UNTIL FEBRUARY 1944, the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division was incomplete. One of its regiments—Colonel Reuben Tucker’s 504th PIR—was still in Italy. It had taken severe punishment during the Mediterranean campaign and would not be ready for another major assignment until it could be refitted and reinforced; the 504th rejoined the division in May, but it was to rest and refit, not participate in the invasion. Therefore, in addition to the 505th PIR and Colonel Harry L. Lewis’s 325th Glider Infantry Regiment—both of which were training in England—the 2nd Airborne Infantry Brigade, consisting of the 507th and 508th PIRs, was attached.
The 507th was commanded by Colonel George V. Millett, Jr., who had attended West Point with Jim Gavin, the assistant division commander who believed in grueling training to prepare the soldiers for the physical and mental rigors of combat. In charge of the 508th was the be-spectacled Colonel Roy E. Lindquist.1
Despite his bank-president looks, Lindquist, from Pittsfield, Maine, had been a star athlete at West Point (class of 1930), playing baseball and captaining the ice hockey team. As a captain and adjutant of the 101st Parachute Battalion, he had been the third man in the test platoon to jump from an airplane on that historic day of 16 August 1940 at Fort Benning, and had commanded the 508th since the autumn of 1942. By the time D-Day rolled around, Lindquist had made twenty-nine practice jumps.2
In England, with the prospect of combat looming, the pace of training picked up; there were practice jumps, long marches, calisthenics, marksmanship, and small-unit exercises in all kinds of weather, and Lindquist was right there with his men. Dwayne T. Burns, F/508th, re-called that his colonel “was as green as the rest of us when it came to combat experience, but he had the 508th honed to a fine edge.”3
James Maurice Gavin was himself quite an interesting individual—a living Horatio Alger—an example of an American who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Born James Nally Ryan (the names of his unmarried birth parents) on 22 March 1907 in Brooklyn, New York, he was placed in an orphanage and adopted by Martin and Mary Gavin of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. It was not a happy family situation; he dropped out of school in the seventh grade to help support the family. His father wanted him to follow him into the coal mines but James had no interest. To escape this life, he ran away from home on his seventeenth birthday and joined the Army. After spending several years as an enlisted man in Central America, during which time he educated himself, he passed the entrance exam for West Point and was accepted in 1925, receiving his commission four years later. He also attended the Infantry School under the tutelage of future generals George C. Marshall and Joseph Stillwell.4
After various postings around the country, in April 1941 he volunteered for the paratroops, and, once he made the required jumps and earned his wings,* he became the commanding officer of C Company, 503rd PIR. Impressed with Captain Gavin’s innovative intellect and grasp of airborne doctrine, his superiors promoted him to major in October 1941 and made him G-3 (Operations and Training Officer) on Major General William C. Lee’s staff. After more schooling and immersion in airborne tactics (he was a keen student of the German attack on Eben Emael), he was promoted to full colonel and given command of the 82nd’s 505th PIR in August 1942.5
Following the seaborne invasion of North Africa in November 1942, the 82nd prepared to make its first combat jump, Sicily. Gavin was, as was his custom, the first man out of his plane. Despite the scattered nature of the drop and the U.S. Navy’s accidental shooting of numerous transport planes carrying the 82nd, Gavin felt that the jump and the battles that followed hardened his men into highly capable veterans, and he was anxious to employ them when it came time for the invasion of continental Europe.
Dwayne Burns wrote that Gavin was popular with his troops, “not just because he conducted his command from the lead position but because he was also a jump school student from Fort Benning. He earned his wings like the rest of us and had full rights to be called a paratrooper. We didn’t call him ‘Jumpin’ Jim’ for nothing.”6
AT THE END of November 1943, Major General Matthew B. Ridgway’s 82nd Airborne Division (minus the 504th PIR, still recovering from its collective wounds)* sailed from the U.S. to the U.K., landing at Belfast on 9 December 1943, then spent two months in Northern Ireland before moving to the Midlands of England in mid-February 1944.7
On 14 February 1944, the 505th PIR encamped at Camp Quorn, Braunstone Park, a 16th century manor house surrounded by 950 lush acres near Leicester,8 while Millett’s 507th turned the grounds of Toller-ton Hall, south of Robin Hood’s town of Nottingham, into a tent city.9
The following month, Lindquist’s 508th PIR arrived and moved into the grounds of another estate, Wollaton Hall, also on the outskirts of Nottingham. Dwayne Burns noted that Nottingham was like a dream: “Nottingham was a modern city with theaters, excellent restaurants, and fine public buildings. The population was about 250,000. It was more than we expected or could have possibly hoped for. The new camp was set up right next to the city in Wollaton Park, a gorgeous location with manicured greens and lots of trees. All the grounds were enclosed with miles and miles of red brick fence and black iron gates. In the center stood the great Wollaton home, which had been turned into a museum. The house was a huge, four-story building with turrets and loads of ornamental work. The home and grounds were the property of the King. On moving in, one Red Devil reportedly shot a deer grazing on the lawn. It wasn’t a good start for the 508th, as the King was not amused. Behind the home and at the far end of the park were row upon row of eight-man tents.
“Although we were living in tents, it wasn’t primitive. All the floors were paved with concrete stepping-stones and each tent contained a very suitable heat-stove set in its center.”
When the paratroopers weren’t training, the men spent their off-duty time in the local pubs, fish-and-chips shops, and in pursuit of female companionship. When soldiers were unable to obtain a pass to go into the city, they solved that problem simply by hopping over the brick wall.10
Bud Warnecke, B/508/82nd, recalled that getting back into the walled encampment at Wollaton Park could be an adventure. “The wall was not much of a challenge. The challenge came on the way back in fog [as thick as] pea soup. If you were lucky, you would run into a Bobby to direct you so that we could make bed check.”11
THE TRAINING OF paratroopers and their glider-infantry counterparts was stepped up, so time off for leisure activities was especially precious. Lieutenant James Megellas said, “We were seeing England for the first time in our young lives. In contrast to the wreckage and destruction of Italy, the lawns were green and well kept; everything was neat and orderly…. After an all-night ride [from Liverpool], the train pulled up to Thurnby, just outside Leicester. A welcoming committee met us at the station, and the 82nd Airborne Division band played what they knew so well, ‘We’re All Americans.’ For the first time since leaving Fort Benning, we were welcomed at our destination. Combat troops were appreciated.”
Megellas also noted that Britain had something he had been missing—young women who spoke English; the women of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy just didn’t fill the bill.12 Like young men everywhere, the Yanks’ thoughts often centered on women—especially when the young men were lonely, far from home, and facing the very real prospect of death or injury. The English lasses with their charming British accents were, therefore, a welcome relief from the heavy drumbeat of the constant training routine and the specter of impending combat. “Our American accents were probably having some effect on them as well,” said Dwayne Burns, “because the girls all seemed crazy about GIs, especially the ones with [paratrooper] wings.”13
Naturally, when young, healthy males are far from home, many of the old strictures and moral taboos that governed their lives are washed away. This was especially true during World War II, when millions of American and Canadian boys found themselves in Britain and in the proximity of attractive young ladies whose husbands and boyfriends were themselves in the military and often far away. A plethora of dances and parties brought the two sexes together, with nature following its course. As a result, there were many wartime romances, with a number of British girls marrying Americans and Canadians.* Others—men and women alike—were content simply to “play the field.”
Although the 505th PIR’s bivouac area had a high brick wall around it, it could not keep in men who had a strong desire to get out but no passes allowing them to do so.
Lieutenant Colonel Mark Alexander, the 505th’s executive officer, noted, “Camp Quorn was within eight miles of several sizeable towns and the large city of Leicester. There were lots of pretty English girls around and the men liked to spend as much time as they could with them. Some of the rowdier paratroopers got into fights with other American soldiers in the area, and [Colonel] Ekman restricted the entire regiment. A high wall ran around the perimeter of the tent area, but even with that, it was hard to keep the men from sneaking off.”
One evening, Alexander was taking a walk outside the brick wall when suddenly a paratrooper in his Class A uniform landed right in front of him. “He turned around, saw me, and said, ‘Oh, my god!’ I kind of growled at him, ‘Okay, just see how fast you can get back over that wall.’ And he made it…. There were a lot of things to do and a lot of English girls around there. So it was hard to keep the guys in.”14
Sergeant Otis Sampson, E/505/82nd, was not shy about finding female companionship during his leaves to London from his base at Camp Quorn. He recalled waking up at midnight on 1 January 1944 in the London apartment of a “small, doll-size woman” as the New Year’s reveling got underway outside. “The excitement of what was going on in the city awakened my blood for action,” he said. “I wanted to be part of it. I tried to slip away unnoticed but a voice said, ‘Where are you going?’ This had been my third day and night with her. I was ready for some city life. I had met her at Piccadilly Circus. She was an ATS woman (Auxiliary Territorial Service)** and was AWOL from her outfit and had been avoiding the public; therefore we had not been able to get out and mingle. She had explained to me what ATS stood for—‘American Tail Supply.’ ‘How am I doing?’ she smiled up to me and asked.”15
Another London girl recalled the war years: “So many nice lads—Norwegian, Polish, Canadian, and of course the GIs. We all made dates that we could never possibly keep, and had the time of our lives, never expecting the war could be such fun. There was no question of settling down with anyone, just the sheer enjoyment of dancing with soldiers of different nationalities in different styles. We re-cut our mothers’ dance dresses, wore as much make-up as we could, and loved every minute.”16
The situation led to a sharp rise in unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. To prevent, or at least reduce, such problems, the military authorities handed out free condoms to troops going on pass or leave—a fact that did not sit well with certain members of the clergy. Condoms were also distributed to troops going into France, along with “invasion money” in the form of French francs. Captain John Madden of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion recalled attending a Mass held by the 3rd Brigade’s priest shortly before D-Day. In his sermon, the priest “thundered … to them to throw away the condoms because they may be going to their deaths ‘with sin in their pockets.’”17
The transport pilots, glider pilots, and their human cargo were also priming for the big day. Besides working on the delicate business of towing, being towed, released, and trying to land reasonably close to a target on the ground, the troops being carried tried to deal with the problem of air-sickness. The commander of a least one glider infantry unit and his nineteen men experimented with a variety of preflight medications. None of them worked. All twenty men threw up on every training flight.18