Written by Andy Rooney, this three column article concerned the seldom remembered efforts of a French airborne battalion that jumped into Brittany on D-Day in order to disrupt German communications.
Click here to read more about W.W. II parachute infantry…
Click here to read about the first American Paratrooper.
This one page article from YANK MAGAZINE by Irwin Swerdlow will give you a sense of the Herculean task that was involved in the transporting of so many men and supplies across the English Channel to breach Rommel’s Atlantic Wall:
The biggest job of coordination that the world has ever known was under way. Thousands of things had to happen at a certain time, things which, if they did not happen, would delay the entire movement.
Click here to read about unloading supplies on Iwo Jima.
In the first 48 hours the Canadians had captured a dozen towns, taken more than 600 prisoners, stopped a small enemy tank force outside Caen and then joined the British in repeated attacks on Caen.
The battle of the hedgerows as experienced by the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division:
They all had been fighting since D-Day. Compared with the obstacles at the beginning of their drive, the hill they had just taken was only a minor deal, but it was no push-over. At some places, one paratrooper told me, the fighting was so close the Krauts didn’t even bother to throw their grenades, they just handed them over to us.
If you ever wondered why The National W.W. II Museum is located in New Orleans rather than West Point, Annapolis or the nation’s capitol – the answer can be spoken in two words: Andrew Higgins. Higgins was the innovator who designed and manufactured the landing crafts that made it possible for the Allied forces to land on all those far-flung beaches throughout the world and show those Fascists dogs a thing or two. His factory, Higgins Industries, was located on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans and it was for this reason that the museum board of directors chose to doff their collective caps, and erect their repository in his home town.
Attached is a five page photo-essay about Higgins and all that he was doing to aid in the war effort.
An eye-witness account of the U.S. Army Ninth Air Force A-20 bombers as they made their runs on D-Day:
There was no time to lose on this mission. Hitler’s armies might well be driving over those crossroads toward the beachheads at this minute. This was not just an ordinary mission. It was the beginning of a mission that some day might end all combat missions.
‘There’s London.’ Rafalow announced, over the intercom.
I glanced down. The acres of buildings looked quiet and peaceful.
You’d almost think there wasn’t a war on.’
A few minutes later his voice came over the intercom again, but this time it was high-pitched with excitement. We were over the English Channel where it was quite obvious there was a war on.
‘By God, look at the ships!’ he yelled.
D-Day for my outfit was a long, dull 24-hour wait. We spent the whole day marooned in the middle of the English Channel, sunbathing, sleeping and watching the action miles away on the shore through binoculars. We could hear the quick roars and see the greenish-white flashes of light as Allied Battleships and cruisers shelled the pillboxes and other German installations on the beach.
On D-plus-one we took off for shore. Four Messerschmidtts dove down to strafe the landing crafts as we headed in, but a Navy gunner drove them off with a beautiful burst of ack-ack…
About the Russians in Normandy…and they weren’t much help to Adolf, either. Here are two stories, one of which tells how Russians, captured and forced to fight for the enemy, turned the tables on Jerry; the other which tells what happened when the Americans liberated Russian prisoners from a concentration camp.
As increasing aerial bombardment of Nazi-occupied Europe mounted in Fury day after day, every American civilian was talking last week about when and how the actual land invasion of the continent would begin.
Newspaper editors were already dragging out their largest headline type, and when more than 40 top Washington correspondents were called to the White House for what turned out to be a routine announcement, telephone lines from a dozen National Press building offices were being kept open in case this was ‘it’
Invasion, however, will not begin until the Nazis have been virtually knocked out of the sky. The target of the moment, therefore, is the German air force. …From 500 airdromes scattered throughout Britain, Allied planes fly night and day – frequently every hour of the 24 – some in fleets of a thousand or more to battle the Luftwaffe…Air war as such is almost over in Europe; the Allied infantryman is preparing now to march across a continent, battling along a ‘road’ already cut wide and long by bombers and fighters four miles upward.
A small notice from a post D-Day YANK announced the capture of a German woman sniper named, Myra.
Click here if you would like to read about women combatants during W.W. I.
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