American Valor Quarterly Issue 12 - Spring 2015 | Page 15

art.” But, unfortunately, it was a waste
of time because things in Normandy
didn’t exactly proceed as planned.
The colonel wanted me to brief the
battalion by company, by platoons,
and finally by squads and individuals.
I briefed these men for two-and-a-half
to three days and the colonel told me
if anyone wanted to be briefed again
individually, I needed to be available
to them. If it was two o’clock in the
morning and someone was awake
thinking about it and wanted to be
briefed, I had to brief him. At one
point, my assistant sergeant said to me,
“You know this sergeant that comes in
every hour on the hour? He must be
stupid.” I said, “No, sergeant. He’s not
stupid. He’s a squad leader and wants
to make damn sure he knows where to
be with his squad.” And that was true.

The Airborne Museum

On Saturday night, June 4, 1944,
the time came and we were alerted.
I was to gather up everything in my
tent, and wait to be picked up by a jeep
and taken to the plane I would jump
in. Once we arrived, scared to death,
trembling like a moth I suppose, I got
word right before I got my parachute
on, that the jump had been called off.
I never reached the steps of that plane.
We got returned to our quarters
and on June 5th we had another preinvasion meeting, and got ready that
evening, following the same routine. I
waited until Private Kendall said, “Sgt.
SPRING 2015

Shames, get on the jeep. I’m taking
you over.” I went over, got ready, and
again prepared to put my parachute
on, when Lt. Col. Wolverton arrived
at my door telling me that my seat on
that plane had become occupied and
that I was going to board a different
plane. So I did what I was ordered to,
got back on the jeep, and reported to
the plane I was reassigned to. I have
no idea to this day which plane I got
onto, and it’s an unsolved mystery of
sorts. To this day, I’m on no manifest
at all. I could not even prove that I
jumped into Normandy by looking
on the manifest of those planes. But
I got on a plane and traveled over the
channel. By the time we got across,
all hell had broken loose. We were
passing over Jersey Island and got flak
from there that didn’t quite reach us.
As I mentioned, when we hit the coast,
it was a hellish situation. It looked like
Fourth of July at Oceanview Park, an
amusement park I went to as a child
in Norfolk. Stuff was coming through
the aircraft. You could hear it. Finally,
the green light went on and we stood
in the door, ready to go. Waiting for
number 18 to jump, I realized I was
next, and thought, “This is it.”
Before we jumped, we were issued
the English jump bags. Most of the
guys put their weapons and field
supplies into these bags, which was
a big mistake. We thought we knew

how to tie the jump bags to our legs
to prevent the draft from taking them
off, but we didn’t. A third of the guys
lost their bags by the time they hit
the ground. I did not have a leg bag
because the only things I carried were
map cases, my M1, and an extra pair
of mortar rounds. Almost everyone
carried an extra set of mortar rounds
or machine gun belts because no one
carried enough ammunition. It was
too heavy. The guy in front of me was
a mortar man. He slipped halfway
through the door and I had to help
him up. By the time I got him back on
his feet he was still hooked up. Then I
jumped and landed in a field of cows.
Had I known then what I know now,
I would have dropped dead because I
found out a half hour later that I had
landed at the Carnation milk plant.
Later, I purposefully left a notice on
the steeple of the church to avoid it at
all cost. It was the headquarters of the
Hermann Göring corps of armor and
I jumped right in the middle of it. As I
said, I had no idea in the world where
I was, I was just delighted to be on the
ground.
With the cows all around me and
parachute tangled at my feet, I didn’t
have time to unbuckle. I grabbed
my jump knife and slashed the cords
to my parachute pack, which I wore
three days later in Normandy. We were
told at the briefing there would be
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