TROOP CARRIER

I once had a friend, an old Troop Carrier Who came at last to life's final barrier.
And when it came time to get him to heaven They flew him there in his very own C 47

Lew Johnston

THE THREE AIRPLANE INVASION OF FRANCE-- Neal Beaver's Story

At the aerodrome at Folkingham three C 47s of the 29 th Troop Carrier Squadron 313 th Troop Carrier Group took off by themselves They had been delayed by a mechanical problem but off they went anyway The first report of this flight appeared in two consecutive issues of the 29 th Troop Carrier Squadron newsletter but without much about the cast of characters

My documentation here is based on a personal phone call on April 18 2001 to fill in the details about Neal Beaver the person who narrated the paradrop story of the flight in the 29 th TCS 313 th TCG airplane on D Day He is obviously alive and alert and in full command of his facilities and his memory which seems exceptionally good He also has records

On 6 June 1943 Neal was a First Lieutenant in command of the 81mm Mortar Platoon 3 rd Battalion Headquarters Company 508 th Parachute Infantry Regiment 82 nd Airborne Division The unit first landed in Ireland by ship and stayed there while permanent bases were being built in the English Midlands

Just before the mission this group of paratroopers was billeted at Wollaton Park a 100 acre estate in the center of Nottingham surrounded by a brick wall There was a large manor house and the estate boasted its own herd of deer The camp consisted of pyramidal tents with wooden floors and a few Nissan Huts for central services Many of the fields were now farmland

According to Neal being stationed around Nottingham was very pleasant There were friendly young women who took the paratroopers into their hearts The beer at room temperature was a bit strange to American tastes but no more so than the mixture of warm beer and orange or lemon drink to create a drink called a shandy for women

There were few complaints with the life there but most of the airborne troops say they were glad to get on with the mission You can only do so many practice jumps you can only clean your weapons so many times you can only run in formation so much and you can only dig so many practice foxholes they said They wanted to go fight the war for which they were trained

A CLEAN START

Neal Beaver started his military career as a very young man in the Michigan National Guard in October 1938 and when the Guard was federalized in October of 1940 he shipped with it to Camp

Beauregard Louisiana As a Staff Sgt he was chosen to be interviewed for Officers Candidate School and was then among 3000 accepted out of 7000 for airborne training This took him to Ft Benning Georgia for jump school By then the 508 th Parachute Infantry Regiment was being formed at Camp Blanding one of five The Old Man in Neal's unit was 27 and his advice was to pick Boy Scouts Farmers and Small Town Boys for paratroopers simply because they would be accustomed to being outdoors Very good advice says Neal You gotta suffer as a paratrooper and these folks are more ingenious and used to it than city folks The unit shipped overseas in December 1943 and landed on the Northeast Coast of Northern Ireland overlooking the Irish Straits

They were billeted there temporarily but soon their permanent camp in Nottingham England was ready and they moved there Neal tells his story of D Day in his own way and certainly very well but there are a couple of things that the readers might miss Most of the 313 th Troop Carrier Group and its four Troop Carrier Squadrons departed from Folkingham Aerodrome long before the three C 47s described here got into the air And these aircraft made it only after the flight leader had to change airplanes They flew the mission by themselves without seeing any of the original formation

NEAL BEAVER'S JUMP

This first appeared in Editions M 27 and M 28 of Papoose Express News the newsletter of the 29 th Troop Carrier Association of the 313 th Troop Carrier Group It was first addressed to Joe Harkiewicz the historian of the 29 th Troop Carrier Squadron at the request of Robert Nelson leader of the 29 th flight carrying 3rd Battalion 81mm Mortar Platoon into Normandy June 5 6 1944 The narrator is Neal Beaver June 1993 Quickly to business I have identified the aircraft and crew that carried my Platoon Sgt on DDay This was Joe Anderson of Columbia Falls Montana Joe was a great leader he got a battlefield commission during Normandy and he survived the war He flew in with 1st Lt Robert Kerr so I picked up Kerr's address from the 29 th TCS newsletter and sent addresses to both

My 3 rd plane then carried my Senior Section Sgt Zelinski Unfortunately Zeke was killed in Normandy He was my platoon Sgt at the time since Joe Anderson had been transferred over to command the 2 nd Battalion 81mm mortar platoon One of war's Ironies I got Joe a commission and lost him to another unit at once Zeke's flight crew may be interested in knowing that he was one hell of a fighting man His death was doubly tragic in that a short round from our own artillery killed him after we had been relieved and were returning to Nottingham July 5 or 6

Our 508th 3 rd Battalion came to FoIkingham by truck and English buses from our base in Wollaton Park Nottingham Our 1 st Battalion was at Folkingham also Our Headquarters Unit and 2 nd Battalion were at Saltby As I recall we were there all on cots in one massive hangar for five or six days before D Day We had our own kitchens set up somewhere and ate very well especially since we were receiving free PX rations once or twice per day Fattening the calf so to speak Our time was spent lounging studying the maps and aerial photos gambling reading etc It was a pleasant relief after our intensive training believe me We did pack our bundles and have them all mounted on the C 47s as soon as all aircraft were assigned a chalk number a temporary staging number on the side

Other than the combined briefing by our Col Mendez and the Troop Carrier Commanding Officer I don't remember any other contact with the air crews other than for the three crew chiefs Sgt Robert Lachmund S Sgt Manuel and Sgt Robert Rienstock all of whom supervised the loading of our bundles

We were so loaded up with ammo guns mines demolition packs rations etc we must have weighed 300 pounds each How those fantastic C 47s got off the ground that night is still a mystery to me As I recall it was a worry to the aircrew also because I can remember much fussing and discussing over that center of gravity calculator that night Since we were all young and ignorant I assume your guys finally Just said The hell with it it will probably fly I do recall that our angle of ascent was so flat that it is fortunate that the tall TV antennas were in the future

ALMOST LEFT BEHIND

When the port engine of Nelson's plane wouldn't start we were in a panic The worst feeling of being left behind I've ever experienced We fell out of that plane like bloated frogs pulled the bundle trip and waddled across the runway between trios of aircraft roaring by One bundle chute burst open and contrary to one report we left it behind 81mm Mortar ammunition

When we were loading the spare plane we heard Lachmund having a rather violent discussion with the crew of the spare about who was going to Normandy Nelson must have been the senior officer because he ended the discussion and boarded the plane Airborne over England and all the way to our drop I stood in the door with another of our battalion officers Bill Gary killed in action In Holland and with Sgt Lachmund so Lachmund saw everything I saw We were alone 3 planes I never saw another aircraft I recall critiquing Nelson mentally as follows Well he is OK he saw the blinking light on the submarine he made the left turn we're doing fine etc etc We saw the ChanneI Islands clearly and made landfall well south of our intended route We were at 1500 1800 feet and I could see that the left plane was holding tight and of course found out the same was true of the plane on our right We had very few cloud problems if any just some isolated ground haze

I could see the silver ribbons of the Merderet and the Douve rivers and could even see the large volume of fire rising from the flak train we had been told was parked at St Sauvzeur le Vicomte far to the north I recall telling Lachmund to tell Nelson to turn left I had been drilled in the land features I could see the whole area just as the sand table had it I don't know if the message got through or not because we started to take some machine gun fire and suddenly we were down to 600 700 feet and popped out over the opposite beach In fact I compute now that we were exactly between the targeted UTAH and OMAHA landing beaches

TURNING THE RIGHT WAY

Clear sky bright moonlight the beach was a beautiful white strip and the water had some white caps It was quiet and calm compared to the ride across the peninsula Nelson snapped that C47 into a tight and wide open left turn I recall thinking he is turning the right way As soon as the direction stabilized on west we came under machine gun fire The first burst looked like it was coming straight for my forehead but it swept by in a gentle curve to the east The next burst caught us front to rear The plane took a sudden lurch lost some more altitude and roared back up to speed Nelson had evidently set up for the GO light as soon as he completed the turn I found out later that he and some others of the crew had been wounded

This first burst nicked Bill Gary across the nose and I caught a 9mm round in the jaw It knocked me back but I bounced back into the door and as the green light snapped on I kept right on going out of the plane As it turned out the full bore Jump saved us because our chutes snapped open with such speed I know I oscillated just once or twice and hit the ground hard

Your guys did a great job considering the circumstances Three planes alone out over the opposite shore and then directly into a flurry of flak and fire yet the three planes stayed so tight I had my entire platoon of 50 troopers all together by 6 00 that morning I hit the ground at 1 30AM As it turns out the low altitude was a break also not one man was fired at in the air I had to leave seven men behind in a French home when I left at 8 00AM All had jump injuries broken arms two broken ankles a wrenched back etc By D plus 3 or 4 all were on medical ships headed for England

We left one broken mortar but found every single bundle That's one hell of a tight jump even by Fort Bragg training standards I found my regiment on D 3 without losing another man The medics dug the machine gun round out of my chin at that time and I still have it Evidently it was a tracer with the phosphorus used up and therefore light enough to just slide under my skin