June 17, 2025 • 22 mins
Doug Hess is the host!
Ernie Pyle WWII Museum is in Dana Indiana!
Ernie Pyle WWII Museum is in Dana Indiana!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast, your podcast of Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is Doug Casse and I am your host. Now if
you're tuning into the Arni Pole World War Two Museum
Podcast for the first time, what we do on this
podcast to share with you pieces of piles life from
ensemble beginning on an Indiana farm to becoming a poste
(00:37):
surprise winning American journalist and war correspondent who is best
knowing for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World
War Two. But today we have a very special guest
with us today, author James Darnovan, and he is talking
about his latest book, Nothing But Courage, the eighty second Airbornes,
Daring D Day Mission and their heroic charge again the
(01:00):
laflaiir Bridge. James, Welcome to the Only Power World War
Two Museum Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hey Doug, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's our pleasure. Thank you for coming on. It's been
in a few minutes with us today, and what we'd
like to do with all of our authors is kind
of ask you that first question and allow you the
opportunity to give our listeners an overview of what this
book is about.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well, this is a D Day story and if you
know D Day, and most of us do, but just
for Quarly Brimmer, there were five beaches, the too farthest
west we're American. The farthest the fourth one from the end,
was Omaha, of course, and then the farthest west one
(01:45):
was Utah. And they decided that they could only land
at Utah if they dropped two of our airborne divisions
there behind lines to keep the Germans from reinforcing the
(02:06):
beach troops. And those two divisions were the one to
oh first part of which was Easy Company band of brothers,
and we know that story. And the other one that
was given the tougher job was the eighty second Airborne
because they had had some experience in Sicily and Italy.
They were dropped farther in Inland to take a couple
(02:30):
towns key crossroads towns, and blow two bridges across the
Duve River, and take two that across the murder A
River which ran south along the through the Cotentin Peninsula.
They wanted. The most important bridge was the Lafier Bridge,
(02:51):
which was an old two hundred year old bridge hardly
looked like a bridge. You wouldn't even know you were
going over a bridge if you didn't know it, I mean,
if you didn't know what you were looking for. About
sixty feet long, just three foot stone abutmans on either side,
and it went over a very gently flowing river called
the Murder Ray that ran north and south. They needed
(03:14):
to hold that bridge to keep the Germans from sending
reinforcements in, and they also needed it. They couldn't just
destroy it because they needed it to send troops west
along the neck of the Contentent Peninsula to seal it
off so German troops would not reinforce the share Board
(03:35):
Deep Water Port, which was on the northern tip of
the peninsula about thirty miles away, and they needed that
port to get men and material in for the build
up of troops to jump into. Hold on, let me
turn this off to jump into the to jump you
(03:59):
to drive through France into Germany. So they needed to
seal off the Cotenton Peninsula so German troops couldn't flow
up there and keep it from taking the Sheerberg Port.
The eighty second quickly, they dropped about between one and
two o'clock on D Day in the morning, about five
(04:19):
or six hours before the troops landed on Utah about
six thirty am. They took the town Sain Mary Glease
quickly about four o'clock, and they briefly held the Lafier Bridge,
but they couldn't hold it for long, and so it
became a standoff. The Germans threw their forces against it,
(04:41):
including three or four tanks. They held the bridge. The Americans,
the smaller American troops on the bridge on the west side,
on the east side of the bridge, and that was
the way it still stood. Three days later, when troops
from Utah were almost the bridge and they had to
take that bridge. General Matthew Ridgeway told his deputy commander,
(05:07):
James Gavin, General James Gavin, take that bridge, whatever you
need to do. He decided to order three companies one
battalion of glider troops, which had landed the day after
D Day on Deep Deep plus one. He decided to
send three companies straight across the bridge. Beyond the bridge
(05:29):
was five hundred miles of a causeway a road that
went straight to a teeny hamlet called Cookenye. The fields
around them had been deliberately flooded by the Germans, so
all that the only way to get to Cokeny across
the bridge was five hundred yards of this two length
thin two lane road about twenty twenty five yards, and
(05:51):
the Germans on the other side. There were at least
a couple of thousand of them, with dozens of machine
guns sighted down causeway and onto the bridge, mortars, tanks,
anti tank guns, howitzers, And that's how it stood on
the morning of d plus three, June ninth, at ten
(06:12):
forty five am, when they started the charge.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Now if I'm wrong, but from some of my research
and reading, I had read under the impression that Eisenhower.
General Eisenhower wasn't at first a huge fan of the airborne.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Is that true? Yeah, that's more or less true. He
wasn't convinced that they had a place in what was
then today's army. You know, they had tried a few
things and it hadn't gone well. They were still figuring
out how to make things work. They had dropped a
(06:55):
couple of regiments onto Sicily. One of them was the
five oh which was part of the eighty second, and
the drops had gone very awry. Some of them had
dropped twenty miles away from their drop points. It was
a mess, but they did organize most of them and
help take the island, so that was good. But he
(07:19):
still wasn't convinced that, you know, there was a need
for them. So this was really a case of put
up and shut up and show us what you got.
And Ridgeway and Gavin knew this, and then they were
confident their men had been their three regiments of paratroopers
and one regiment of glider troops all in all about
(07:41):
eighty five hundred men had been trained to access. They
were ready to go. They were all trained at least
a year, some of them fifteen eighteen months, so they
were very well trained and they had great leadership.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, now, James, I understand that you're during the riding
and the research to this book that you actually were
able to track down some of the eighty second airborn
moon that were there in their relatives. How was that
experience to be able to speak to some of the survivors.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well, you know, I've done a few three previous books,
two of them were on Old West subjects, and the
whole time I was researching them writing them, I thought, boy,
it would be great to talk to people who are
actually there during the event of which I'm writing. And
it was an honor because I talked to a dozen
of them. I think they're all gone now, but it
(08:36):
was a great honor for me because my father was
part of the Greatest generation. He was in the Merchant Marine,
and it was wonderful. They were my heroes. They still are.
Two or three of them had hearing problems. They could
talk perfectly fine, and they were sharp as anything. But
I had to write my questions on a white board
and erase it every few minutes. Not the optimal way, yeah,
(09:00):
to run run an interview, but they helped me tremendously,
giving me details that you know, you can add to
a narrative to bring it alive. So that was that
was an honor for me, and I was very lucky
because you know, I mean, D Day was this June.
In a few weeks, it'll be a couple of weeks,
it'll be eighty one years ago, and all these men
(09:24):
are one hundred or more, and you know, there's not
many of them.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Left, absolutely, and what they did was beyond courageous, I
agree at that moment. Were they reluctant to want to
talk to you and share your stories, because I know
sometimes when you talk about that great generation of World
War Two, a lot of them are just kind of
like they did their job and their duty and they
(09:48):
were wanting to move on and really not talk about it.
Did you run into any of that or were they
willing to sit down and kind of open up and
speak about this event.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, I'd always heard the same thing you had from many,
many people that you know. For the longest time, these
men they just it was a job they wanted to do.
They wanted to do it get back to their lives,
their homes, their families. And that's true. But I think
after a while, at a certain point, when they get
to a certain age, they did want to talk about
(10:20):
And I've heard that time and time again from writers, historians, researchers,
and family. You know. So by the time I got
to them about five four or five years ago, they
were all probably ninety five or older, and we're very
happy to talk about it because they had, you know,
any trauma had been worked out over decades and decades,
(10:44):
so that wasn't a problem anymore. But they did want
to talk about it because you know, for most of them,
it was probably the greatest thing they'd ever did, the
highlight of their life, and they wanted to talk about it. So, no,
there was no problem at this point.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well that's great. So let me ask you this, James, So,
doing the writing and the research, what surprised you the
most was there some surprises that you had came across.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
You know, what surprised me was how long these men trained.
You know, we the foot slaggers, you know, the regular infantry.
You know, everybody's heard that. You know, basic training is
about twelve weeks, thirteen weeks, and they do a little
more training and then they're sent off to battle. These
(11:34):
men were trained specifically for very difficult situations. Back then,
there were only two arms of the of the military
that were what we call elite forces. They didn't have seals,
they didn't have special forces. Back then, they had the
Army Rangers and then the Army's paratroopers, and these men
(11:55):
were the elite. They didn't take everybody. They were both volunteer.
They were trained, they went through basic training, and then
they were trained to jump out of airplanes and a
lot of them washed out. It was probably forty percent
or more of the men who had volunteered just couldn't.
They just couldn't do it at a certain point. So
(12:15):
it really was the toughest of the tough These guys
would during training here in the States and overseas where
they spent about three months in Ireland and and England training,
they would run all day. It was not uncommon for
them to do a problem where they would be dropped
(12:36):
one hundred and forty miles away and told to take
care of some problem, take a bridge, take an area,
something like that, and then get and then get back
to base in three days. And they did that all
the time. These guys, by the time they were they
jumped out of the airplane early in the morning of
June sixth, were so ready to jump on some it's
(13:00):
not funny.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Well, and I think you brung up a great question.
They've trained a year, some of them eighteen months, fifteen
eighteen months, as you said earlier, and so I can't
imagine what they were feeling during that night drop. There
was probably some anxiousness saying, hey, let's get on with this.
We've been training for a year, year and a half.
(13:25):
I'm ready to go. But I would also think there'd
be a little bit of I don't know if I
want to use the word fear, but uncertainty or because
they really didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Either.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, and no good points. And a lot of them,
you know, admitted, yeah, we were a little scared. You
know what they were scared of. They were scared very
much of letting their buddies down. Wow. And they were trained.
They had jumped out of planes dozens of times, so
that wasn't a problem. They were trained in all kinds
(14:01):
of arms, close combat, you know, shoulder arms and even
German German arms. They were very well trained. The funny
thing was most a lot of them took some dramamine
to keep them awake, to keep them from getting airsick,
(14:23):
and it put a lot of them to sleep. So
many many accounts talk about almost every man in a
in a C. Forty seven of about you know, a
stick is what they called, you know, a plane full
of men, a stick of eighteen men. Most of them
would be sound asleep halfway across the English Channel. It
took about two or two and a half hours for
them to get over there. And so they jump out
(14:46):
and they were you know, barely awake some of them.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Wow. Wow, that's that's really interesting because I can't imagine
getting ready to go jump out of an airplane into
the unknown like that and you've got half of them
week just odd, you know, to hear that. But I
can understand why because of the sickness in terms of
that just really incredible. The courage that they had to
(15:12):
be able to do that. I also understand from reading
your book that they lost about three dozen men because
of drowning because of over They basically overshot their drop zone.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well the drops were a mess because they came from them.
They didn't fly over from the east side across across
the bridges, I mean not the bridges, the beaches where
there were you know, lots of Germans facing out into
the English Channel. They didn't want to warn them that
something was going on, so they came around across the
(15:45):
channel kind of south west, and then they turned, made
a real sharp turn and went straight across from the
west across the peninsula. And what they did was they
hit a heavy cloud bang that was really bad. And
about ten minutes later they came out of it, and
you know, some of the planes had gone above the
(16:06):
cloud banks, some had plowed straight through, some had gone below.
The drops were a total mess. Each of the three
regiments had a drop zone. I mean each of the three. Yeah,
the regiments of two thousand men had a drop zone.
They were separated by a couple miles, but only one
of them, and only one or two battalions of that
(16:27):
regiment made a good drop. The rest of the men
were spread all over the Contentent Peninsula, of course, in ones,
twos pairs, small groups. And in that area of France
you've got what they call the Bocage country, where they've
got these small farm lands, these little sections of farms
(16:55):
that are separated from everyone else is by these tall hedges.
They were told there were hedges separating the little fields.
They thought there were hedges like we have hedges outside
a house that you can jump over. These hedges were
centuries old rock, dirt, trees, roots, and the trees went
(17:18):
up forty to fifty feet or high, and they each
each irregularly. Space field was was, you know, surrounded by
those you know, with gates on either on two of
the corners. And once you got in there, one man said,
each field was its own battlefield. Sometimes I mean everything
(17:42):
was muted. You couldn't hear. Some of them dropped in
and said they couldn't hear anything, not a thing, no
action at all. But some could hear the sound of battles.
They didn't know which direction it was from, and of
course the Germans knew this, and the Germans had, you know,
one hundreds of squads you know, camped out, dug in
(18:06):
sometimes along the hedgerows with machine guns, you know, ready
for the Americans to drop. So it was it was
pretty crazy. It was quite a mess. Uh So that's
why three days later they still hadn't taken the bridge,
and on the west side of the of the Murder
(18:26):
Ray River there were three or four groups of paratroopers
that were surrounded by German forces and so they also
had to rescue those.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Well what a what a three day adventure for sure.
In terms of one last thing, I know, we're getting
close here on time, but to wrap it up, one
thing that we haven't really talked about, but you mentioned
early on is the leadership. You mentioned that they were
well trained and they had great leadership. Maybe just expand
(18:56):
a little bit about that as well.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, it starts at the top. Matthew Ridgeway, who you know,
a lot of people think was one of the best
general's leaders of men this country has ever had, and
would prove his worth both in World War Two and
you know, seven or eight years later in Korea. A
lot of people thought he looked like a Roman emperor.
(19:22):
He sat straight. He stood as straight as an arrow,
they somebody said, when he sat on a chair, the
chair sat straighter. And he wasn't a kind of general
who yelled, you know. He led men by example. He
expected the best of them, and they wanted to give
him that. His deputy commander, James Gabbin, was another extraordinary leader.
(19:44):
He had gone through West Point without a high school education.
He had been put out of school in Brooklyn, New
York by his father to help earn money for the
family in the middle of the depression, actually even before
the depression. After eight grades, and then joined the army
at seventeen, pulled himself up. He was a ranker. He
(20:06):
actually qualified for West Point and went through West Point.
He talked very quietly, and the men in the eighty
second believed and respected Ridgeway. They worshiped and loved Gavin.
They would have followed him anywhere many of them said,
if he had said I'm going to hell, you want
(20:28):
to come with me, they would have come. And it
wasn't just the two generals. They had an extraordinary collection
of regiment and battalion leaders, colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, even
the captains, even the non com sergeants. There's so many
instances of so many of them showing extraordinary leadership. So
they were not only well trained, but they had excellent.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Leaders amazing, and that's what exactly what you want for
a mission like that, is to be trained and have
great leadership.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And then the third before I forget sure that, I
always think of three ingredients that they had excellent training,
extraordinary leadership, And it sounds corny as hell, but it's true.
They had courage. There was a Time magazine correspondent who
dropped in with them named William Walton, and he was
(21:24):
he was interviewed years later and he told Cornelius Ryan,
who wrote The Longest Day, he said, I saw nothing
but courage, which is where I got the name from
my book. He said, courage was everywhere. You didn't notice
it because it was everywhere, And there's so many instances
of courage and heroism in this book. I mean I
couldn't even put them all in it. It would have
(21:45):
gotten repetitive. Yeah, no, I don't think that's corny at all.
I think you do have to have courage to do
what those young men did on that day, and it's
incredible and we are forever.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Grateful for their service. Yes, we are, absolutely well, James,
thank you so much. We're out of time, but thank
you so much for coming on and talking about your book.
Nothing but courage to our listeners. I strongly encourage you
go out and get a copy of the book. It's
available wherever you pick up your book, Amazon, etc. But
(22:19):
we just tucked good. I can't even talk. We just
tip touched the tip of the iceberg when it was
coming to this book. And again, James, thank you so
much for coming on and sharing that with us today.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
It was a pleasure and an honor.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Thank you well, thank you, and we want to thank
everyone for listening to this episode of the Ernie Power
World War Two Museum Podcast. We'll talk to you soon.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast, your podcast of Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is Doug Casse and I am your host. Now if
you're tuning into the Arni Pole World War Two Museum
Podcast for the first time, what we do on this
podcast to share with you pieces of piles life from
ensemble beginning on an Indiana farm to becoming a poste
(00:37):
surprise winning American journalist and war correspondent who is best
knowing for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World
War Two. But today we have a very special guest
with us today, author James Darnovan, and he is talking
about his latest book, Nothing But Courage, the eighty second Airbornes,
Daring D Day Mission and their heroic charge again the
(01:00):
laflaiir Bridge. James, Welcome to the Only Power World War
Two Museum Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hey Doug, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's our pleasure. Thank you for coming on. It's been
in a few minutes with us today, and what we'd
like to do with all of our authors is kind
of ask you that first question and allow you the
opportunity to give our listeners an overview of what this
book is about.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well, this is a D Day story and if you
know D Day, and most of us do, but just
for Quarly Brimmer, there were five beaches, the too farthest
west we're American. The farthest the fourth one from the end,
was Omaha, of course, and then the farthest west one
(01:45):
was Utah. And they decided that they could only land
at Utah if they dropped two of our airborne divisions
there behind lines to keep the Germans from reinforcing the
(02:06):
beach troops. And those two divisions were the one to
oh first part of which was Easy Company band of brothers,
and we know that story. And the other one that
was given the tougher job was the eighty second Airborne
because they had had some experience in Sicily and Italy.
They were dropped farther in Inland to take a couple
(02:30):
towns key crossroads towns, and blow two bridges across the
Duve River, and take two that across the murder A
River which ran south along the through the Cotentin Peninsula.
They wanted. The most important bridge was the Lafier Bridge,
(02:51):
which was an old two hundred year old bridge hardly
looked like a bridge. You wouldn't even know you were
going over a bridge if you didn't know it, I mean,
if you didn't know what you were looking for. About
sixty feet long, just three foot stone abutmans on either side,
and it went over a very gently flowing river called
the Murder Ray that ran north and south. They needed
(03:14):
to hold that bridge to keep the Germans from sending
reinforcements in, and they also needed it. They couldn't just
destroy it because they needed it to send troops west
along the neck of the Contentent Peninsula to seal it
off so German troops would not reinforce the share Board
(03:35):
Deep Water Port, which was on the northern tip of
the peninsula about thirty miles away, and they needed that
port to get men and material in for the build
up of troops to jump into. Hold on, let me
turn this off to jump into the to jump you
(03:59):
to drive through France into Germany. So they needed to
seal off the Cotenton Peninsula so German troops couldn't flow
up there and keep it from taking the Sheerberg Port.
The eighty second quickly, they dropped about between one and
two o'clock on D Day in the morning, about five
(04:19):
or six hours before the troops landed on Utah about
six thirty am. They took the town Sain Mary Glease
quickly about four o'clock, and they briefly held the Lafier Bridge,
but they couldn't hold it for long, and so it
became a standoff. The Germans threw their forces against it,
(04:41):
including three or four tanks. They held the bridge. The Americans,
the smaller American troops on the bridge on the west side,
on the east side of the bridge, and that was
the way it still stood. Three days later, when troops
from Utah were almost the bridge and they had to
take that bridge. General Matthew Ridgeway told his deputy commander,
(05:07):
James Gavin, General James Gavin, take that bridge, whatever you
need to do. He decided to order three companies one
battalion of glider troops, which had landed the day after
D Day on Deep Deep plus one. He decided to
send three companies straight across the bridge. Beyond the bridge
(05:29):
was five hundred miles of a causeway a road that
went straight to a teeny hamlet called Cookenye. The fields
around them had been deliberately flooded by the Germans, so
all that the only way to get to Cokeny across
the bridge was five hundred yards of this two length
thin two lane road about twenty twenty five yards, and
(05:51):
the Germans on the other side. There were at least
a couple of thousand of them, with dozens of machine
guns sighted down causeway and onto the bridge, mortars, tanks,
anti tank guns, howitzers, And that's how it stood on
the morning of d plus three, June ninth, at ten
(06:12):
forty five am, when they started the charge.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Now if I'm wrong, but from some of my research
and reading, I had read under the impression that Eisenhower.
General Eisenhower wasn't at first a huge fan of the airborne.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Is that true? Yeah, that's more or less true. He
wasn't convinced that they had a place in what was
then today's army. You know, they had tried a few
things and it hadn't gone well. They were still figuring
out how to make things work. They had dropped a
(06:55):
couple of regiments onto Sicily. One of them was the
five oh which was part of the eighty second, and
the drops had gone very awry. Some of them had
dropped twenty miles away from their drop points. It was
a mess, but they did organize most of them and
help take the island, so that was good. But he
(07:19):
still wasn't convinced that, you know, there was a need
for them. So this was really a case of put
up and shut up and show us what you got.
And Ridgeway and Gavin knew this, and then they were
confident their men had been their three regiments of paratroopers
and one regiment of glider troops all in all about
(07:41):
eighty five hundred men had been trained to access. They
were ready to go. They were all trained at least
a year, some of them fifteen eighteen months, so they
were very well trained and they had great leadership.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, now, James, I understand that you're during the riding
and the research to this book that you actually were
able to track down some of the eighty second airborn
moon that were there in their relatives. How was that
experience to be able to speak to some of the survivors.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well, you know, I've done a few three previous books,
two of them were on Old West subjects, and the
whole time I was researching them writing them, I thought, boy,
it would be great to talk to people who are
actually there during the event of which I'm writing. And
it was an honor because I talked to a dozen
of them. I think they're all gone now, but it
(08:36):
was a great honor for me because my father was
part of the Greatest generation. He was in the Merchant Marine,
and it was wonderful. They were my heroes. They still are.
Two or three of them had hearing problems. They could
talk perfectly fine, and they were sharp as anything. But
I had to write my questions on a white board
and erase it every few minutes. Not the optimal way, yeah,
(09:00):
to run run an interview, but they helped me tremendously,
giving me details that you know, you can add to
a narrative to bring it alive. So that was that
was an honor for me, and I was very lucky
because you know, I mean, D Day was this June.
In a few weeks, it'll be a couple of weeks,
it'll be eighty one years ago, and all these men
(09:24):
are one hundred or more, and you know, there's not
many of them.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Left, absolutely, and what they did was beyond courageous, I
agree at that moment. Were they reluctant to want to
talk to you and share your stories, because I know
sometimes when you talk about that great generation of World
War Two, a lot of them are just kind of
like they did their job and their duty and they
(09:48):
were wanting to move on and really not talk about it.
Did you run into any of that or were they
willing to sit down and kind of open up and
speak about this event.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, I'd always heard the same thing you had from many,
many people that you know. For the longest time, these
men they just it was a job they wanted to do.
They wanted to do it get back to their lives,
their homes, their families. And that's true. But I think
after a while, at a certain point, when they get
to a certain age, they did want to talk about
(10:20):
And I've heard that time and time again from writers, historians, researchers,
and family. You know. So by the time I got
to them about five four or five years ago, they
were all probably ninety five or older, and we're very
happy to talk about it because they had, you know,
any trauma had been worked out over decades and decades,
(10:44):
so that wasn't a problem anymore. But they did want
to talk about it because you know, for most of them,
it was probably the greatest thing they'd ever did, the
highlight of their life, and they wanted to talk about it. So, no,
there was no problem at this point.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well that's great. So let me ask you this, James, So,
doing the writing and the research, what surprised you the
most was there some surprises that you had came across.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
You know, what surprised me was how long these men trained.
You know, we the foot slaggers, you know, the regular infantry.
You know, everybody's heard that. You know, basic training is
about twelve weeks, thirteen weeks, and they do a little
more training and then they're sent off to battle. These
(11:34):
men were trained specifically for very difficult situations. Back then,
there were only two arms of the of the military
that were what we call elite forces. They didn't have seals,
they didn't have special forces. Back then, they had the
Army Rangers and then the Army's paratroopers, and these men
(11:55):
were the elite. They didn't take everybody. They were both volunteer.
They were trained, they went through basic training, and then
they were trained to jump out of airplanes and a
lot of them washed out. It was probably forty percent
or more of the men who had volunteered just couldn't.
They just couldn't do it at a certain point. So
(12:15):
it really was the toughest of the tough These guys
would during training here in the States and overseas where
they spent about three months in Ireland and and England training,
they would run all day. It was not uncommon for
them to do a problem where they would be dropped
(12:36):
one hundred and forty miles away and told to take
care of some problem, take a bridge, take an area,
something like that, and then get and then get back
to base in three days. And they did that all
the time. These guys, by the time they were they
jumped out of the airplane early in the morning of
June sixth, were so ready to jump on some it's
(13:00):
not funny.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Well, and I think you brung up a great question.
They've trained a year, some of them eighteen months, fifteen
eighteen months, as you said earlier, and so I can't
imagine what they were feeling during that night drop. There
was probably some anxiousness saying, hey, let's get on with this.
We've been training for a year, year and a half.
(13:25):
I'm ready to go. But I would also think there'd
be a little bit of I don't know if I
want to use the word fear, but uncertainty or because
they really didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Either.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, and no good points. And a lot of them,
you know, admitted, yeah, we were a little scared. You
know what they were scared of. They were scared very
much of letting their buddies down. Wow. And they were trained.
They had jumped out of planes dozens of times, so
that wasn't a problem. They were trained in all kinds
(14:01):
of arms, close combat, you know, shoulder arms and even
German German arms. They were very well trained. The funny
thing was most a lot of them took some dramamine
to keep them awake, to keep them from getting airsick,
(14:23):
and it put a lot of them to sleep. So
many many accounts talk about almost every man in a
in a C. Forty seven of about you know, a
stick is what they called, you know, a plane full
of men, a stick of eighteen men. Most of them
would be sound asleep halfway across the English Channel. It
took about two or two and a half hours for
them to get over there. And so they jump out
(14:46):
and they were you know, barely awake some of them.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Wow. Wow, that's that's really interesting because I can't imagine
getting ready to go jump out of an airplane into
the unknown like that and you've got half of them
week just odd, you know, to hear that. But I
can understand why because of the sickness in terms of
that just really incredible. The courage that they had to
(15:12):
be able to do that. I also understand from reading
your book that they lost about three dozen men because
of drowning because of over They basically overshot their drop zone.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well the drops were a mess because they came from them.
They didn't fly over from the east side across across
the bridges, I mean not the bridges, the beaches where
there were you know, lots of Germans facing out into
the English Channel. They didn't want to warn them that
something was going on, so they came around across the
(15:45):
channel kind of south west, and then they turned, made
a real sharp turn and went straight across from the
west across the peninsula. And what they did was they
hit a heavy cloud bang that was really bad. And
about ten minutes later they came out of it, and
you know, some of the planes had gone above the
(16:06):
cloud banks, some had plowed straight through, some had gone below.
The drops were a total mess. Each of the three
regiments had a drop zone. I mean each of the three. Yeah,
the regiments of two thousand men had a drop zone.
They were separated by a couple miles, but only one
of them, and only one or two battalions of that
(16:27):
regiment made a good drop. The rest of the men
were spread all over the Contentent Peninsula, of course, in ones,
twos pairs, small groups. And in that area of France
you've got what they call the Bocage country, where they've
got these small farm lands, these little sections of farms
(16:55):
that are separated from everyone else is by these tall hedges.
They were told there were hedges separating the little fields.
They thought there were hedges like we have hedges outside
a house that you can jump over. These hedges were
centuries old rock, dirt, trees, roots, and the trees went
(17:18):
up forty to fifty feet or high, and they each
each irregularly. Space field was was, you know, surrounded by
those you know, with gates on either on two of
the corners. And once you got in there, one man said,
each field was its own battlefield. Sometimes I mean everything
(17:42):
was muted. You couldn't hear. Some of them dropped in
and said they couldn't hear anything, not a thing, no
action at all. But some could hear the sound of battles.
They didn't know which direction it was from, and of
course the Germans knew this, and the Germans had, you know,
one hundreds of squads you know, camped out, dug in
(18:06):
sometimes along the hedgerows with machine guns, you know, ready
for the Americans to drop. So it was it was
pretty crazy. It was quite a mess. Uh So that's
why three days later they still hadn't taken the bridge,
and on the west side of the of the Murder
(18:26):
Ray River there were three or four groups of paratroopers
that were surrounded by German forces and so they also
had to rescue those.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Well what a what a three day adventure for sure.
In terms of one last thing, I know, we're getting
close here on time, but to wrap it up, one
thing that we haven't really talked about, but you mentioned
early on is the leadership. You mentioned that they were
well trained and they had great leadership. Maybe just expand
(18:56):
a little bit about that as well.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, it starts at the top. Matthew Ridgeway, who you know,
a lot of people think was one of the best
general's leaders of men this country has ever had, and
would prove his worth both in World War Two and
you know, seven or eight years later in Korea. A
lot of people thought he looked like a Roman emperor.
(19:22):
He sat straight. He stood as straight as an arrow,
they somebody said, when he sat on a chair, the
chair sat straighter. And he wasn't a kind of general
who yelled, you know. He led men by example. He
expected the best of them, and they wanted to give
him that. His deputy commander, James Gabbin, was another extraordinary leader.
(19:44):
He had gone through West Point without a high school education.
He had been put out of school in Brooklyn, New
York by his father to help earn money for the
family in the middle of the depression, actually even before
the depression. After eight grades, and then joined the army
at seventeen, pulled himself up. He was a ranker. He
(20:06):
actually qualified for West Point and went through West Point.
He talked very quietly, and the men in the eighty
second believed and respected Ridgeway. They worshiped and loved Gavin.
They would have followed him anywhere many of them said,
if he had said I'm going to hell, you want
(20:28):
to come with me, they would have come. And it
wasn't just the two generals. They had an extraordinary collection
of regiment and battalion leaders, colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, even
the captains, even the non com sergeants. There's so many
instances of so many of them showing extraordinary leadership. So
they were not only well trained, but they had excellent.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Leaders amazing, and that's what exactly what you want for
a mission like that, is to be trained and have
great leadership.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And then the third before I forget sure that, I
always think of three ingredients that they had excellent training,
extraordinary leadership, And it sounds corny as hell, but it's true.
They had courage. There was a Time magazine correspondent who
dropped in with them named William Walton, and he was
(21:24):
he was interviewed years later and he told Cornelius Ryan,
who wrote The Longest Day, he said, I saw nothing
but courage, which is where I got the name from
my book. He said, courage was everywhere. You didn't notice
it because it was everywhere, And there's so many instances
of courage and heroism in this book. I mean I
couldn't even put them all in it. It would have
(21:45):
gotten repetitive. Yeah, no, I don't think that's corny at all.
I think you do have to have courage to do
what those young men did on that day, and it's
incredible and we are forever.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Grateful for their service. Yes, we are, absolutely well, James,
thank you so much. We're out of time, but thank
you so much for coming on and talking about your book.
Nothing but courage to our listeners. I strongly encourage you
go out and get a copy of the book. It's
available wherever you pick up your book, Amazon, etc. But
(22:19):
we just tucked good. I can't even talk. We just
tip touched the tip of the iceberg when it was
coming to this book. And again, James, thank you so
much for coming on and sharing that with us today.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
It was a pleasure and an honor.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Thank you well, thank you, and we want to thank
everyone for listening to this episode of the Ernie Power
World War Two Museum Podcast. We'll talk to you soon.
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.