American Valor Quarterly Issue 12 - Spring 2015 | Page 17

men I was going to cross over. I
jumped in not knowing we were at a
position where some of the strongest
tides in the region occur. The water
was moving at 18 to 20 miles per
hour. I thought I was a pretty good
swimmer, but I almost drowned.
They pulled me out of the river and
we walked along the bank until we
started to see the water level fall. We
got to another of the bridges were
some of the other forces had already
stopped. Joined by the 20 men beside
me, we started helping to defend the
bridges.
Ours was the only plane, out of
47, that hit our drop zone. Half of
the planes were murdered by SS
troops guarding that area. Many were
captured. Col. Wolverton was hung
on a tree on the jump and his feet
never hit French soil. We heard three
days later that when the Germans cut
him down, they found out whom he
was, and when Col. Wolverton was
next discovered he had 167 bayonet
wounds on his body, plus the original
machine gun shots he had taken. My
battalion, the third battalion, was
known as the lost battalion because
we had no contact whatsoever with
anyone in the division. The only
communication we had was through
a walkie-talkie that I carried and
the only thing I could get was BBC,
which I found out later was coming

AMERICAN PARATROOPERS FIX
THEIR STATIC LINES BEFORE
THEIR FATEFUL JUMP INTO
NORMANDY EARLY IN THE
MORNING OF D-DAY.

from a signal on board the Nevada.
We were there another day and on the
third day we were relieved by another
infantry unit that had come in by
boat. We went to a holding area near
Carentan to await further orders. Our
third battalion lost quite a few people.
I company, the original company I was
a part of, lost at least half their troops
on D-Day.
While we were in the holding area,
we were given the mission of clearing
out Carentan to give our beach forces
some breathing room. We had the
whole 506 on a regimental front, and
on June 12th we accomplished our

mission because at that time
the heavy armor from Calais
had not arrived in full force.
As acting S3 and acting
lieutenant, I received our
next orders on the evening of
June 12th. Our orders were
to provide the beach forces
with an even larger buffer by
chasing the Germans as far as
Carentan, up the peninsula.
The objective was to get rid of
the Germans on the peninsula
and head up to Paris where
we were to jump off at 4 a.m.
on the 14th of June. We found out
the next day that the Germans, who
now had received reinforcements
from some heavy armor that came in
from Calais, were acting on orders
a mission to penetrate our force, get
behind us, cut us up a bit and then
push the beach force back into sea.
There was nothing between our force
and the beach forces which were just
beginning to formulate their plans and
get a good foothold on the beaches.
At 3 a.m. I was told that my next job
was to be a spotter for the battalion.
I was to go along and check across
the road where another of the 2nd
battalion companies was going to be
set up along with the 3rd battalion.
To picture the bloody gulch, imagine
a huge football field. One of the
sidelines was a huge hedgerow that

Top: AP/U.S. Army Signal Corps

Bottom: WorldWarTwoZone.com

LT. COL. ROBERT LEE
WOLVERTON, COMMANDING
OFFICER OF 3RD BATTALION,
506TH PARACHUTE INFANTRY
REGIMENT, PREPARES FOR
THE DROP INTO NORMANDY.
HIS MEN WERE TASKED WITH
SECURING THE BRIDGES
SURROUNDING THE FRENCH
TOWN OF CARENTAN. HE
WOULD NEVER REACH THE
GROUND, KILLED BY ENEMY
FIRE DURING HIS DESCENT.

SPRING 2015

17