STE. MERE-EGLISE, France — The last time Joseph Stritto was in France, he was struggling to dodge dead cows — shot by the Germans — so he could land his Waco glider in a farm field and unload the 14 soldiers he was carrying.
On Saturday, Stritto, 86, was among a handful of World War II veterans who had survived the D-Day invasion at Ste. Mere-Eglise and returned for the 60-year anniversary.
“It’s hard to imagine,” Stritto said slowly, his speech hesitant because of a recent stroke. “I was headed for the beach, but we were strafed by a couple of Messerschmitts. I landed my 14 troops south of Ste. Mere-Eglise.”
Stritto, then of the 441st Troop Carrier Command, was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers in the invasion.
Late on June 5, 1944, 16,000 American soldiers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions jumped from troop carriers or were part of units that landed in gliders at Normandy that day. On Saturday, the veterans and their families and thousands of onlookers were treated to a re-enactment.
Sixteen Air Force planes, including C-130s, MC-130s and C-17s, flew over the open farm field so paratroops from the 82nd and 101st and the 173rd Airborne Brigade could parachute to the ground.
“It’s very impressive,” said Stritto, who had been a flight officer in the war.
In all, 610 soldiers jumped Saturday, their green chutes unfurling as they fell.
Among them was Sgt. 1st Class LaMonta Caldwell, 37, of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy.
“I was jumping in the memory of all the guys who actually jumped that day,” Caldwell said. The last time Caldwell had jumped was on March 26, 2003, when the unit parachuted into Bashur, Iraq.
“You can’t get no better than that,” Caldwell, 37, of Ruston, La., said of his last two jumps.
Also jumping was Col. Jim Yarbrough, operations officer for the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C.
“They’re 60 years apart but the spark in these young troops is absolutely no different than the spark you see in the veterans’ eyes,” Yarbrough said.
Just before cargo planes unloaded the soldiers Saturday, Henry Scott, a C-47 pilot who had dropped troops in the same area on the eve of D-Day, wanted to talk less about the current jump and more about the one he participated in.
“It was dark. It was so dark it was scary,” said Scott, then a major with the 88th Squadron of the 438th Troop Carrier Command.
“The paratroopers had asked me for the submachine gun on our aircraft,” said Scott, 84, of Washington, D.C. “They didn’t have any of those.”
Thousands of visitors flocked to Ste. Mere-Eglise for the parachute drop and other ceremonies, turning the normally quiet Norman town into a festive hub. To reach the jump zone meant a nearly two-mile walk from the town center, but that didn’t seem to deter anyone.
Spc. Caroline Smith, of the Hanau, Germany-based 502nd Engineers, came to the jump to escort Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper. Chief of Staff Gen. Richard B. Myers was the keynote speaker.
But once Jumper was in the grandstand, Smith, 22, used her video camera to record the airborne troops falling from the sky. She said the French people’s reaction to the U.S. soldiers, as well as being in the presence of World War II veterans, had been an enormous honor.
“I’ve never felt so good about being a soldier,” said Smith, of Seattle.
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------------------------------------------------------------ Out of every 100 men, ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are just targets, Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Hericletus, circa 500 BC
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