Jack Womer experience:

Jack Womer jumped as the sixteenth man in the stick. He landed in a deep ditch of the swamp and nearly drowned, but the “wind of the Lord” caught his chute and pulled him out, then dragged him into shallower water. He could hear Krauts screaming all around him. He figured that they were evidently more scared than the paratroopers.

Jack moved to high ground but ran into wire. He then retreated back into the swamp where he met up with a lieutenant and nine other paratroopers. Since he had been out of the swamp they asked him to lead them down a road where they might link up with somebody else. He walked point. When a twenty-millimeter cannon opened up on him, Jack walked back and told the lieutenant that a drainage ditch would give them protection. They decided to continue down the road with Jack about twenty yards out in front of the scouts. A voice warned him, “What are you doing out there?” So he jumped into the ditch. The others came up and the lieutenant decided to flank the cannon. About that time the Germans sent up a flare. The paratroopers froze as they had been trained, then the twenty millimeter killed nearly half of the party. The rounds sprayed dirt on Jack’s head. When the flare burned out, Jack ran out into a wheatfield with three other guys. He was crawling on his hands and knees when a mortar round landed right next to him. It blew him backwards. When he checked himself, to his amazement, the explosion had only singed his left sleeve.

At daylight, he found a bunch of 501st guys walking up the road. He warned

them about the twenty millimeter, then wanted to go and check on the wounded up the road. A captain told him instead to go back down the other way to find others. As he started walking back a voice again warned him not to go down that road. He stopped just in time as the enemy fired down the road. He then continued in the same direction and passed a paratrooper with a broken leg. He asked for a medic and Jack assured him that he would return with one. As Jack continued he came across a bunch of paratroopers waiting in a ditch. He asked if any of them were from the 506th. He felt it would be safer to have some company moving through the countryside. About a dozen men stood up and followed him to a house where a captain had established a defensive position.

Jack then put his men on line. Jack found a medic and headed back to the paratrooper with the broken leg. As he jumped over a drainage ditch he looked back and the medic was gone. About halfway through the woods he ran across a man wounded in the arm and leg. He found other paratroopers, only to learn that the man with the broken leg had been killed. He then led that group of paratroopers back and recovered the other wounded man. He placed them in a defensive line, then assumed responsibility for the 506th men at “Hell’s Corners” near la Barquette. On one occasion he was sniping on German positions from a tree. Suddenly an eighty-eight shell narrowly missed him but knocked him from the tree. On the second day, the 1st Battalion of the German 6th Paratrooper Regiment approached unaware of the paratroopers. The Americans held their fire until the Germans were close, then they surprised them with an ambush. Over a hundred Germans surrendered. The Americans herded the Germans out onto a road along the dike. They had them strip off the camouflage smocks which they wore over their blue uniforms. About that time a German mortar barrage landed among them but the Krauts could not run because GIs were dug in all around them. The mortars killed nearly all of the Germans. Jack saw one wounded German who looked fourteen years old. He read the fear in his eyes so Jack picked him up and took him back to the house for treatment. When others asked why he was out on the road, Jack just told them he was the runner.

The wounded were still lying everywhere moaning.

After six or seven days of fighting, an officer came over and told Jack that the 506th was coming up to relieve them. The officer said he had kept a record of what Jack had done and that he could go back with them for a rest instead of going right back into action with his unit. Jack followed the 501st back.

Lieutenant Mellen experience:

Was the officer who took us in. Someone reported to Regiment that he had been wounded as many as three or four times because he had lived long enough to bandage his wounds. Joe Oleskiewicz had seen him before he was killed. Another boy said he died trying to knock out three machinegun nests, which was not very good odds. They found his body the next morning.

That was the common belief of what happened to Lieutenant Charles Mellen. Frank Palys, however, discovered his body in the middle of a field.

Mellen’s body was in a crawling position with his right leg pulled up and his carbine cradled in his arms. He was shot twice in the left side. Mellen had evidently died instantly from machine-gun fire. (Frank Palys to Laura

Erickson, Jan 14, 1994.) Lt John H. Reeder, who was with Palys when he discovered Mellen’s body, reported it to Regimental S-1 on June 9 (“Journals.”)

George Baran experience:

Baran was hit very soon in Normandy. The Germans shot him in the head with a wooden bullet. They were made of hard wood that would splinter easily. They could shoot someone right between the eyes with one and it would not kill them but the splinters would go all through the head. The red, green, and black dyes in them would cause a heck of an infection that required a lot of care. The Germans used them to occupy ten men for every wounded man.

Baran was hit in the temple right above the eye. It just shattered and went all over his head. That green dye stayed with him forever. It looked like someone had taken a tattoo needle and jabbed him all over his face. It was still visible after the war was over.

George Baran was captured after being wounded then sent to a German

hospital near Cherbourg. He was freed when Cherbourg fell to the

Americans.

Jhon Hale experience:

Peepnuts Hale had jumped out with the second half of the stick. He was killed attacking his third machine gun nest.

Hale and Cone landed almost simultaneously with a German between them.

Cone fired first and killed the German. Peepnuts was killed two weeks later

on June 20. “‘He was right behind me,’ Oleskiewicz said. ‘We were crawling across a field after getting a machine-gun nest. I heard a single

shot, turned around and “Peepnuts” was dead.’”

George Radeka experience: 

Nobody knows what happened to Googoo Radeka. They just found his body.

“‘None of us saw him,’ McNiece explained. ‘But we heard from the group

he joined that he went with them to clean out three machine-gun nests. He

got it at the third.’”

Rolland Baribeau experience:

I do not know what happened to Baribeau either. I was surprised Baribeau did not last any longer than he did because he spoke fluent French. He was tough. I figured he would come through that whole show without a scratch.

Rasmussen was shown the grave and dog tags of Baribeau right after he was

captured. Evidently, Frenchy had landed in the same vicinity as Rasmussen

near Montebourg.

Robert Cone experience:

Cone jumped in the middle of his stick and landed in the hedgerows with another paratrooper from his squad. The two fought off Germans armed with machine pistols. During the fight, the Germans sprayed the hedgerow and hit Cone below the right shoulder, breaking his arm. One round hit the other paratrooper in the head killing him instantly. Wounded, Cone could no longer fire his M1 Garand so he made his way out of there to a French farmhouse. Afraid the Germans would kill him for being a Jew, he pushed his dog tags into the ground. After Lieutenant Alex Bobuck turned in Cone’s dog tags, he was listed as killed in action. His parents even received payments on his insurance policy.

Cone had the farmer hide him. After two days the farmer turned him in to the Germans. They treated his arm, then transferred him to a prison camp.

"Lt. Alex Bobuck was captured but escaped. He turned Cone’s dog tags in to

Regimental S-1 on June 7 and reported that Cone had been wounded. 

Charles Lonegran claimed to have seen Ragsman Cone at the

German hospital in Cherbourg."

Rasmussen & Trigger Gann experience: 

Those C-47s always had a pilot, a co-pilot, and a crew

chief. In flight, the crew chief looked at Rass’s explosive package and asked, “What are you doing with that thing? Are you going to jump with that thing on your leg?”

Rass said, “Yeah, I’ve got a cotter pin here.” It was tied to a rope which was attached to his belt. “When the chute opens I’ll just whip that key out of there and it will drop down to the end of that rope. That will take that hundred and five pounds off of me as I land.”

Rasmussen pulled the key out and showed him how it worked, then he tried to

put it in. He had so much crap on that he could not. So the crew chief said, “I’ll put it in,” but he put it in backwards.

When Rass jumped out and that chute opened, he tried to release that

flamethrower but he could not pull out the cotter key. So he landed with it on his leg. He sprained both of his ankles. To walk he had to balance himself with both his hands outstretched. He was trying to work his way out of there to a ditch and there were Krauts all around him just shooting up a storm. One bullet hit him in the elbow and it ricocheted down to his belly.

He and Trigger Gann landed together. They were about four miles from where

we landed. Trigger poured a whole bunch of sulfur powder on his arm. Then he told Rasmussen, “Rass, I’m going out of here. I’ll give you a couple of shots of morphine and I’ll come back. I’ve got this job to do and need to get out of here.”

Trigger went off to fighting around there and the Krauts just pushed him in and out of every hedgerow in there. By the time it quieted down he headed back to take care of Rass but he never could find him.

To this day Rasmussen hates Trigger Gann with a purple passion because he

feels that Trigger deserted him, which I do not think is the truth.

Trigger told Jake:

"Rasmussen did not join back up with the company for about four or five days. He told someone that he had this bullet in his belly and it was hurting, not all the time but if he made a quick move or he sneezed or coughed or hit the dirt quickly it was pretty painful. He said, “I would like to see this officer who is examining all these wounds. I would like to get that thing cut out.”

They asked him how it got into his belly and he told them, “I don’t know.”

We had this doctor who was out of a field hospital about two miles south of us.

Rass told him about that bullet in his belly.

He said, “Let me see your belly.”

Rass pulled his shirt apart and the guy looked it over. He said, “I don’t see any bullet holes, son. I don’t even see any discoloration.”

Rass said, “I got hit in the elbow.”

The doctor asked, “How did it get in your belly?”

Rass said, “Look, I’m not a medical man. I don’t know. It’s right there. You can feel it.”

The doctor then asked, “Is it getting too tough for you up here, son?”

Rass answered, “I want to tell you, you son-of-a-bitch, if it was too rough for me up here you wouldn’t be around asking me any questions. You would have been long gone. It ain’t too rough for me. I’ve got this bullet in my belly and I would like to get it out. It’s painful.”

The guy said, “I’m going to send you back to the field hospital. They’ve got X-ray equipment down there and you had better have a bullet in your belly.”

Rass said, “That’s no problem. Just get me down there to where I can get it taken care of.”

They took him down there and X-rayed him. They could see scars and bruises on these bones up his arms and into his shoulder. It stopped down there in the wall of his stomach. They told Rass, “The bullet’s there. We can operate and take it out but if we do, this will cut a bunch of nerves and muscle tissue. You might have trouble with it the rest of your life. If you just want to leave it in there, if it is not too painful, probably in another three or four weeks you won’t even know you’ve got it.”

Rass said, “If that’s the medical analysis, I’ve got to take your word. I don’t know.”

"They sent him right back to duty that very day. He never missed a day of combat and still has that bullet in his belly to this day."

“‘I helped him through two fields before we ran into an aid man, he [Trigger Gann] said. ‘Then I went back to pick up our knives and some equipment. I got into a fight with some Germans and I had to leave Rasputin rather than reveal his position.’ When he came back Rasputin was gone.” Rasmussen said he broke his ankle because a leg pack would not release and Gann did not find an aid man."

About Rass:

The Germans captured him a few days later and took him to a hospital in Volognes then to Cherbourg where they placed him in a pill box with a red cross painted on it.

There he ran into George Baran. They were scheduled to move to Brest one

evening but the Allies bombed the nearby submarine pens, so they stayed.

He remained a prisoner for 30 days until the Americans finally took

Cherbourg. Because of the broken ankle Rass could no longer jump so he

was transferred to the gliders and fought all the way through to Berchtesgaden.

Jake McNiece experience:

Jake landed in an open space about two miles from Ste. Mère-Église. This place was located about twelve kilometers from the bridges. It turned out that it was a camping site of the Germans. These were situated in trenches arranged like a checkerboard, Jake landing right in the middle. The Germans quickly left their positions. Joe Oleskiewicz was fighting on one side and Jake on the other, but they couldn't get together.

Louis Lipp experience:

Loulip jumped out of the plane in front of McNiece, landing on an asphalt road. It was very difficult to distinguish between a clean, hard, resistant surface and a stream of water. Lou landed in the driveway, Jake thinks he broke his back landing. Lipp couldn't get the harness off, it was lying there when Jake passed by, but she couldn't see him. Lipp had no salvation, he only said

- Baseball and Bill Lee.

Jack Agnew experience:

Jack Agnew landed at Saint-Côme-du-Mont, near a German battalion command post, nearly a mile from his objective. When he landed the muzzle of his Springfield stuck in the mud and the butt dislocated his shoulder. He landed near a hedge as the Germans ran up and down the road.

Mike Marquez experience:

Mike Marquez landed in a swamp near Jack Agnew, when he took out of his backpack the three disassembled parts of his M1 Garand the trigger part fell into the water and he couldn't find it.