RIGHT ON THE BUTTON

You should know and it is important to me that you do that my company commander Captain Malcom Brannen was dropped exactly where he was supposed to be in the middle of our drop zone just 1 4 of a mile from the German Beach commander's Headquarters So when this German general started for the beach UTAH at 7 or 8 00AM his VW later called The Thing in America ran into Malcom's ambush and thus ended General Falley's life My 3 rd Battalion mortar platoon lost its 1 st man by enemy fire on June 18 th but from then on it got worse We lost eight wounded In action and three killed In action on June 20 th alone Our regiment

508 th fought constantly for 33 days as shock troops for the regular infantry until July 3 rd and 4 th when we were so decimated we couldn't function as a unit It is interesting to note here that the 4 th Division on UTAH Beach which had airborne activities between them and any German reinforcements sustained only 200 casualties While OMAHA Beach that had no airborne support sustained 3,000 About 2,000 of these are estimated to have been Killed In Action

THE 29 th TROOP CARRIER SQUADRON HISTORIAN REPORTS ON THE SAME FLIGHT

Joseph Harkewiecz Col USAF Ret documented this incident in his book WE ARE THE 29TH Troop Carrier squadron

The 29 th Troop Carrier Squadron was briefed and instructed very much the same as all others that day They were to drop American paratroopers of the 82 nd Airborne Division on the Cotentin Peninsula of France to prevent the German inland divisions from responding to the invasion and to keep the approaches open for our assault forces from UTAH Beach to the interior But this report starts with the end of a three day pass in Leeds The narrator is Sgt Robert Lachmund the crew chief on the plane that dropped Neal Beaver and his paratroops

LACHMUND: There was a tapping on the bedroom door and I realized that my three day pass was for all intents and purposes over I was in Leeds where many of the members of the 29th spent their passes It was about 6 00AM June 5 and I had to get the train to Grantham

It was about a four hour ride to Grantham and when we arrived we found that the trucks that usually met us were not to be found Not only that but we could not find any other 29th men in our usual haunts After a lot of hassle I finally got thru by telephone to Captain Cobbe the Adjutant He told me that he could not talk on the phone but that 1 should get out to the base as soon as possible and bring anyone else from the squadron along with me We hopped a cab and got to the main gate where we were refused admittance The people on guard were members of the 29th and we had known some of them since we got into the squadron in Florence Captain Cobbe finally came to the gate and got matters straightened out and we were allowed to enter He updated us on what was happening namely that today was to be D Day

I changed clothes and headed for the line and talked to my assistant He assured me that the plane was ready but neglected to tell me that the radiomen had been working on the radio I also found out that Bob Nelsen was going to be the pilot because Fitzpatrick my regular pilot was going to fly with someone from Group The rest of the crew was the same

Up to this time things had been bad enough but from here on in they went downhill in a hurry The paratroopers came out and we attached the parapacks We loaded up and when the order to start engines was given ours would not start We tried hand cranking but only succeeded in sticking the solenoids Soon it was obvious that our bird was not going to fly that night OK Joe we've got to take the standby plane We alerted our paratroopers and they sprang into action and transferred all their gear including parapacks to the reserve airplane It didn't take fifteen minutes before we had made the transfers and had engines started Nelson's wingmen Kerr and Kreiser had waited for him The aircraft that flew that day was C 47 42 32810 chalk number 52 The crew was Pilot 1 st Lt Nelsen Robert NMI Co Pilot 1 st Lt Denson Joseph D Navigator 2 nd Lt 2nd Lt Connors Walter W Radio Operator SSgt Aldrich William F Crew chief Sgt Lachmund Robert A

BOB NELSEN:  We led our individual flight out to the run up position All the other birds had gone south We took off got our flight together and headed for Bournemouth on the south coast of England We didn't see any of the thousands of airplanes that were in the air that night We flew southwest over the channel and turned east Hoboken and flew between the Channel Islands What a greeting Tracers were coming up from both sides Fortunately we were out of range of their guns Soon the coast of France loomed up in front of us I told Joe that we were going to make our own invasion with just our three plane flightWe made landfall where we were supposed to and started looking for signs of the DZ It wasn't there

CONNORS where in hell is it It wasn't to be I guess the pathfinders ran out of candles Then all hell broke loose Tracers were coming at us from all directions We continued to look for some sign

ALDRICH can't you get any radio signal from the Drop Zone That wasn't to be either Soon another beach loomed up ahead Joe we've gone a beach too far We've got to go around I set up a wide turn to the left I set it up so we would pass over the site where we estimated the DZ to be Tracers continued to light up the night It looked ominous We completed our 360 degree turn and slowed down to drop our stick of paratroopers Finally the ground fire got us What a racket As far as I know our troops all got out per schedule

WE WENT AROUND AGAIN

LACHMUND: We went around again and that is when we were hit I cannot remember if paratroopers jumped when we were hit or if they had already jumped but it was close I grabbed the manual release for the parapacks because the box at the door had been hit and I did not know if they had been released There was some yelling going on up front and after I pulled in the static lines I went toward the cockpit

The first person I met was Bill Aldrich The left side of his face looked as though it had been hit by a porcupine One of the bullets had gone through the navigator's table and the splinters lodged in his face and some had pierced his eyelid On getting to the cockpit I found that Nelsen had taken one through his leg and that Joe Denson was flying the plane from the right seat The left control column was useless The shot that wounded Nelsen took the skin off of Denson's flack jacket An inch further back and this would not have been written

Connors and I got some morphine into Nelsen with Connors doing the honors I got under Nelsen's shoulders and tried to lift him out of the seat while Joe flew with one hand and tried to support his leg with the other We finally got him out of the cockpit and onto a litter Connors and Aldrich stayed with him while I went back to the cockpit

JOE DENSON We got shot up pretty bad Nelsen took a hit in the leg Aldrich took one in the face Conners had one in the butt and Lachmund caught a piece of shrapnel in the hand All crewmen except me sustained injuries although flak did penetrate my flak suit I looked over at Nelsen he seemed to be nodding The troops had jumped and I didn't know he was hit

NELSEN I had been hit but didn't know it for several minutes The first indication I had was that my left foot wouldn't respond I yelled at Joe to take over and head for the channel Fortunately we were not able to detect any loss of oil or fuel We were all excited I instructed Joe to get to 4 350 degrees direct course to South Hampton and hightail it for England and the emergency strip Good old Bob Lachmund had put a tourniquet on my left leg to stop the bleeding and he gave me a morphine shot I wasn't feeling a bit good I began to sweat I never sweated like that in my entire life I never knew what trauma was before that time After we settled down on a course to England

Bob pulled me out of the cockpit and got me stretched out on the bucket seats in the cabin That's all I remember until we passed over the emergency landing strip and Bob fired the red flare to alert the ground medical crew The medics put me on a stretcher and into an ambulance that took me too a general hospital five miles away It was about 0430 when at the emergency room they began debriding wound cleaning procedures The doctor asked me where I had been When I told him that we had dropped paratroopers in France and the invasion was on he didn't believe me Nothing was announced until 0600 that same day

DENSON All the crewmembers of that plane went to the hospital except me The medics at first sight thought I had also been hit I was splattered with blood mostly from Bob Lachmund's hand as he performed cockpit duties Nelsen's wounds were severe while those of the other crewmen were considered slight The British doctors gave me a few swigs of scotch later a bottle of gin