PARATROOPERS

Much has been written about the Normandy Jump; an Airborne operation of that magnitude had never been attempted. Despite navigational difficulties and heavy anti-aircraft fire that dispersed the air Armada, the widely-dispersed paratroopers of the 101st and 82D Airborne Divisions were able to band together in LGOPs (Little Groups of Paratroopers) and seize their objectives - sometimes with as few as ten percent of their planned strength.

The Internet is a wonderful resource; I found this incredible site: US Airborne in Cotentin Peninsula.

Over the years I have had the blessed good fortune to meet with WWII veterans of the 101st and 82D Airborne, to hear firsthand their accounts. Most of them, sadly, are now in that Big Drop Zone In The Sky. What they did in Normandy was as heroic as anything ever done, before or since. They saved the World for Democracy.