Just after midnight on June 6, 1944, 23,000 paratroopers, comprised mostly of the American Eighty-second and 101st Airborne Divisions, were dropped throughout the French countryside. Fooled as they may have been by the amphibious landings at Normandy, the Germans were thoroughly prepared inland. Fields were flooded so that paratroopers would be drowned upon landing. (Many were.) Strategically placed machine-gunners shot men to pieces as they helplessly floated to earth. Widely scattered and separated from their units, which made them easier to kill or capture, the surviving U.S. troops rallied as best they could and seized key bridges and cross-roads against tremendous odds. Pfc. James W. Dashner, with the 101st Airborne, staved off approaching German soldiers with a machine gun before a shell blew him apart. His cousin Pfc. Charles McCallister, also with the 101st, “liberated” a German bicycle and rode around trying to find Dashner, not realizing he was already dead. After learning what happened from an eyewitness, McCallister wrote to Dashner’s mother with the terrible news.
My dearest Aunt:
I suppose this is the first time I have ever written to you Aunt Mima. I have always been able to maintain the closest contact through Mom and it never seemed necessary. I am sorry that this first letter must be written under such a sad circumstance but I hope we may come to know each other better through future correspondence and that we may be able to comfort each other in some way.
At a time like this, it’s hard for any one, especially one who isn’t good at words such as I, to say anything that might be of comfort to someone who has suffered a great loss like you have, but since I can at least tell you how James met his death, I feel that it might be of some comfort to you.
When Jim came to see me a few weeks before the invasion, I knew instinctively when I first saw him that I would like him. First of all his wonderful physique and handsome features command respect and once you talked with him his honest ways and great personality made you like him very much. We were friends from the start. We had a pleasant afternoon of talking of home and loved ones and then I walked out on the road with him where he flagged a truck going toward his camp. We shook hands and wished each other luck and I thought as I watched him running to catch his truck—“What a great guy!”
That was the last time I saw him. I knew he jumped in France because he is in the same division as I am and I hoped to meet him there. His regiment was close by all the time but there was no time to try to get together until the 10th day when I located his company and went over to see about him. I found his platoon and it only took a glance around to prove to me Jim wasn’t there. I hoped for the best but dreaded to ask about him. By chance I approached a former very close friend of his who was with him at the time, and when he told me what had happened it was quite a blow. By this time I had lost many friends and thought I had become hardened to it, but this was different. Jim was part of the family, the same blood as mine and that was different. But the battle field is no place to grieve so I made an effort to control my feelings and asked the fellow to tell me the details. This is what he told me:
“Jim’s Section Leader had been killed and Jim was in charge so he took over the machine gun himself. His platoon was sent out on a flank and ran into plenty trouble. The enemy had them surrounded on three sides and had them pinned down with fire. Jim took the machine gun and crawled forward to a good position and set up the gun and began firing. He was in a spot and was doing plenty of good, so the heinies started concentrating all their efforts on him. They were trying to get him with a mortar. His platoon leader saw they were getting close and yelled to Jim that he’d better get out of there. The boys in the platoon said it was possible Jim didn’t hear as they had never known him to refuse to obey an order but his friends seem to think he was just mad and was doing so much good at the time he didn’t want to move. So he stayed right there and fired until his gun was red hot. Then they got zeroed in on him and landed a mortar shell right on top of him. He died instantly but his hand was still clutching the trigger. As a result of his continued fire, the platoon was able to advance on their objective.”
On the way back to my outfit I let myself go and cried like a baby but I wasn’t ashamed of it.
When his son gets old enough, tell him how his father died and his son’s son, for our family must never forget him. Let’s try to replace grief with pride in the way he died and the things he died for, as that is the way Jim would want it.
Yes, his outfit has lost a great soldier, his buddies have lost a great friend, but you have lost a son. God has not left us with out consolation. We know that all is done in fulfillment of God’s will and that not even a sparrow falls that He does not know, and though we are inclined to ask the reason why—who are we to question His will. He has promised that we shall one day all be together again and there find happiness that shall never end, where there is no sorrow, tears nor grief Jim is there tonight under God’s loving care. He will never again have to experience the horrors of battle. I can hear him saying—“don’t grieve for me, I’m happy here, and when we meet again, we will never be separated.” I talked to Jim, Aunt Mima. He was ready to go—I know.
No one knows how heavy your heart is tonight, but if I could in some small way help to take his place, I would like to be your son. I know that I could never fill his place in your heart just as no one could take the place of my mother if God should see fit to take her away, but we can be a comfort to each other.
I want you to let Jim’s wife and baby know that if there is any way in which I might ever help them, for them not to hesitate to call on me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for them for Jim’s sake.
Give my love and sympathy to them and Martha and his brothers.
With all my love,
Charles.
McCallister later learned that, although everything about his cousin’s actions under fire were true, the shell that killed Dashner was fired not by the Germans, but from an American warship off the coast of Normandy. In the fury of battle, a miscalculation caused the round to fall short. It was this very randomness—the bullet that missed by only a few inches or the enemy grenade that dropped at one’s feet but inexplicably failed to explode—that so unnerved soldiers and other servicemen. Capt. George Montgomery, with the Eighty-second Airborne, also parachuted into France on D-Day and came within inches of being killed numerous times. Shaken by three weeks in combat, Montgomery wrote to his fiancée, Arline, who was serving as an army nurse in New Guinea, to let her know he was still alive—so far—and that his love for her had only grown.
Arline, my dearest—
Today is our 20th day in action, yet it seems like years. What has happened to me and my Battalion would be scoffed at, even in a 10¢ novel, as being impossible. Why the few of us left alive—are alive—is something to figure out in church. I’ve seen as many of my very best friends killed beside me. I just can’t believe it is all really happening. I never in my wildest dreams knew such terror could grip your very soul. The business of landing deep in enemy territory & trying to hold a position assaulted and shelled from 4 sides until friendly troops break through is something I hope they never ask me to do again.
The night we jumped, D-Day—6 hrs, was the pay off night. The Jerries knew our plans down to the last detail and were waiting for us with everything they had. My chute was on fire from tracer bullets when I landed—right in front of a machine gun emplacement. I cut out of my harness & crawled for a couple of hours with bullets whistling past my ears coming from seemingly every direction. I can’t tell you what else went on—but the story gets good from there. I hope it won’t be too long before I can tell you personally all that has happened. Anyway—God alone brought me safely through this far—of that I’m sure.
We have had mail brought to us twice and have been permitted to write twice. Both mail calls brought me letters from you Arline—& I could have wept with joy & relief to hear from you & that you were still of a mind to be Mrs. G. Montgomery one of these days. I’m being as careful as I can be so as to get back to you—but there are times when it’s just up to the good Lord whether you get it or you don’t.
My darling, I love you more than life itself—I’ve realized that many times these last 3 weeks when I thought I was going to be killed & always the regret of missing seeing & marrying you was topmost in my mind at the time. I think I can say my love for you has been pretty well tested.
Goodbye for awhile,
—George
Capt. George Montgomery returned home to Iowa after the war and married Arline in 1946. But, as Montgomery hinted in his letter, he was well aware of how precarious life was in battle and that every day could be the last. This realization plagued those who fought, and many made certain they wrote an “in the event I don’t make it back….” letter just in case. Some gave the letter to a friend with instructions to forward it should the worst happen. And some, like twenty-five-year-old 2nd Lt. Jack Lundberg, mailed it home themselves before they went into combat. Lundberg wrote his “final” letter a few weeks before D-Day to assure his loved ones in Woods Cross, Utah, he was more than ready to die and only regretted the pain it would cause them, and his new wife, Mary.
19 May 1944
Dear Mom, Pop and family,
Now that I am actually here I see that the chances of my returning to all of you are quite slim, therefore I want to write this letter now while I am yet able.
I want you to know how much I love each of you. You mean everything to me and it is the realization of your love that gives me the courage to continue. Mom and Pop—we have caused you innumerable hardships and sacrifices—sacrifices which you both made readily and gladly that we might get more from life.
I have always determined to show my appreciation to you by enabling you both to have more of the pleasures of life—but this war has prevented my so doing for the past three years.
If you receive this letter I shall be unable to fulfill my desires, for I have requested that this letter be forwarded only in the event I do not return.
You have had many times more than your share of illness and deaths in the family—still you have continued to exemplify what true parents should. I am sorry to add to your grief—but at all times realize that my thoughts are of you constantly and that I feel that in some small way I am helping to bring this wasteful war to a conclusion.
We of the United States have something to fight for—never more fully have I realized that. There just is no other country with comparable wealth, advancement, or standard of living. The U.S.A. is worth a sacrifice!
Remember always that I love you each most fervently and I am proud of you. Consider Mary, my wife, as having taken my place in the family circle and watch over each other.
Love to my family,
Jack
Almost prophetically 2nd Lt. Jack Lundberg had, indeed, written his last letter home. Two and a half weeks after D-Day, Lundberg was the lead navigator on a B-17 flying over Abbeville, France on a mission to bomb the town’s railroad station. Struck by German antiaircraft fire, the plane burst into flames and crashed. His body was not recovered until nine months after his death. Although Lundberg’s family had the option of having him returned to the United States, they chose to have him buried with his comrades at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France.