If Chaos Reigns: The Near-Disaster and Ultimate Triumph of the Allied Airborne Forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Whitlock Flint

Author:Whitlock, Flint [Whitlock, Flint]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100
ISBN: 9781612000114
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2013-05-06T21:00:00+00:00

ANOTHER OF THE Screaming Eagles dropping into France was Tech Sergeant Burton “Pat” Christenson, a machine gunner with E/506th. He was the second man to leave his plane, chalk #67, right after his platoon leader, Lieutenant Richard Winters, the jumpmaster. Christenson noted that Winters was looking out the open door at the C-47 in front of them as they approached the coast. “Look,” Winters shouted back to him, “they’re catching hell up ahead of us.” And indeed they were.

“The red and orange tracers were reaching the forward aircraft,” Christenson wrote. “Tension began to mount, nerves became taut. A burst of flak to our right aroused those still mesmerized by the long flight. [We were] conscious now that our drop zone couldn’t be too far away. The flak grew heavier. We stood now, ready to get the hell out of that bobbing and weaving C-47, the pilot doing his damndest to elude the fire. Anti-aircraft now hammered incessantly. It was time to go. On went the green light. Go-go-go! As Winters left the plane, a heavy burst of 20mm hit the tail of the plane. I thought for certain he had gone right into it. I was out the door behind him in another second.”

In the jump, Christenson lost the machine-gun tripod he was carrying along with his carbine, ammunition, and musette bag. All he had left was a pistol he had bought from a British paratrooper. He came down through gunfire that was traversing the men in his stick like a firehose spraying water. It was frightening beyond measure. “Explosions filled the air,” he said. “A C-47’s engine was on fire about 150 feet off to my right. [The plane] seemed to be disintegrating. A bell was ringing in a town off to my left. I thought, ‘Keep your composure, assess your situation, plan your moves quickly. I’m heading for that line of trees. I’m descending too rapidly. Concentrate on your landing.’ I could see an orchard beyond the trees. As I passed over the trees I drew my legs up to avoid hitting them. A moment of terror seized me: seventy feet below and twenty feet to my left was a German quad-mounted 20mm anti-aircraft gun. That moment it opened up, firing at the C-47s passing above.”

Christenson was lucky—had the gun’s crew caught him with a burst, he would have been shredded. He landed safely in an apple tree, let himself down, and dashed to the cover of a hedgerow, stepping on a dead paratrooper during his run. It wasn’t until years later, while watching the movie The Longest Day, that he learned why the bell he had heard on his descent was tolling: it was the church bell in Sainte-Mère-Église calling out the townspeople to fight a fire near the town square.5

Like nearly every stick, Lieutenant Dick Winters’ stick from chalk #67 was liberally distributed across northern France—close to Sainte-Mère-Église but several miles west of its intended objective, the cause-ways leading south from Sainte Marie-du-Mont. Winters landed unharmed

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