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Liberation day, after the fight and capture of the German 88mm guns, relieved Dutch civilians come out of their homes. Pictured on top is Pfc. Bernard B. Tom, S/Sgt. Hugh G. Borden and T/5 Clyde E. Jeffers, 2nd Platoon, F Company, 506th PIR pause for one of the first photos taken after the paratroopers entered the town of Eindhoven. Nineteen year old Pfc. Tom would be killed later in action on the Island on October 9, 1944. The general friendliness…..
The elimination of this German 88mm gun (there were two) by F Company, 506th PIR at the entry of Eindhoven cleared the way to the city. The barrel was pointed towards Kloosterdreef Straat and fired three shots point blank at Pvt. Robert W. Sherwood and S/Sgt. John H. Taylor the the 1st squad clearing their heads by only ten feet and damaging some houses in the process. The guns were hit directly with a rifle grenade by Pvt. Homer Smith…..
This can be said of all youth of today. But the focus of this article is on OSWIECIM, Poland — As one gazes out from the main watchtower at the grim desert that is the crumbling chimneys and crematories, vanished prisoners’ huts, barbed wire and ditches of Birkenau, it is hard to fathom that there were corners of the Nazi realm where, collectively, more killing occurred than in the death camps. Yesterday was the 69th anniversary of the day Soviet…..
It’s a long way from the Civil War, when soldiers lived for months at a time on a mixture of beef, peas and rice and far improved from the U.S. Army rations delivered to the soldiers like your fathers and mine during WWII. The stereotype about terrible Army food no longer seems to apply as the U.S. military has turned its focus in recent years to improving the variety and quality of rations provided to soldiers on battlefields around the…..
My 101st Airborne father used to say, “We all have our cross to bear.” I was intrigued and puzzled by this statement, for in my child’s eyes, my father could do no wrong. And even though many years later, certain things came into play, he can still do no wrong. For those of you following my daily Comes A Soldier’s Whisper postings paying homage to our veterans and history, I rarely touch on the combat fatigue aspect, but when I…..
Three words seldom used together. True words as spoken by Carol Schultz Vento who in her book, The Hidden Legacy of World War II, A Daughter’s Journey of Discovery, weaves life with her paratrooper father into the larger narrative of World War II and the homecoming of the Greatest Generation. Her book describes the seldom told story of how the war trauma of World War II impacted one family. War changes a soldier. It changes the family too. I can…..
It’s December 1944 on the northern outskirts of Bastogne Belgium, near Longchamps, 20 year old Private Leopold Martin from Lewiston, Maine is hunkered down in a foxhole. For weeks, he fights hunger, pneumonia and frostbite as mush as his platoon is fighting the German shelling and siege. Food is scarce. He was able to scrounge scraps and potato peels from locals for his buddies because he speaks French. They refuse to surrender to the Germans, the weather gets better and…..
First of the elite corps of parachuting parsons developed to keep step with the airborne troops was Captain Manus “John” McGettigan, a 31 year-oldd Episcopalian from Brooklyn, New York. He was the newly assigned Catholic Chaplain for troops of the 506th PIR who joined the unit in August 1944. Father McGettigan jumped into battle armed only with the items necessary to look after the spiritual lives of his men, as the Geneva Convention forbids ministers who accompany combat troops as…..
As paratroopers walked along the curving road into Son, Holland in September 1944, an 88mm gun positioned between them and the bridge. It opened fire with two quick rounds. The leading platoon circled behind the houses west of the road, and approached the German gun within fifty yards. Pvt. Thomas G. Lindsey fired one round with his bazooka, putting the gun out of action and killing one of the German crew members. The other six crew members tried to run…..
