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NORMANDY The 4th Division was not
the first to see Utah Beach on D-Day; I was!
As a paratrooper platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, I passed
over Utah Beach, 300 feet up, hours before the landings. I was traveling
in the wrong direction at the time - a mistake that began three hours
earlier on an airfield near Nottingham, England.
Shortly after loading my platoon and the equipment bundles, the Air
Corps announced that the port engine on my C-47 would not start.
Dragging the 350 pound bundles between triplets of airplanes roaring by
at sixty second intervals made switching a desperate and time-consuming
struggle. As we rolled down the runway, I realized my platoon was all
alone.
Airborne at last, the three overloaded aircraft found the signal
submarine south of Portsmouth and turned east towards Normandy's western
shore.
Standing in the door, I watched as Guernsey Island slipped under the
wing, beautiful in the moonlight. At landfall the planes dropped to 600
feet and anti-aircraft fire rattled by as I desperately searched for
landmarks.
At last, far to the north I saw the twin ribbons of the Merderet and
Douve rivers that marked the drop-zone. According to plan, we were to
come in from behind and drop on the critical bridge crossings leading to
the beaches.
“Turn left and drop us somewhere!!” I screamed into the intercom as we
flew over the soft white beach of the peninsula's eastern shore. We were
heading straight for the invasion fleet.
Dropping as he turned left, the pilot brought the flight back over the
center of Utah Beach!
Within moments my plane was ripped by a burst of fire and I was jolted
backwards as a tracer slammed into my chin. The plane lurched crazily as
the green light flicked on.
"Let's go!” I yelled and jerked myself through the door. My chute opened
instantly, I oscillated once, and crashed into the ground with such
force I couldn't move. Although in shock, I noted that it was perfectly
quiet. Mentally I cursed my parents, my country, wife, President
Roosevelt, thinking, how could THEY do this to me? -to anyone!
As logic and training took control, I looked around and froze in fear!
Yards away was a bunker with a machine gun pointed straight at me!
Logic again told me that, since I was still alive, the bunker was empty,
and as a spasm of urine erupted from my body, I rolled to my feet and
slashed at my harness.
Unencumbered, the blood on my chin already beginning to congeal and
under control at last, I started my search for equipment and comrades.
It was 1:25 a.m. - for me, D-Day had just begun.
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By: Neal W. Beaver Box 207 Grand Marais, MI 49839
Copy of an article written for Parade Magazine by Neal Beaver, for the
40th Anniversary of D-Day
David Lawrence, Jr., Executive Director April 17, 1984Detroit Free Press
Detroit, MI 48231
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