We were behind barbed wire for several days at the marshaling area before we boarded the plane for Normandy. The flight was delayed one day because of weather, so for several days the Regiment was in the marshaling area; we occupied maybe three or more different areas. Anyway, we had one battalion plus what we used to called the cats and dogs, the service company, and headquarters and medics. I remember, the regimental commander coming in about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon; we knew for sure that we were going in that night. 

I remember him talking to the battalion in a hangar – an airplane hangar – I suppose there were about 800 people there. Col. Millett, the Regimental Commander, addressed part of the Regiment. I remember this so well because he went over the history of the Regiment and all the trouble that we'd been in. The paratroopers, as you probably already learned, had already had their fair share of fights. We were always fighting. He described how we had almost gotten thrown out of Columbus, Georgia. The town was almost put off limits to us, and he went through this litany of sins that we had committed. Then he stopped and he said, "but you can make it all up to me tonight." Those were his words. He paused, and said "we’re going in." I thought that the top of that hangar would come off. The morale of the men was just incredible; it was electrifying. I still get goose bumps now. It was just tremendous. I thought what a privilege it is for any leader, regardless of the grade or the position he holds, to lead men like this. This was the morale of these men as we went about cleaning knives, recleaning their weapons, sharpening the knives.

That night was probably one of my most vivid recollections. I can remember that better than I could remember any meeting with him through training. We’d been active for very close to two years. I was one of the first officers to go into the regiment. The regiment was ready to go. 

I remember we received several new officers before going to Normandy. They needed time to acquaint themselves with their troops. I remember, one in particular, was helping load the equipment on individuals. I felt so sorry for him because this poor young fella wasn’t going to have the glorious experience that the rest of us were going to have. 

General Ridgeway had talked to all the officers of the regiment; I suppose, he did this with every regiment. I remember that afternoon before we left, how he had literally made a stump speech under a huge tree and called all the officers around him. If you needed a shot in the arm, he provided it. He was a very impressive speaker, able to articulate in a precise way, what exactly was going to take place. Not only as far as estimation was concerned in the 101^st, but all over Europe and the freedom fighters in France, as they were called. I know that he mentioned what an opportunity that we had to "free the world". We’re going to rise up in unison. I don’t recall if he used the words "strike a blow for freedom", but he did say the free world and how it’s going to rise up. He described fighters in France and so on. They were undercover and now would be able to come out in the open. We weren’t alone in this. The French patriots were there, not only in France but in other countries which were occupied, and this was a glorious opportunity or us – to lead the way. Hell, I was ready to go right then and there (Laugh). We were all ready of course. I can’t remember any shirkers in those days. Vietnam, well that was different, but back then they were all ready to roll.

Would moral have been different if the 507 had seen combat prior to Normandy?

I would say that probably after Normandy, he would not be able to get that kind of reaction because they’d seen combat. They knew what it was like. They weren’t that anxious. The morale was tremendous. To answer your question, I would imagine that they would have been a little more reserved, but I would think that the morale was every good. I know if General Ridgeway had come back 60 days later, after Normandy, and addressed the Regiment and he had said, "Hey, we’re going to this and that", we’d have been ready to go, but we wouldn’t have been that enthusiastic. 

At the Bulge, it was the same thing. I can remember for sure we were ready to roll and anxious, you might say, but you know what to expect. I just never will forget that experience. In 33 years of service, I never did see, hear or feel that way, again. I never saw troops that fired up as they probably . . . as they were on that particular afternoon. About 3 or 4 hours later, we were in the airplanes.

The trip to Normandy

I recall that some of the men tried to sleep, but it was tough. It was a helluva long ride. We circled around and came back in on the peninsula. I remember it very well. I was worried about the way the men were loaded down. I was the Company Communications Officer. 

We talked on the way over, but not much. When we got close to the DZ, it got pretty quiet. And then of course, when got close, we got the red light and I checked to make sure the equipment was in order. I saw the tail end of a C-47. "When we ever gonna get outta here," I thought. Then we thought we’d never get that green light. I looked over and saw the parachutes opening and a plane quite a ways in front of us. 

I’m looking over and saw these people jumping and their chutes opening and it was a full 30 seconds before we got the green light. I thought, "Gosh, where are we going to land?" These memories are rather vivid.

Meanwhile, the plane was jumping around like hell. There was flack, also. It wasn’t a lot of flack, not near as much as we encountered on the Rhine Jump, but it never stopped and when we came over the channel islands, right there, right when we hit the coast, we got quite a bit of flack. So we knew then that we were okay. We got a lot of flack there and then not very much and then a little bit more just shortly before we jumped. But we were certainly off course and, maybe 20 miles from our DZ.

After the jump, I landed in water, about 3 feet of water, and naturally I went under. The first thing I did was go for my knife to cut myself out of the chute. That’s the first thing I did and then I tried to figure out just where I was. I had no idea. Nobody else was near. It was quiet. Well I could hear some firing, but nothing nearby. The night was as still as it could be. Then I started to move. The first thing I did was throw away the reel of wire and which I hooked on to myself. Some smart soldier decided he couldn’t carry the wire. Since I was the last man out of the plane, I decided I’d take it myself. Then I remember that I hooked it on to everything else I was carrying and that my when my parachute opened, I yelled! That wire went up in the air and came down on my upper leg, right above the knee, and it hit real hard. The walkie-talkie that I had was broken. When it hit the ground, it became worthless. I was so mad. I took that thing and threw it as far as I could. And then I put my hand in my musette bag to see what else I could get rid of. I had several batteries and they were wet. They were starting to short out. Here I was in 3 or 4 feet of water. I gingerly disposed of those. I had probably gotten rid of about 50 pounds of

Initially, the first person I saw, about 10 or 15 minutes after landing and getting rid of the batteries, was Major Johnson. I challenged him with the password and he gave the proper counter sign. Then we ran in to Sgt. Cannon and several others. There were about five of us wandering around trying to locate our position on the map. We soon realized that we were off the map. At about 3:00 or 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon, I saw a solder who had an orange recognition flag; we all had these orange flags that we used for recognition. As we moved near him, we closed in on the town of Grainges. 

Once in the town, we met Capt. Brommet who had approximately 30 or 40 men that he was in command of. We picked up more during the day and night; by the late afternoon, we had about 90 to 100 men.

D-Day Plus 4 

We had several small skirmishes but the first real fire-fight we had was at the bridge. This bridge was only about a ½ a mile to ¾ of a mile from the town. I went down to the bridge. The bridge was concrete and steel. It was a pretty good size bridge and we had part of the town. We had about 8 or 10 men and they all had their demolition. The men had TNT and Composition C that they carried with them. They also had demolitions that had been brought in by the French. The French were providing the ammunition.

We had been able to recover very little, but the French were recovering containers of ammunition and weapons. They were doing it at the instigation of their Mayor who laid down the law to give us assistance; he was a remarkable man. We had our mortars and they brought in stuff -- machine guns,  mortar ammunition. We probably had more than a basic load. But we had more than we came in with. We probably had some of the 101^st (Airborne Division) ammunition containers, no doubt about it. We had a lot of them. I remember this young lady, I recall was the sister of the little girl I will tell you about in greater detail, brought in weapons and she brought them in under a load of hay. She left right under the German’s eyes and she drove that into our perimeter; we had a lot of weapons.
 
 

Was it fair to say the entire village was mobilized?

Yes, sir. I covered this in detail when I wrote a letter to the Department of Defense. I tried to show that there was no question that this was a unique situation and the French deserved a lot of credit for the defense of the town. But, here in this little town it was unique. The French, although they didn’t for the most part, fight in terms of carrying a weapon, even though some did, they provided us with food and ammunition; going out and risking their lives to supply us with information. All we had were K-Rations. One lady who ran the cafe became the mess sergeant, you might say. She, also, was decorated for her actions. She was a remarkable woman. The priest had been very helpful. They knew the lay of the land. They knew people and they knew Germans and they knew what would likely take place. Both of them were of course murdered, as were their housekeepers. 
 

We were in pretty good shape as far as ammunition was concerned. We had mortar ammunition, machine guns, and ammunition for the M-1s. We had explosives. We had the TNT and the Composition C and we used it to take care of the bridge.

As I mentioned, our first real firefight was at the bridge that led into the town. The first thing I did was ask the sergeant how long it would take to blow the bridge. He did it right on the minute. 

I had placed a man near the bridge to give us a warning when the Germans started advancing. The plan worked and he let us know they were coming. We waited until the Germans were right at the bridge, until somebody was on bridge, and then I ordered the bridge blown- that’s a good story. I was the closest to the bridge. It sure as hell put a stop to ‘em, didn’t it? As soon as that bridge was blown, all the firing stopped. That was about it. 

After the explosion, the Germans scattered. It must have been quite a shock to them, I guess. You know, hell, it scared me with stuff going up in the air. So, I’m sure that if you’re approaching that bridge and all of a sudden it goes upon in smoke, it's kind of disconcerting

We had outposts around the town. The next day we did have a fire-fight down there, but again, not very much. We patrolled every night. We patrolled constantly, every direction we could, but you have to remember it was a patrol; we can’t be accused of doing nothing. We were very active there during that time. I think I led a patrol every night in addition to everything else. Individually, we got several officers in it you see. They got Colonel Hoffman, he was killed there, and they got the platoon leader, who was also killed there. 
 

It was a Sunday morning. Saturday night we’d had several patrols that were penetrating our defenses. Not severe, patrol actions, but they were hitting on all sides. And I remember the Major decided that he would go with me to inspect the perimeter. We had about 165 men around the perimeter. And we had the mortar platoon, machine gun platoon; we had just about everybody that had a rifle, outposted around the town. 

Nothing happened early Sunday morning (June 11^th) and the Major said that Catholics or anybody else that wanted to go to church, which was right there in that town, could go to mass. I went at 8 or 9 o’clock. We went in small groups. Around 10:00 all hell broke loose, the firing was pretty close. It turned out to be nothing more than daylight patrol action which quickly intensified. The attack was piecemeal, short lived, and about 10 minutes long. We inflicted heavy causalities. They hadn’t been very smart the way they attacked. Later on that night, they got smart and I have never been under that much fire.

About an hour later they attacked again. Here again, we spread out all around the town, but we were doing great (defensively). Just about dusk, they attacked again; we knew we were outnumbered enormously by that time. We had good communication. We were going over to make sure the ammunition was OK. Captain Reed did a helluva job with the machine-guns; but we didn’t have enough crews. When they were coming through on these particular areas, he would move his guns from that area and reinforce the machine guns for another area. 

After the second major attack, we met in a little café across from the church taking stock of the how much ammunition was on hand. Determining if we had all the routes covered; we all realized the seriousness of the situation. There was a waitress providing us with coffee and she was singing. I remember Maj. Johnson said, "I wish I could have the same attitude." We decided to stay and fight. We didn’t know where. In retrospect, this may have been the time to leave.

Meanwhile the attacks continued and our casualties started piling up in the aid station. At one point, they almost broke through the perimeter. Trucks could be observed picking up the German dead at collection points. Our mortar fire was accurate. I was talking to Lieutenant Brommit, and he was directing fire and doing a helluva good job of it, too. He was an authentic hero. The (German) artillery fire was tremendous and they hit the church steeple and Lt. Farnham was killed. He was directing mortar fire in the steeple. I was on the phone with him and the phone went dead when the shell hit.

Our interaction with the citizens had a calming affect as the French carried food, water, and ammunition. They were helping the wounded and sallying forth to get information. The mayor was there directing the French and he had calming affect.

There was a lull in the fighting. The lull was ominous. In the background, we could hear the sound of heavy equipment. At dusk, the Germans made their final assault. It was truly a coordinated attack. Twice the size of the other attacks and it was supported by mortar and 88 artillery fire. They had learned lessons from the prior attacks. We stayed and fought until there no more ammo left. We fired every round we had. 

During the attacks I acted as an assistant machine gunner. My machine-gunner was great. We were on an earth burm; we had a very good field of fire. It was dark so I could not count how many we got. We put every round we had in into the advancing Germans. They picked the wrong place to mount their attack since we had an excellent field of fire. They lost many men, maybe even the company. During the night, I was running up and down the line checking our positions but he stayed at our gun.

At this time, we moved many of the civilians into the church. Capt. Sophian, the battalion surgeon, went into the church and told them we would have to stay and fight. But he advised them that they should go since our position was tenuous and they were in great danger. They didn’t leave. They loved us for staying and also for advising them of the situation. I had one French lady tell me, many years after the war, that if the Germans had held the town that they would have used them (the civilians) as hostages, but I really doubt that they would have. 

The Breakthrough

The Germans finally did break through. It seemed that every German who had a machine pistol seemed to be firing indiscriminately. We could hear glass being broken and the yelling. They were mopping up resistance. We knew it was the end. At the time, we did not know the priest (Father Leblastier), and his assistant and his 2 house keepers and 3 or 4 others, were being murdered by the Germans. The Germans also murdered 12 paratroopers that were in the aid station. There could have been more but I don’t think so. Several men still can’t be accounted for. We had two men from the 29^th infantry Division, some German prisoners, and a few Spaniards, that were on a work detail digging foxholes. How they got there, I never knew. We also had an Air Corps Warrant officer that we weren’t able to account for. Some of the men in the aid station escaped but I know that at least 12 men were executed in the aid station. 

There was also a Captain, from the 101^st, that was carried into the town. He broke his leg in the jump. When he entered the town, he asked Maj. Johnson for a job and the Maj. asked him if he could relieve men on the switchboard. The French confirmed that the Germans also murdered him.

With the perimeter pierced and no place to fall back to, we had to head for the swamps. I had about two platoons. As we went through the swamp, we ran into several drainage ditches. We would help each other get across and, about every 40 or 50 feet, stop and wait for the last man to get across. Then I would work my way to the front again. We must have crossed 10 or 15 drainage ditches. 

By dawn, we worked our way around and could see the little town behind us. We could see the damaged church steeple. What bothered me enormously, even though we were a couple of miles from the town, was that we could be observed through binoculars. But that was the chance we had to take.

Then a little girl approached us. I had two men out in front acting as scouts; the water in the swamp was knee deep. I remember my scout saying that there is a little girl here and she will lead us to a safe place. It turned out that she led us to a hayloft in a barn. 

I thought to myself, "Is where we are supposed to be?" All it would take is one tracer and the place would be up in smoke. I thought I’d be court marshaled for sure if I lived. So again I didn’t have any options. This is a chance I have to take.

I stayed below and was facing the door and somebody started opening the door. The person opening the door doesn’t realize how close he came to being killed. It was Mr. Rigauld, the owner of the barn. He wanted to know how many men I had. There was something about him that made me trust him right away. He was very friendly and he offered me food and water. He came back shortly with cheese, bread, and milk. 

Then we waited till dusk. I figured we were about three miles from Carentan. Suddenly, I heard something moving around in the bushes near the barn. It turned out to be Capt. Brommet who took a similar route through the swamp. 

Later that night, the French escorted us to small riverboats and took us through the German lines to Carentan.