Duck hunting. If you think about duck hunting it seems like a fun event. Most of the time you get to hold your first shotgun and watch as your father laughs at you when you attempt to shoot a bird and the shotgun knocks you on your butt. It can also show a dark past if you concentrate on it.

Shortly after midnight on 6 June, over 18,000 men of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division were dropped into Normandy. Allied paratroopers and glider-borne infantry were well trained and highly skilled, but for many, this was their first experience of combat. You are now thinking what does duck hunting have to do with the most tragic event in history, D-day. Well, as the C-47s made their way over Normandy it wasn’t exactly where you would want to jump out of a plane.

If it still was a plane, you see the C-47s (the planes that carried the paratroopers) were experiencing heavy flak fire as they flew over Normandy. If your plane was hit in one of the two engines it would catch fire, since you are moving so fast the fire would trail off of the engine into the cockpit and the fuselage. Which burned alive all the men on board. Like a duck, it slowly falls out of the sky just as a stricken C-47 does. If you were lucky on D-day you had just jumped out of a C-47 that was heading straight towards the ground in a ball of fire. Now you are defenseless parachuting down to earth with 100 or so other paratroopers hoping to not get shot out of the sky, as you wait for your feet to feel the earth for the first time in 6 hours. Once you are on the ground you quickly scoop up your parachute and gun. While you run across the seemingly never-ending field hoping for a bullet to not come in your way.

While in a dead sprint you step over brave men as they sit there lifeless or in extreme pain and you can’t do anything but watch. Running and running you now entering the woods where you meet up with your company officer. He will give you further instructions to advance. As you advance it comes to mind that the beaches are behind you and the heart of the enemy in front of you. “You are where a para-trooper should be, surrounded,” says First Sergeant Bowman, no way out I thought. When coming to the realization that your company has been tasked with cutting off the main german supply line carrying big guns, and tanks. It will be no easy task, especially for 15 men.

It is now 5 AM as you trudge through the forests when you come to your first rest. The only reason for rest was enemy activity, as 2 jeeps just arrived in a small town. Your friend McLlarky and the maniac he is jumping onto the bridge with his Thompson gun and blazes down the germans. When you get onto the bridge you see a dozen Germans dead and 3 injured waiting to be put out of their misery as they scream. When you hop onto what wasn’t a jeep but a carriage you see dozens of loaves of bread as well as 10 full canteens of water.

You hear shots so you gather what you can then you “SCRAM!” yells First Lieutenant Pierson as a German V2 rocket penetrates the jeep and it suddenly is engulfed in yellow and orange flames. You regain footing and jump off of the bridge and fall about 6 feet before you land and McLarky pulls you into a bush. “Stay down as you run, I will provide cover fire,” he says. “What about you? Won’t you die?” I say back. “Do you think I am ready to go down, Staff Sergeant?” I nodded back as a confirmation then I got ready to go to an all-out sprint. “GO GO GO!” he screams at me. I am running faster than I ever thought I could go and dove into a bush scraping my face and arms. I look behind me and I see an American tank ready to make way for us to continue on our journey.

It didn’t take long for the tank to clear the way. Shortly after I watched in amazement as 5 F4Fs flew overhead, one had bullet wounds on its right-wing. “The sight of American airpower,” McLarky said. I hadn’t noticed he had come up next to me, I was glad he was here as his bravery had pretty much saved me. “Gather up and let’s start advancing to Carenton,” Pierson calls out to the company. We pick up our guns and canteens and we start heading to Carenton. I am glad Pierson knows where he is going, cause I don’t have a single clue where we’re headed. (To be continued)