|
E & E Reports
21 August 1944
HQ ETO P/W and X Detachment
Military Intelligence Service
Roland E. Archambault |
About 30 of us got together as
soon as we landed and defended a hedgerow until the afternoon of 6 June.
Our party then retreated leaving me to look after seven men who were too
badly wounded to move. We were surrounded and taken to a barn near
the German divisional Hq. The next day 160 of us were taken
by truck to ST. LO. On the way we were strafed by Allied
planes, and 19 of the 160 were killed and 48 wounded. About 15 km
out of ST LO I was sent down the road to get a cart. I made off
into the woods and hid, but two days later I was recaptured by some
Germans who did not know that I was a n escaper and who sent me to
another regimental aid station. I tended wounded soldiers there
for four days, did the same for a week at an evacuation hospital near ST
LO, and then marched to VILLEDIEU where for 10 days I assisted Capt.
KOLEMAN whom I [found] working in an operating room there. We were
then sent to MORTAIN over night and from there to the hospital in RENNES
where I was put to work with a French PW in the X-ray room.
JUMPMASTER NOTES: Pfc Archambault was
a medic attached to Company B when he jumped into Normandy where he was
captured on D-Day. He was ultimately released to U.S. custody from
the Stalag 4B Muhlberg Sachsen 51-13 POW camp in 1945. Roland
served as the Co B representative on the 508th PIR (WW-II) Association
and received the O.B. Hill award in 1998. He died on Jul 22, 2003
in Montana |
