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At this time we saw our first fighter escort, a British
Spitfire. He was flying very close to our formation. We passed a very close
Island and received fire from it. At this time we were flying no higher than
six hundred feet. Standing at the door you could see the gun at work. From
somewhere came a British Typhoon. It passed very close to our plane and
dived straight for the gun position. Halfway to the gun position smoke flew
from the Typhoon, we thought it had been hit. The plane was loaded with
rockets and I think the pilot fired all rockets because the gun position
went up in smoke. The pilot very gracefully took the plane out of the dive
and was on his merry way.
Shortly we passed over the low land and the antiaircraft
Increased. We kept checking our watches and jump time was drawing near.
Shells began bursting very close to our plane. It was bouncing and holes
began to appear overhead; the flak was breaking through. I looked around and
saw Pvt. Beaver fall. A piece of shrapnel had hit and actually bent his
helmet. He was knocked unconscious and was unhooked and rolled over on his
seat. Less than a minute to go another trooper went down. A piece of
shrapnel had torn into Pvt. Jump's boot and gave him a nasty wound. He also
was unhooked and put aside,
My position was number three on this jump; Van Enwyck had
assigned me duty to keep a sharp look out from the port side window and give
him a sharp slap on the leg when I saw the first trooper make an exit from
the plane on our left wing. I took a glance at my watch and the time was
1328; at the same time I saw the first man make his exit from the plane on
our left. I slapped Van Enwyck on the leg; as I did, the green light came on
and we were on our way out the door. This was a relief because I was
expecting at any moment for our plane to be hit so severely that it would be
knocked down.
I went out the door, my chute opened and I looked around
and saw that we had jumped in a very close pattern. This was what we were
shooting for. We encountered some small arms fire during the descent. Only
one man in the company was hit, and this being Sgt. Anthony Cianfrani (the
company clerk).
On the way down I observed a small house, and I had to
slip like everything to miss landing on it. I did land in the yard and as I
did, I saw one of our replacements (I can't recall his name) come straight
for the house. As his boots struck the slate shingles several of them tore
loose; his chute collapsed and he came sliding off. He hit the ground very
hard. This was very dangerous and he had jumped with full combat equipment
(approximately seventy pounds). He was a Spanish boy and spoke broken
English; his only comment was, "Damned if a man couldn't get hurt if he did
this many times."
From this position I spotted the haystack and knew this
was the company assembly area. By the time I secured my equipment and was
enroute, an orange cloth appeared on the haystack as was planned at the
briefing. The Company less one plane load was assembled in a very
short time. This plane load jumped late and landed 2,000 yards east of
the drop zone, this putting them in Germany. They joined the Company later
at De Ploeg with approximately 30 German prisoners.
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