by Jon E. Lewis
Report: RAF 296 Squadron
At 23.00 hrs [5 June] the first aircraft took off, followed closely by the other aircraft of Phase I. All aircraft followed the same route to LITTLEHAMPTON and from there to the French coast. The first aircraft encountered little opposition while carrying out the drop.
Adventures in the rear of the machine delayed F/Lt. WHITTY’S drop. The first man of the stick collapsed and fell on the doors over the jumping hole. The aircraft circled off the coast while he was lifted and one door opened. This meant a delay of 10 minutes before he was thrust out and 7 troops dropped on the first run over the DZ [Drop Zone]. On the second run the other two men jumped. For the other two aircraft of this phase everything went according to plan. A little light flak was experienced after dropping but was easily evaded.
Parachutists falling over and blocking the jump doors was to be a surprisingly common occurrence during the Normandy drop. Mostly it was occasioned by the pilots taking action to avoid flak.
Corporal Ted Morris, 225 Para Field Ambulance, 6th Airborne Division
The green light went on and we started to jump … about two or three did so, but when Bud Abbott went to jump he fell over because the plane lurched and he became wedged across the door. We had to drag him away before we could jump. I got out, but they sat Bud Abbott in the corner of the plane – it was too late for him to jump. But Abbott came back to Normandy that night, hitching a ride on a glider, and landing with the ruddy glider reinforcements. The best of it was that Abbott was a conscientious objector. We had about a dozen of them in the para field ambulance unit – they wouldn’t shoot or fight, but they acted as orderlies.
One of the more bizarre adventures of the drop happened aboard an Abermarle aircraft of RAF 296 Squadron.
Flight Lieutenant J.G. Hayden, RAF
In one of the aircraft there was a dog which belonged to one of the paratroopers, but the dog didn’t want to drop. The crew had an awful difficult job chasing it around the aircraft to get its parachute fastened to the static line and then to throw it out after the paratroopers.
For some of the human British parachutists the drop was relatively straightforward, landing near their DZs and quickly finding friendly company in the darkness.
Captain Philip Burkinshaw, 12th Yorkshire Parachute Battalion
At approximately ten minutes to one, with some assistance from Cockcroft beside me, I got up and made my way over to the long hole at the back of the Stirling. The chaps followed and stood behind me in their jumping order. The hatches had been raised by the RAF despatchers and the blast of air flowing up into the plane was fresh and invigorating. I stood on the edge of the hole, parachute static line trailing behind me inside the fuselage. At about 500 foot it was possible as I looked down to make out the dull grey sea below in the light of the moon which was occasionally visible through the scurrying clouds. Suddenly, as our pilot cut back on his engines, a white line of cliffs passed by underneath and I realized that this was at last the Normandy coast. Almost immediately afterwards a patchwork of fields and hedgerows cut by narrow white lines was clearly visible. Moments passed – the ‘Action Stations’ red light was switched on up front by our pilot, followed quickly by the green, and the command ‘Go’ from the RAF despatcher. I stepped off into space, the verse from the poem, ‘Paratroops’, vividly coming to mind:
Out of the hatch we are hurled, and the body that bore us
fades to a shadow, its murmur a breath of the breeze,
weather and earth and the passage of arms are before us,
battle may blaze before half of us rise from our knees.
During the next few moments I fell, aware of nothing apart from a rush of air until the comforting jerk on my back and shoulder webbing told me that my chute had opened. I then became aware of aircraft overhead and my chute canopy swelling out above me as I lazily drifted down to earth. My first positive action was to pull on the pin to release the kitbag, containing the wireless and reserve ammunition, secured to my right leg. I pulled but nothing happened and soon I realized that the bag and I were inseparable! By this time I was nearing terra firma and it was obvious that the defences were coming to life – tracer crisscrossing up into the sky and some on the ground. I hit the ground with a fair bump and crumpled up. Although the kitbag was still on my leg I was none the worse for that. A tap on my quick release box and I was out of my parachute harness and on my feet. Shortly, I came across two other figures walking in the same direction as myself and challenged them with my Sten at the ready. To my great delight they were two of the lads from my platoon, and having briefly exchanged mutual congratulations, we moved on together. After about a quarter of a mile or so we ended up at a small copse where I found three other chaps.
Corporal Ted Morris, 225 Para Field Ambulance, 6th Airborne Division
I dropped near Ranville church, about a quarter of a mile from it across a field. It was the usual thing when we landed, there was a password and God knows what. Someone came out of the darkness as I landed and I never used the password – they could have been German, anybody at all for all I could see. I said, ‘Who’s that?’ He said, ‘It’s me.’ It was a bloke named Cooper. He’d actually jumped next to me, so the drop system worked for us.
James Byrom, 6th Airborne Division
A shadow darted from a nearby tree, and I was joined in the open by the huge Sten-gunner with the black face. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and for all my weariness I found myself on the verge of giggles.
‘You speak the lingo, tosh? All right then, you go up and knock on the door, and we’ll give you coverin’ fire. I’ll stay ’ere and my mate’ll creep round the other side of the yard so’s to cover you proper.’ I knocked once and nothing happened. I knocked again, louder this time. Suddenly there was the clamour of French voices. Footsteps approached the door, withdrew, hesitated, then approached again. The door opened.
On the way I had been searching for suitable words with which to introduce ourselves – some calming, yet elegant, phrase worthy of the French gift of expression and of their infallible flair for the dramatic moment. But at the sight of the motherly, middle-aged peasant the gulf of the years disappeared, and I might have been back in 1939, an English tourist on a walking tour dropping in to ask for a glass of cider and some Camembert.
‘Excusez-nous, Madame. Nous sommes des parachutistes anglais faisant partie du Débarquement Allié.’
There was a moment of scrutiny, then the woman folded me in her arms. The tears streamed down her face, and in between kisses she was shouting for her husband, for lamps, for wine. In a moment I was carried by the torrent of welcome into the warm, candle-lit kitchen. Bottles of cognac and Calvados appeared on the table, children came clattering down the wooden stairs and we found ourselves – an evil-looking group of camouflaged cut-throats – surrounded and overwhelmed by the pent-up emotions of four years. The farmer and his wife wanted us to stay and drink, to laugh and cry and shake hands over and over again. They wanted to touch us, to tell us all about the Occupation, and to share with us their implacable hatred of the Boche. It seemed that the moment so long awaited could not be allowed to be spoilt by realities, till every drop of emotion was exhausted. I was nearly as much affected as they were. Warmed by the fiery trickle of Calvados, I rose to this – certainly one of the greatest occasions of my life – so completely that I forgot all about the Drop, all about the marshes and the Battery. It was the sight of my companions, bewildered by all this emotion and talk, automatically drinking glass after glass, that suddenly reminded me of what we had come for. I began politely to insist on answers to questions which had already been brushed aside more than once: Where were we? How far away were the nearest Germans? Once more the questions were ignored. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, ne nous quittez par maintenant! Ah, les pauvres malheureux! Ils sont tous mouillés!’
Sixty miles across Normandy to the west, the Airborne’s American comrades began jumping from their Dakotas at 1.30 a.m.
General Matt B. Ridgway, US 82nd Airborne Division
Beside the door, a red light glowed. Four minutes left. Down the line of bucket seats, the No. 4 man in the stick stood up. It was Captain Schouvaloff, brother-in-law of Fedor Chaliapin, the opera singer. He was a get-rich-quick paratrooper, as I was, a man who had had no formal jump training. I was taking him along as a language officer, for he spoke both German and Russian, and we knew that in the Cotentin Peninsula, which we were to seize, the Germans were using captured Russians as combat troops.
A brilliant linguist, he was also something of a clown. Standing up, wearing a look of mock bewilderment on his face, he held up the hook on his static line – the life line of the parachutist which jerks his canopy from its pack as he dives clear of the plane.
‘Pray tell me,’ said Schouvaloff, in his thick accent, ‘what does one do with this strange device?’
That broke the tension. A great roar of laughter rose from the silent men who were standing now, hooked up and ready to go.
‘Are we downhearted,’ somebody yelled.
‘HELL NO!’ came back the answering roar.
A bell rang loudly, a green light glowed. The jumpmaster, crouched in the door, went out with a yell – ‘Let’s go!’ With a paratrooper, still laughing, breathing hard on my neck, I leaped out after him.
John Houston, US 101st Airborne Division
Left foot forward, on the edge of the door to push off, swing the right leg out to make a half turn, and get your back to the prop blast, feet together, knees bent, arms on the reserve chute, head down. The static line jerks and the chute snaps open perfectly. We are so close to the ground that there is no time to do any sightseeing on the way down. Hands on the risers to pull up against the shock of landing. The ground is coming fast. Thump, one roll. This is France.
A cow stands looking from a few yards away. She seems curious but not excited. There is no wind, so the chute collapses quietly. Unsnap the harness and get the rifle out of its boot. This is done quickly, then the question ‘Where am I and where is everyone else?’
Each man in the division had been issued a little cricket snapper to use in place of a password. One click is the challenge and two clicks the answer. I hear someone moving along the hedgerow and click the cricket. Two clicks come back, and Shedio and Spitz come out of the shadows. We whisper together for a minute. There is no firing nearby, but we don’t want to announce that we are here. Mac hears us and joins the group. We move along in the direction of the flight of our plane, and soon gather fifteen men. This is everyone from our plane except Bray, who, as Number 16, jumped last.
General Matt B. Ridgway and Private John Houston were among the lucky that night, for the American drop, centred on the village of Ste Mere Eglise, threatened to assume the proportions of a disaster. A bank of cloud disorientated the pilots, some of whom were anyway panicked by the necklaces of incandescent flak and tracer shooting up from the German defences. There had been some dispersement on the British drop, but members of the US 101st and 82nd were dropped too high, too low, over the sea and as much as 30 miles from their objective. Many of them were in action almost as soon as their boots hit the earth.
Donald Burgett, US 101st Airborne Division
I lay on my back shaking my head; the chute had collapsed itself. The first thing I did was to draw my .45, cock the hammer back and slip the safety on. Troopers weren’t issued pistols, but my father had purchased this one from a gun collector in Detroit and sent it to me in a package containing a date-and-nut cake. Captain Danes kept it in his possession for me and let me carry it on field problems. He had returned it to me when we entered the marshalling area.
The pilots were supposed to drop us between 600 and 7oo feet, but I know that my drop was between 250 and less than 300 feet. The sky was lit up like the Fourth of July. I lay there for a moment and gazed at the spectacle. It was awe inspiring, I have never seen anything like it before or since. But I couldn’t help wondering at the same time if I had got the opening shock first or hit the ground first; they were mighty close together.
The snaps on the harness were almost impossible to undo, and as I lay there on my back working on them, another plane came in low and diagonally over the field. The big ship was silhouetted against the lighter sky with long tongues of exhaust flame flashing along either side of the body. Streams of tracers from several machine guns flashed upward to converge on it. Then I saw vague, shadowy figures of troopers plunging downward. Their chutes were pulling out of the pack trays and just starting to unfurl when they hit the ground. Seventeen men hit the ground before their chutes had time to open. They made a sound like large ripe pumpkins being thrown down to burst against the ground.
‘That dirty son of a bitch of a pilot,’ I swore to myself, ‘he’s hedgehopping and killing a bunch of troopers just to save his own ass. I hope he gets shot down in the Channel and drowns real slow.’
Small private wars erupted to the right and left, near and far, most of them lasting from fifteen minutes to half an hour, with anyone’s guess being good as to who the victors were. The heavy hedgerow country muffled the sounds, while the night air magnified them. It was almost impossible to tell how far away the fights were and sometimes even in what direction. The only thing I could be sure of was that a lot of men were dying in this nightmarish labyrinth. During this time I had no success in finding anyone, friend or foe. To be crawling up and down hedgerows, alone, deep in enemy country with a whole ocean between yourself and the nearest allies sure makes a man feel about as lonely as a man can get. For the French civilians watching the 13,000 American parachutists come down over the Cherbourg peninsula the drop presented a remarkable spectacle. The American parachutist himself was no less interesting a phenomenon.
Alexandre Reynaud, Mayor of Ste Mère Eglise
All around us, the paratroopers were landing with a heavy thud on the ground. By the light of the fire, we clearly saw a man manipulating the cables of his parachute. Another, less skilful, came down in the middle of the flames. Sparks flew, and the fire burned brighter. The legs of another paratrooper contracted violently as they were hit. His raised arms came down. The giant parachute, billowing in the wind, rolled over the field with the inert body.
A big white sheet hung from an old tree covered with ivy. A man was hanging from the end. Holding onto the branches, he came slowly down, like a snake. Then he tried to unbuckle his belt. The Flak were only a few yards away. They saw him. The machine guns fired their sinister patter; the poor man’s hands fell, and the body swung loosely to and fro from the cables.
A few hundred yards in front of us, near the sawmill, a big transport plane crashed to the ground, and soon there was a second fire raging.
The belfry sounded the alarm once again.
Now we were directly in the line of fire of the machine gun in the belfry. The bullets hit the ground right near us.
It was a lovely night, lit by large swaths of moonlight.
Meanwhile, a paratrooper appeared suddenly in the midst of the group at the pump. He pointed his machine gun at us, but when he realized we were French, he didn’t shoot. A German sentry hiding behind a tree let out a yell and ran away as fast as he could. The paratrooper tried to ask a few questions, but since no one in the group could speak English, he crossed the road and disappeared into the night.
Above the fire, the big planes glided by uninterruptedly, dropping their human cargoes on the other side of the cemetery
…
Around 3 o’clock, on the square under the trees, the flash of lighted matches appeared, followed by the red glow of lighted cigarettes, then an electric light on the body of a parachutist. By the light of that lamp, it looked as though men were lying at the base of the trees. We whispered about it for a long time: were they Germans or British? Given the situation, we didn’t think Germans would be lying on the ground, but standing up or ambushed in houses.
Little by little, the night began to dissolve, and a milky dawn bega
n to filter through. As the contours became more precise, we were astonished to see that the town was occupied neither by the Germans nor the British, but by the Americans. The first thing we recognized were the big round helmets we had seen illustrated in the German magazines. Some of the soldiers were sleeping or smoking under the trees; others, lined up behind the wall and the town weighing building, stood with arms in hand, watching the church still held by the enemy. Their wild, neglected look reminded us of Hollywood movie gangsters. Their helmets were covered with a khaki coloured net, their faces were, for the most part, covered with grime, like those of mystery book heroes.
The more enthusiastic and sympathique French civilians proved useful to American parachutists still wondering exactly where in hell they were.
Donald Burgett, US 101st Airborne Division
Just then three young girls, about eighteen or so, came out of a doorway and ran to me yelling, ‘Vive les Americains.’ Then, with a lot of hugging and kissing, they offered me a jug of wine, which I refused. Not that I don’t like wine, but I just didn’t feel like being poisoned, and at this time I didn’t trust anyone. The Lieutenant had arrived by this time, and asked if anyone could speak English. The girls said, in very poor English, that there was an old woman who could; she used to teach it in school. One of the girls brought her to us. Muir asked her where we were, and even though she told us we still didn’t know. The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town, ‘Ravenoville’, and told us there were other Americans here, but also many Germans all around and even in the town itself. We thanked her, then Lieutenant Muir cussed and swore as he examined the map, for we were about twelve miles from our drop zone and our objectives. Muir let out a string of oaths that ended with the Air Corps: ‘They dropped us all over the whole damned Cherbourg Peninsula,’ he said. ‘Who the hell’s side are they on anyway? Now we’ve got to fight through nine towns and twelve miles of enemy country just to get to where we were supposed to land and start fighting in the first place.’
