The Story Of A 101st

It was September 1944 we were preparing for the largest airborne operation in history a plan that was supposed to end the war before christmas the plan was to parachute behind enemy lines and capture and hold about 20 bridges that the germans had.We had to parachute in holland capture Zon and and eindhoven before the 18th and then wait for the british armou,infantry, and convoys to arrive in Eindhoven then carry on and take the other bridges and liberate Holland.The main objective was to take Arnhem Bridge it was the key to germany.It was September 16,we were getting ready to go cleaning our guns getting our parachutes ready and then we left.I was in a C-47 PLane flying over the English channel talking to my old buddy back in detroit we were in the Normandy jump together he was shot in the leg from a sniperrifle after we landed he charged with his bayonet and stabbed 2 germans an a sniper got him in the leg.We were just talking for hours about stories like when he charged and when we parachuted and all the anti-aircraft guns firing but soon enough the Seargent of our stick told us to get ready yelling us to check the parachuts i was second to jump I asked "Aren't we a little early to jump sir' he said they were firing flak 88mm shells at us if we didnt jump we would be all dead so we all checked eachother's parachutes and the first guy jumped then me I opened my parachute looking for my pal Roy I say him just jumping out of the plane. I was looking around seeing flak shells exploding in the air I stopped thinking if i would live when i saw a C-47 coming right at me men jumping out rapidly the freaking out in the cockpit it was being shot down the win was on fire and smoking like hell.But luckly it was going fast enough that it went under me but i barely could breathe all the smoke in my face I watched the plane as it crashed into the ground blowing up.I was in the air for about 15 mins it seemed like when I landed I checked my weapons to see if they were broken I went to look at the crashed C-47 about 10 people died 3 wounded i carried on with the mission i met up with Roy and the rest of the Division

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