Seventy summers now have passed
since 1.3 million Allied soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen
assaulted the beaches at Normandy, France in what would prove to be
the largest, greatest, and deadliest amphibious assault in the
history of the world.
They called it “Operation Overlord,” and the renowned broadcaster, Tom Brokaw, has aptly referred to the Americans who carried it out as, “the Greatest Generation.”
It is hard to argue with Mr. Brokaw’s assessment.
When we see the iconic black-and-white images from Normandy, of American landing craft opening into a spewing spray of German machine-gun fire, or of soldiers’ bodies washing in the surf as their buddies, crouched and low, stepped over them, advancing through smoke toward craggy cliffs beyond the beaches, the full story of Normandy is often overlooked.
Hours before the first bombardment from naval gunfire, before the first brave soldiers advanced in virtual suicide-waves onto the beaches, another story was unfolding. In the minutes just before midnight, at 2230 GMT, or 11:30 local time on June 5, 1944, C-47 transport planes jam-packed with U.S. paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division began taking off from airfields in southern England.
Their mission: to parachute in behind enemy lines, to cut communications, to establish communications checkpoints, and to kill Germans.
At forty-eight minutes after midnight, paratroopers from the newly-minted 101st Airborne Division, also known as the “Screaming Eagles,” began leaping from the C-47s over the French countryside. Fighting through thick cloud cover, navigational difficulties, and German antiaircraft and machine-gun fire, the men of the 101st would continue their parachute drops under dark skies for most of the hour, from 00:48 a.m., until approximately 01:40 a.m.
In the great epoch battle that would follow on the beaches with the rising of the sun, the “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st would mark history as the first Allied soldiers to land on enemy soil to begin the battle, and the first to spill blood in the liberation of Europe.
This novel is dedicated to their memory.
Don Brown
Charlotte, NC
July, 2014