his boot and raised it high above his head, promising us in a battle cry: 'Before the dawn of another day, I'll sink this knife into the heart of the foulest bastard in Nazi land!' A resounding yell burst forth from all 2,000 of us as we raised our knives in response."

After the regimental meetings, the companies grouped

around their COs and platoon leaders for a final word. The officers gave out the challenge, password, and response: "Flash," "Thunder," and "Welcome." "Welcome" was chosen because the Germans would pronounce it "Velcom." When Capt. Charles Shettle of the 506th PIR gave out the signals, Dr. Samuel Feiler, the regimental dental officer who had volunteered to accompany the assault echelon, approached him. Feiler was a German Jew who had escaped Berlin in 1938. "Captain Shettle," Feiler asked,
"Vat
do I do?"

"Doc," Shettle replied, "when you land, don't open your mouth. Take along some extra crickets and if challenged, snap twice." Later, as Shettle was inspecting each planeload prior to takeoff, he found Feiler with crickets strapped to both arms, both legs, and an extra supply in his pockets.
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At about 1900 hours, General Eisenhower paid a visit to the 101st Airborne Division at Greenham Common. He circulated among the men, ostensibly to boost their morale, but as Lt. Wallace Strobel of the 502nd PIR noted, "I honestly think it was his morale that was improved by being with us." Eisenhower told Capt. L. "Legs" Johnson, "I've done all I can, now it is up to you."
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He told a group of enlisted men not to worry, that they had the best equipment and leaders in the world, with a vast force coming in behind them. A sergeant from Texas piped up, "Hell, we ain't worried, General. It's the Krauts that ought to be worrying now."
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With one group, Eisenhower asked, "Is there anyone here from Kansas?" Pvt. Sherman Oyler of Topeka replied, "I'm from Kansas, sir."

"What's your name, son?"

Oyler was so stricken by being addressed directly by the supreme commander that he froze up and forgot his name. After an embarrassing pause, his buddies shouted, "Tell him your name, Oyler."
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Eisenhower gave him a thumbs up and said, "Go get 'em, Kansas."

The supreme commander turned to Lieutenant Strobel, who had a sign hanging around his neck with the number 23 on it, indicating that he was jumpmaster for plane number 23, and asked his name and where he was from.

"Strobel, sir. Michigan."

"Oh yes, Michigan. Great fishing there. I like it." Eisenhower then asked Strobel if he was ready. Strobel replied that

they had all been well prepared, well briefed, and were ready. He added that he thought it wouldn't be too much of a problem. Someone called out, "Now quit worrying, General, we'll take care of this thing for you."
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At approximately 2200 hours, as the daylight began to fade, the order rang out, "Chute up." Each man began the tedious task of buckling on his parachutes and trying to find an empty place to hang or tie on the small mountain of equipment he was carrying into combat. With everything strapped into place, many men found it impossible to take a last-minute pee. They marched to their planes and got their first look at the C-47s' "war paint," three bands of white painted around the fuselage and wings. (Every Allied plane involved in D-Day had been thus painted in the previous two days, using up
all
the white paint in England. The purpose was recognition; in Sicily, Allied ships and troops had fired on their own planes.)

Pvt. John Richards of the 508th looked at his C-47 and noted that it had a picture of a devil holding a girl in a bathing suit sitting on a tray, with an inscription saying "Heaven can wait." He thought to himself, Let's hope so.
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"Dutch" Schultz of the 505th, who had managed to gamble away his $2,500 in winnings, still had Jerry Columbi's watch, which he had taken in collateral for a $25 loan. It was Columbi's high-school graduation present with an inscription on the back from his parents. Columbi was in another stick. Schultz went over to him to hand back the watch, saying, "Here's your watch back, Jerry. You owe me some money and don't you forget to pay me."
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The 505th was at Spanhoe airfield. As Schultz was lining up to be helped into his C-47 (the men were too heavily loaded to make it into the plane on their own), he heard an explosion. A Gammon grenade carried by one of the men of Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, had gone off. It set fire to the plane and killed three men, wounding ten others. Two unhurt survivors were assigned to another plane; they both died in combat before dawn.

A bit shaken, Schultz found his place on the plane, "and the first thing I did was reach for my rosary, having been raised a Catholic boy I had great faith in the efficacy of prayers to the Blessed Mother. And I proceeded to say one rosary after another, promising the Blessed Mother that I would never, never violate the Sixth Commandment again."
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As the twilight turned to darkness, the last men got on board

their planes. Eisenhower was out on the runway, calling out "Good luck!" He noticed a short private, in Eisenhower's words "more equipment than soldier," who snapped him a salute. Eisenhower returned it. Then the private turned to the east and called out, "Look out, Hitler. Here we come!"
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The pilots started their engines. A giant cacophony of sound engulfed the airfield as each C-47 in its turn lurched into line on the taxi strip. At the head of the runway, the pilots locked the brakes and ran up the engines until they screamed. Then, at ten-second intervals, they released the brakes and started down the runway, slowly at first, gathering speed, so overloaded that they barely made it into the sky.

When the last plane roared off, Eisenhower turned to his driver, Kay Summersby. She saw tears in his eyes. He began to walk slowly toward his car. "Well," he said quietly, "it's on."
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Before going to bed, Admiral Ramsay made a final entry in his handwritten diary: "Monday, June 5, 1944. Thus has been made the vital & crucial decision to stage the great enterprise which [shall?], I hope, be the immediate means of bringing about the downfall of Germany's fighting power & Nazi oppression & an early cessation of hostilities.

"I am not under [any] delusions as to the risks involved in this most difficult of all operations. . . . Success will be in the balance. We must trust in our invisible assets to tip the balance in our favor.

"We shall require all the help that God can give us & I cannot believe that this will not be forthcoming."
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Tired as he must have been, Ramsay caught the spirit and soul of the great undertaking perfectly, especially in his hope for what the results would be for occupied Europe and the world, his recognition that the enterprise was fraught with peril, and his confidence that God was blessing this cause.

II

CRACKING THE ATLANTIC WALL

The Airborne into Normandy

The pathfinders went in first. They preceded the main body of troops by an hour or so. Their mission was to mark the drop zones with automatic direction-finder radios, Eureka sets, and Holophane lights formed into Ts on the ground. But a cloud bank forced pilots to either climb above it or get below it, so the pathfinders jumped from too high or too low an altitude. Further, antiaircraft fire coming from the ground caused pilots to take evasive action, throwing them off course. As a consequence, of the eighteen American pathfinder teams, only one landed where it was supposed to. One team landed in the Channel.

Sgt. Elmo Jones of the 505th PIR jumped at 300 feet or so. Just before exiting the C-47 he said a brief prayer: "Lord, Thy will be done. But if I'm to die please help me die like a man." His chute popped open, he looked up to check the canopy, and just that quick his feet hit the ground. It was a "soft" landing. (One advantage of a night jump: the men could not see the ground so they did not tense up just before hitting it.) His chute settled over his head "and the first thing that I thought without even trying to get out of my parachute was, 'Damn, I just cracked the Atlantic Wall.' "

Jones assembled his team, got the seven men with the lights in place for their T, told them not to turn on until they could hear the planes coming in, set up his radio, and began sending out his ADF signal. He was one of the few pathfinders in the right place.'

Maj. John Howard's D Company of the Ox and Bucks was the first to go into action as a unit. Glider pilot Sgt. Jim Wallwork put his Horsa glider down exactly where Howard wanted it to land, beside the Orne Canal bridge. Lt. Brotheridge led 1st Platoon over the bridge. The Horsas carrying 2nd and 3rd platoons landed right behind Wallwork. Within minutes the men secured the area around the bridge, routing about fifty German defenders in the process. Two other platoons landed near the Orne River bridge and secured it. By 0021, June 6, five minutes after landing, D Company had taken its objectives. It was a brilliant feat of arms.
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As the pathfinders were setting up and Howard's men were carrying out their
coup de main
operation, the 13,400 American and nearly 7,000 British paratroopers were coming on. The Americans were following a precise route, marked at ten-mile intervals with Eureka sets and at thirty-mile intervals with aerial beacons over England. Thirty miles over the Channel a British patrol boat, "Gallup," marked the path. It was thirty additional miles to checkpoint "Hoboken," marked by a light from a British submarine. At that point the aircraft made a sharp turn to the southeast, crossed between the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey (occupied by the Germans, who were sending up some flak), and headed toward their drop zones in the Cotentin. All planes were maintaining radio silence, so none of the pilots were forewarned by the pathfinder groups about the cloud bank over the Cotentin.

In the Dakotas, the men prepared themselves for "the jump in which your troubles begin
after
you hit the ground." This was the $10,000 jump (the GIs were required to buy a $10,000 life insurance policy). The flight over England and out over the Channel was a period—two hours and more—that came between the end of training, preparation, and briefing and the beginning of combat. Maj. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, commanding the 82nd Airborne, noted that "the men sat quietly, deep in their own thoughts."
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