oops mistake haha hes ment to be a protestant not catholic. hahah i cant beleive i forgot i actually am catholic :S
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PART I: THE DEUCE
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Dale and Joey soon found themselves on a train to Fort Benning, Georgia with the rest of the new 3rd Battalion of the 502nd PIR bound for training in the airborne. The 502nd were the second Regiment in this new experimental airborne idea, they became known as the “Five-oh-Deuce” or just “the Deuce”. Once arriving in Fort Benning they were folded in Fox Company under training commander of the 3rd Battalion: Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Cole. Upon arriving at Fort Benning and going to training in February Dale was promoted to Sergeant as “he stood out from the rest”. Upon promotion Dale was given charge of 1st Squad, a group of airborne-in-training from across the United States. 1st squad was an 8-man squad of two fireteams, Dale recommended Joey for Corporal of the first fireteam. Joey’s new fireteam consisted of Pfc. Herbert Warren, a Texan from Houston who soon gained the nickname “cowboy” from the rest of the squad, Ed Lorraine from Philadelphia and John Wisnewski an ethnic Polish Jew whose family moved to Louisiana during the Soviet Invasions of Poland. Also upon designation of squad leader Dale chose another natural soldier who he had befriended named Sam Pelfrey from Wyoming. Sam however was an odd individual as he had been raised on the streets and seen the army as a way out of his poverty and low living class. Cpl. Pelfrey was given three soldiers to command, two best friends from New York: George Elliot and Henry Bennett as well as ridiculously young eighteen year old Eugene Macky. Dale was responsible for the lives eight men and their families back home. In all honesty none of the none-combat experienced squad leaders were ready but all in all it was their duty. The 502nd PIR was attached to 101st Airborne in August 1942 and began grueling training.
Diary Entries
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September 3rd 1942
Since arriving here in Virginia Lieutenant Colonel Cole seems to like me for some reason, apparently I have “good endurance” for what ever that’s worth. These last couple days have broken me and the rest of Fox Company as we run patrol after patrol and course after course under Cole’s watchful eyes. I honestly thought that he had had enough of me until this morning after breakfast before running the course he approached me and began congratulating me for my new promotion. Now I am forcefully in command of 1st Squad. I guess I was just lucky and the other guys seem happy enough to be under the command of someone they know but I still don’t know who they will trust when the firing starts.
This could become a great AAR. Thats why i've pointed out the mistake.
Someone that puts that much time into an AAR wants it to be near perfect right?
This could become a great AAR. Thats why i've pointed out the mistake.
Someone that puts that much time into an AAR wants it to be near perfect right?
I sure do! haha btw these first couple parts may seem a bit boring up into Part 3 which beleive me or not took roughly 2 hours to write including research:S haha should be posting Part 2 tomorrow so spread the word :rofl:
PART II: PREPARATION FOR A DAY OF DAYS
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After over a year of extensive training, making their first airborne jumps, participating in wargames and becoming battle hardened soldiers, the 502 PIR was transferred to England in late 1943 and even though they did not know it, they were preparing to take part in the Invasion of Europe code-named D-Day. Sgt. Dale Sutherland, Cpl. Joey Bahlau, Cpl. Sam Pelfrey and the rest of the eight-man squad arrived in Britain in 1943 to complete final training. The 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” were becoming one of the most elite fighting forces of the United States Military with no combat experience. By early 1944 it became obvious that they were preparing for the Invasion of Europe as they were put on high alert many times and redeployed at RAF Station Greenham Common in Berkshire in the south west of England. In May it was announced that the men of the 506 PIR along with the rest of the 101st Airborne, the 82nd and a couple of British Airborne Divisions would be jumping into Normandy, France and they were to study the maps extensively. The 101st Airborne were to take part in Mission Albany, the massive airborne drop behind the Atlantic Wall, the regiment’s objective was to secure the exits from the beachheads and take out German artillery in and around the town of Ste. Martin-de-Vareville. General Eisenhower set the date for D-Day as June 5th. The men of Screaming Eagles were alerted and began to prepare at the airfield on June 4th but it was postponed for 24 hours and set for June 6th due to bad weather.
Diary Entries
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June 4 1944, D-2
The Invasion has been postponed for another 24 hours. We had fully suited up and everything and were finally ready to go but were told that the Invasion had been called off for one more day. I can tell these men are restless, none of us can think straight from the anxiety. As the sun set on the night we were supposed to be venturing on the great crusade, Joey and I sat out on the airfield contemplating our lives for at least the next month. It finally occurred to me at this time that it was my duty to lead these eight men through hell and I could not do that by being scared or nervous of my duty. Eight families now looked onto me to bring their husbands and sons home safe. Eight men: Pelfrey for his gang street family, Warren for his ranch cattle working family, Lorraine and his massive French family from Philly, Wisnewski and the close-nit Jewish community in Louisiana, Elliot and Bennett and there families and friends from the Bronx, Macky and his high-class family of nurses and doctors from Maine. Eugene Macky is one of the men I fear for the most, he can’t even shave yet or drink yet he can die for his country. Finally, there is Joey: my best friend, if he died how I could tell his mother? I was the one who honestly dragged him into this. I haven’t even thought of Frank Slackey lately until I received a letter from him two days ago which more than a little discouraged me. Franky’s spirit had been broken fighting in the desert and Sicily, he told me of the atrocities of war and how he had seen men torn apart by artillery and guns. He was no-longer the spirited boy that I knew from Missouri. I think about all these things as we embark on the great crusade tomorrow night.
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Will be interesting to see how you will discribe the fighting.
I've tried but failed to write a realistic fightscene.
I've tried but failed to write a realistic fightscene.
Nothing beats mock war games and trials for men who are about to go into combat! I can't wait to see the boys in action.
PART III: THE GREAT CRUSADE
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Diary Entries
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1:10 AM, C-47 Skytrain above the English Channel, June 6 1944, D-Day
In less than thirty minutes I shall dropping into Normandy and embarking on the Great Crusade. I feel that now is the right time to write a diary entry as we fly across the skies of England in this C-47 Skytrain even though it is near impossible to write anything this rickety plane, I just feel I might not be around this time tomorrow night. I am sitting at the front near the door looking at each of these men, my brothers who I have to guide to Hell and back again. Lorraine has rejected taking the air sickness tablets and I know sits on his hands and knees in a pool of his vomit holding the Catholic Cross and beads he was just praying to. I look at darkness below the C-47 as we guide across the sky, I can still make out the massive armada of ships in the Channel. Reviewing my objectives, our regiment is to meet up with Cole and our other regiment commanders and take the French town of Ste. Martin-de-Vareville then meet the guys coming of the beaches at some point named Exit 4. It seems that the man in the cockpit of the C-47 has just told us that we are now over France, time to swallow my gut and take up responsibility for these men.
Normandy, June 6 1944, D-Day
I have decided after the war that if I make it home I’m finally going to reconcile with my father and become a priest. After today however I don’t think I’m going to even make it to the end of the week. We dropped under kraut anti-aircraft that tore most of our C-47s apart. The green light went on and I was the first to jump as squad commander, we had already had one man down in Normandy by this time as, unknown to me, shortly after my jump anti-aircraft fire split a gaping hole right through the floor of the C-47 leaving Private First Class Ed Lorraine without the use of four toes and inability to jump. I found myself amazing alive and in tree a few moments later, after what felt like a minute of regaining my senses I decided to cut myself loose before a jerry got to me. I spent the next few minutes trying to get my pack out of the tree and then proceeding towards a nearby road in hope of finding some of the rest of my division or at least someone who didn’t talk German. I walked for what felt like an hour in no particular direction up the road with my M1 Carbine until I reached a sign pointing at an intersection with wording “Sainte-Mère-Église” from what I could gather and as I began trying to think of my position from the maps I had studied for days, I heard someone yell “Flash!” from behind me in the bushes. As quick as ever I turned around and yelled the proceeding “Thunder!” A few Airborne moved their way out of the bushes and towards me I didn’t recognize any of the faces except for one on the end. Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole. “Sgt. Sutherland! Great to see a familiar face, I’ve been leading these 82nd and 506th PIR boys for about an hour now, trying to work out our position” were his exact words, they seem to be stuck in my head for some reason. I directed his attention to the sign and we decided to begin the trek north to try and reach the beachhead and exit 3 and the vareville battery before morning.
We walked for hours through French farmlands in generally the right direction, picking up dozens of lost 101st Paratroopers along the way until we came upon a small French village were most of the rest of our battalion were held up. There I found Joe, Sam Pelfrey, John Wisnewski and “Cowboy” Warren. Sam told me about Lorraine’s wounds on the plane and the fact they had to leave him and jump as well as the fact that he hadn’t found anybody else in his fireteam yet but knew for a fact that George and Henry were somewhere north of their position as they had drifted together that way when they dropped. I inquired to the other soldiers if they had seen Eugene Macky yet and Joey replied, “He’s probably somewhere between Normandy and Berlin”. Joe had always had a way of making the worse funny and normally I would have too but I worried for Macky for some reason as he was too young to be fighting. We stayed in the small French village while Cole attempted to organize his scattered battalion. Soon enough, the naval bombardment of the beaches began right on time and Cole began to prepare the 60 or so men from various divisions or regiments to take the 502nd’s first objective of D-Day, Exit 3 and meet up with the Americans coming off Utah. As you would expect as we were given two 82nd boys he had found shortly before he discovered me looking blankly up at the Sainte-Mère-Église sign post. Their names were Private McDermot and Henderson I believe.
As the day wore on the naval bombardment stopped and we came up on the small village guarding the exit from the beach which was slowly being trekked up by suppressed infantry. Ste. Martin-de-Vareville and the surrounding area had been shelled to hell by the navy and surviving and injured Germans were coming out of destroyed houses and shelled in bunkers. While Cole’s rag-tag group of lost soldiers shot at and advanced at the scattering Germans in Ste. Martin-de-Vareville and attempted to take out the battery around the town, my squad was tasked with flanking around the town and taking the bunkers overlooking the beaches from behind. When we finally arrived at the heavily shelled beach defenses dozens of Germans started retreating right towards my squad through the hundreds of the shell holes and destroyed trenches. I ordered the squad to start massacring the retreating Krauts. It seemed to be going well until Henderson took one in the neck which cut an artery. I stood comforting the soldier from the 82nd with blood squirting irrationally from his neck dying, I realized that this was not the war I signed up for. With all the Germans retreating from the bunkers slaughtered, dying or captured we proceeded to the dune line to greet the arriving Infantry and Tanks coming onto the beaches.
While we sat on the headland overlooking the hundreds of ships, soldiers, tanks and balloons across the beach, Cole’s men arrived and ordered us back to the village we had been held up at the beginning of the day. The sun began to set while we returned through the decimated French countryside to the village. Halfway back with the sun almost down we came across George and Henry who had apparently single-handedly taken out a Jerry Anti-Aircraft gun. However, a Kraut had taken them by surprise after they thought they had killed all the Germans and shot Henry in the back of the leg, George had been carrying his childhood friend for over twelve hours across farmlands and German Garrisons to try and find our squad. It seems we all landed in the incorrect spots but under the leadership of Cole we managed to reach all of our D-Day Objectives and the other regiments are all of sudden calling us, ‘The Widowmakers’. We got dinner of some kind of stew back at the village, I have managed to get my whole squad assembled except for Eugene who nobody has heard anything about yet, in all honesty we are one of the most complete squads in the regiment in one spot yet I cannot sleep, I keep thinking about Henderson, the 82nd boy who had his neck shot to hell by retreating krauts.
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PART IV: D+1
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Having dropped and scattered around the countryside the 502nd PIR began to regroup further the day after Normandy. The whole regiment had been dropped in the wrong places while their commander was dropped exactly where they were supposed to be dropped. Another story of D-Day told of the unfortunate Able Company of the Deuce whose green light went off way to early while the plane was still over the Channel. Sections of Able Company were dropped right into the Channel and large amounts of them drowned. Sgt. Dale Sutherland, my grandfather landed near St. Mere- Egleise and soon met up with his battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Cole who organized 75 of men to take the Deuce’s objectives for D-Day, the artillery at Ste. Martin-de-Vareville and the beach exit from Utah Beach. The first man, Dale lost was Pfc. Edward Lorraine who was shot in the foot by AA whilst still in the plane, in the end however the C-47 managed to return to England however damaged. Other than Lorraine by the end of D-Day, Dale had recovered most of his squad except for Eugene Macky who remained missing as the regiment made the advance on St. Come-du-Mont on the road to Carentan. After D-Day the regiment was directed towards the Carentan Causeway and then onto Hill 30. In the days following D-Day, 1st Squad took part in a few engagements with retreating Germans soldiers on the way to the Carentan Causeway to block off the retreat of the German soldiers who where being attack by other elements of the 101st Airborne in Carentan. Fox Company was completely scattered however and was instead temporarily folded into G-Company to take part in the advance.
Soldiers (Left to Right): Dale Sutherland, Joey Bahlau, Sam Pelfrey, George Elliot, Henry "Easy Target" Bennett, Herbert "Cowboy" Warren, Edward Lorraine, John Winsnewski
Diary Entries
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Near St. Come-du-Mont, Normandy, France - June 7 1944, D+1
We still haven’t heard anything about Eugene and I’m starting to worry for the kid. The division t has began the advance on Carentan to link up the Airborne, Omaha and Utah, the Deuce has been tasked with securing Highway N13 or the Carentan Causeway to block off retreating Germans from Carentan which should be attacked by the 506 and 501st in the coming days. We have a lot of fighting to do and Fox Company has been scattered and lost a lot of squads. For the time being Cole has put my squad in G Company under Captain Robert Clements and we have been volunteered to assist elements of the 501st in taking St. Come-du-Mont. All day we have been fighting alongside tank support in trying to take the town and Capt. Clements reckons that we should be able to take it tomorrow and then return to the rest of our unit at the Carentan Causeway. Private McDermot from the 82nd who we had found on D-Day was severely wounded in combat today by a fucking kraut mortar blast. The poor boy had his right foot detached from his leg except for a long strain of gore which kept his foot on a thread. Joey rushed to the kid and brought him back to HQ which then transported him back to his regiment to the North taking part in Mission Boston. Yesterday Henry Bennett’s foot was patched up and he seems to be holding up quite well as we advance further towards St. Come-du-Mont.
Ouch, I'd hate to be McDermot.
By now, I'm pretty sure Eugene's dead. Poor kid.
Great writing.
By now, I'm pretty sure Eugene's dead. Poor kid.
Great writing.