Fall into history
Paratroopers from Benning return to scene of unit's finest hour
BY MICK WALSH
Staff Writer
Soldiers from Fort Benning's 1st Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, have special dinner plans tonight.
While it might have been easier to book a few booths at Outback, the cadre of paratroopers has a craving for French cuisine, not Aussie tucker.
That's why they'll be in the Normandy village of Amfreville, surrounded by grateful townsfolk who still remember the June day 60 years ago when the original members of the battalion, then attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, liberated them from German shackles.
Few are as knowledgeable of the history of the 507th as Capt. Bob Risdon, the battalion's operations officer, who orchestrated the unit's return to France for this weekend's D-Day, or as it was known then, Operation Overlord, activities.
Just this week, the Public Broadcasting System carried an hour-long documentary on the unit, detailing the paratroopers' accomplishments after landing behind enemy lines, painting a picture of the group in poignant interviews with its survivors.
"My interest in the invasion dates back to my childhood," Risdon said earlier this week, as he and Sgt. 1st Class James Dennis made final arrangements for the group's trip. "My interest in this trip dates back about a year."
As chief of the unit's operations and training shop, Risdon felt it would be important to the men of the 507th, because of the unit's history, to return to France.
The biggest challenge was finding a way to get the 165 soldiers, including Fort Benning commander Brig. Gen. Ben Freakley and 507th boss Lt. Col. Adis Zunde, from Lawson Field to a landing strip at Cherbourg -- the nearest town to Utah Beach and the locale for the 1964 film "Les Parapluies (Umbrellas) de Cherbourg."
"We had to be very proactive," said Risdon, a Chicago native and 1992 University of Wisconsin grad. "We were told there simply weren't enough aircraft available to transport us to Europe."
But Risdon wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.
Because of the Airborne School's relationship with the 437th Air Wing out of Charleston, S.C. -- they fly the C-17s from which the Airborne students jump -- he was able to get a commitment from that base to ferry soldiers to Normandy.
But that wasn't the end of the maneuvering.
There was the matter of rearranging the training schedule at the Airborne School, which includes three-week basic Airborne and Pathfinder classes and the two-week jumpmaster school.
"We squeezed 15 days of training into 12," said Dennis, a Fairfield, Calif., native who shares Risdon's love of history. "We even had to move up graduation of one class from its normal Friday to Tuesday."
Not all of the 507th instructors and riggers are on the trip. Some were left behind to train other classes.
Once the transportation and training issues were cleared up, all that was left was trading in greenbacks for Euros and packing up enough gear for a weekend.
The unit left late Thursday, arriving in France on Friday.
They'll be re-enacting their portion of the D-Day jump this morning at 7:30, which is 1:30 p.m. in Normandy.
"The jump, which will be over the same drop zone as on D-Day, will be from about 1,000 feet," Risdon said. "It will take about a minute or so to reach the ground."
There will be a lot of silk in the air this morning. Sixteen planes will be utilized in the re-enactment, with hundreds of soldiers from several different airborne units following the same routes as their predecessors six decades ago.
Only this time, there will be no enemy firing at them. The original 507th cadre, a unit formed at Benning in 1942, numbered 2,004. It was reduced to 600 within the early hours of the invasion.
Because of heavy fog and German flak, the 117 aircraft delivering the 507th made evasive maneuvers that resulted in the regiment being dispersed over a 20-mile area. Many of the paratroopers were drowned after landing in the Merderet River and surrounding marshes. Others were killed by German soldiers as they landed in occupied towns. Despite that, the unit achieved all of its assigned missions. It spent the next 33 days in bloody combat before being relieved.
A total of 303 members of the 507th were killed during that month of fighting.
The 507th of today will be greeted by open arms as they trek up the Cotentin Peninsula from Chef-du-Pont to the La Fiere Causeway from Graignes to the La Poterie Ridge, the very places where Col. George Van Millett, Capt. Robert Rae and other soldiers fought, died or were captured so long ago. Then, the current-day troopers will be guests at a banquet, thrown by the people of Amfreville.
A special wreath-laying ceremony, featuring the mayor of Amfreville, Alain Matre, and Freakley, will precede the dinner.
"This will definitely be one of the highlights of my career," Dennis said. "It's an honor for us to represent the 507th and the men who participated in D-Day."