National Archives
Chief-corporal Rudolph May
German soldier who commanded a patrol of ten men, cut the parachute lines with his pocket knife to release Private John ‘Buck’ Steele, F Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, so he could be taken captive.
‘On the evening of 5 June my friends and I were enjoying ourselves trying to break a cycle speed record around the church at Ste-Mère-Eglise, just to kill time. At 10 p.m. I resumed my post in the steeple – a telephone at my side. Around midnight (2 a.m. British time) I heard planes passing overhead and saw “objects” falling from the sky. During this period a house began to burn. It was the light from this fire that made it possible for me to see hundreds of parachutes falling from the sky as the airplane motors droned on. They fell on the roofs, in the streets and even in the trees of the church square. The sky was studded with parachutes.
‘Suddenly everything in the steeple became dark. Through an opening I saw that a parachutist had fallen on the steeple, hanging by the ropes. He appeared to be dead, but after a moment I heard his voice. There were two of us on duty at the post, and my companion wanted to shoot him. “Are you crazy?” I said. “If you shoot we’ll be discovered.”’
2nd Lieutenant Leon E. Mendel
Interrogation Officer, proficient in seven languages, 325th Glider Infantry, Mission ‘Galveston’ on D+I at Landing Zone ‘W’.
‘My glider made a beautiful landing at Ecoqueneauville and I made my way south to my assembly point at Les Forges crossroads. Here I got the bad news that I had lost half of my six-man team in glider crashes. The good news was the others had already eight German prisoners for interrogation. I started off with German but with little response, so I switched to Russian with the question, “Vj Russkij chelovek?” (Are you a Russian?). Their reply was immediate, “Da, ya khochu ekhat’ na Ameriku” (Yes, I want to go to America). I slapped both my hands on top of my helmet and shouted at them, “Durak, durak. Ya tozhe!” (Crazy, crazy. Me too!).”’
The enemy included ‘volunteers’ from Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia. The Seventh Army had 13 ‘Ost’ battalions made up of non-Germans.
C-47s of the 34th Troop Carrier Squadron, 315th Troop Carrier Group at Cottesmore waiting to load 82nd Airborne paratroopers for D-Day.
U.S Army
George Rosie
101st Airborne. Captured, he spent II months in PoW camps before being liberated by the Russians south of Berlin.
‘We boarded the planes at about 22:30 on 5 June. With two chutes and full combat equipment, we could hardly walk. Some of the men looked like they were scared to death. I was certainly uptight but had no thoughts of being killed. I had the feeling we were part of a big chunk of history. Out of the window, there were planes in every direction and, below, hundreds of ships. As we crossed the French coast, a plane on our right was hit by flak and blew up, wiping out 18 to 20 men. Welcome to the real war.
‘The green light came on and we jumped. I hit a road and went head first through a wooden fence, knocking out two teeth. Then I took cover in a hedgerow. A minute later 40 Germans came marching past. I could have reached out and touched them. Being alone behind enemy lines is a unique experience. You feel so helpless, so alone. After a bit I ran into John Gibson, our medic, and Charles Lee, a mortarman. It was as if I had found a long-lost brother.
‘I looked up and there was a C-47 transport plane at about 800 feet with the left engine on fire and troopers bailing out. The last one bailed out at not more than 200 feet and the plane went right over the top of our heads, hit the adjoining field and burst into a million flaming pieces. From the direction of the crash, four men came running towards us. We discovered they were from our troop – Phil Abbie, Francis Swanson, Leo Krebs and my high school pal Francis Ronzani. The downed plane had damn near got them.
‘We now had an army of seven but we ran into about 100 Germans as daylight was breaking. Abbie and Ronzani were killed and the rest of us were pinned down in a field. Bullets were flying all over the place and Leo Krebs remarked, “God, these guys are lousy shots.” A German officer was running back and forth and Krebs said, “What the hell is wrong with that guy? Is he nuts?” We shot at him and he went down. But we were in a hopeless position and were captured in no time.
Dead American soldier near his glider.
National Archives
‘Lee had got away into a wood and, a short time later, began shooting at the Germans who were guarding us. I told Leo I still had a hand grenade the Germans had missed. If Leo hit one of the guards I was going to throw the grenade at the other one. But the Germans circled behind Lee and killed him. I left the grenade in the ditch.
‘Ronzani had been hit in the chest three, four, five, or six times. I’m sure he never knew what hit him. When I returned to the States after the war and visited his mother and father, one of the things that seemed to be of great relief to them was that Francis had not suffered.’
Brigadier General “Slim” Jim Gavin, assistant division commander, 82nd Airborne, who at about noon on D+1 met Gen Matthew B. Ridgway at the point where the Ste-Mère- Eglise road crosses the railway line just east of the Merderet and as far as they knew, were on their own. Ridgway and Gavin decided right there and then that if the seaborne assault had been called off or been beaten back, then they would continue to fight to the end. Gavin, nicknamed “Slim Jim” by his men because of his slim, boyish looks, assumed command of the 82nd Airborne on 15 August 1944 at the age of 37, the youngest American division commander in WWII and the youngest since the Civil War.
U.S Army
Air landing Brigade troops give the thumbs up before departure.
Imperial War Museum 11 (H39182)
Brigadier S. J. L. Hill
Commanding 3rd Parachute Brigade.
‘Do not be daunted if chaos reigns. It undoubtedly will.’
Major General Richard Gale
6th Airborne Division Commander; his orders to Brigadier Nigel Poett, 5th Parachute Brigade, for the capture of the parallel bridges over the Canal de Caen at Bénouville and the River Orne at Ranville.
‘The seizing of the crossing intact is of the utmost importance to the conduct of future operations. As the bridges will certainly have been prepared for demolition, the speedy overpowering of the bridge defences should be your first object. They must therefore be seized by a coup-de-main party, landed in gliders as near to the bridges as is humanly possible. You must accept risks to achieve this.’