Normandy (continued)

Shower of Frogs - William J Stigall, Jr.

More from Chapter 13 on the invasion of Normandy

We were awakened in the dark on June 7. We ate, were transported to the field, walked to the gliders, got in. The pilots arrived; we chatted awhile. And then we waited. Shortly before dawn the C-47s on our flanks warmed up, first one motor, then the other. Gradually they built up to full throttle, diminished the power, and began taxiing in from right and left in front of the massed gliders. One by one, with precision timing, the men, working in pairs, hooked the two ends of the tow rope to the glider and to the C-47 approximately three hundred feet away. The tow plane made taut the nylon rope and upon signal gunned wide open down the runway with the prop wash blasting against the glider, making it rise and bobble and filling it with a deafening roar. We lifted off the English earth. Glider after glider after glider left the ground, circled in the brightening day, and maneuvered into position.

It was barely light and I could see eight hundred feet below me, as if through a gauze, the gentle, peaceful, beautiful English countryside, the small divisions of land, red-bricked houses, cattle, and now and then, the slow movement of early-rising people. No music in any form would ever be needed to accompany any film of such an event. The powerful music of hundreds of motors, of the mass gunning of plane after plane roaring wide open throttle pushing a potent prop wash against the fragile glider creating within it an enforced silence-this would be music enough.

Two important thoughts never occurred to me on the flight.

The trip was so exciting, the flight so inevitable and irresistible in its search for a target, and it all happened so fast, in so short a time, that I never gave a thought to falling in the water or that there might not be room for all of us on the approaching fields.

We crossed safely over the coast (the French coast, I guessed). We continued inland for a minute or two, dutifully following the C-47 as it banked to the right. By now we must have been going 140 miles per hour, at about 800 feet, probably less. I could determine nothing special about the land below us. If we were being fired at, I never heard or saw it. The ground seemed marshy, woody, and green. Small fields suddenly began to appear. Without warning the roar in the glider stopped. We experienced that moment of great beauty, of almost absolute silence. Either w􀄩 were cut off by the C-47 or our pilot cut us from the tow plane. We made a wide silent swoop and dropped quickly.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see other gliders moving earthward. I also saw numerous C-47s banking and turning in every direction. Beside me I could hear Gerry cursing, even louder than I, and saying forcefully, "'Get this damn thing on the ground."

Once over the initial shock, we scrambled through the door of the glider, more than anything else just to get the hell out of it. Once out, we stood about looking around us. We looked at the glider and the country surrounding us. The pilots climbed out of their perch in the snout. We asked each other how the other was. All were standing.

We soon recognized rifle fire and eventually the special sound of mortar shells sailing through the air. Slowly it came to one of us, the corporal probably, that we ought to get the jeep out of the glider. At that moment a mortar shell burst someplace near us. At first there was no reaction, except a looking at one another. Another burst came closer. We took off for the hedge. Several more bursts landed in the vicinity, close to the glider. Only then did it come to me that I was being fired upon by the enemy and that I was in combat.

That was the beginning of the war.


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More to follow ...