Page 7 - Aerotech News and Review, June 11, 2021

Days of Days: D-Day 1944, and Dad’s Day 2021

by Dennis Anderson Nazi anti-aircraft artillery tearing into “Check Equipment!” Kris the Jump
special to Aerotech News aircraft, crashing some in fiery blazes, Master shouts.
but most making it through. “OK!” six jumpers shout back in
It’s worth remembering with Father’s “I was third in the door, and the pilot chorus. We each tap the leg of the
Day coming up, that for a lot of us born was already swerving,” McBride re- jumper in front of us.
during the Baby Boom, World War II called. “Maybe 300 feet altitude. … I “One minute!”
was the war that our fathers and grand- looked up, and I saw France coming at The C-47’s vibration, twin-engine
fathers fought and won — and they de- me. I looked down, and I saw canopy.” roar and cold rush of wind can only be
feated Nazi Germany and the Empire of He was hanging upside down, one experienced first-hand, hands clenched
Japan in winning it. of his boots tangled in harness straps to the door, knees in the breeze. Near
Father’s Day on June 20 falls just a called risers. “I don’t know if I was sunset on a cool evening in a week
couple of weeks after June 6, the com- knocked out 10 seconds, or 10 min- punctuated by thunderstorm and tor-
memoration of D-Day, 1944, the “Day utes.” He regained consciousness and nado warnings, we were on final jump
of Days,” when the United States and sometime before sunrise, he connected run. Jump Master Kris shouted final
its Allies launched the largest seaborne with a buddy and a lieutenant. jump commands above the din.
invasion in history, joined by thousands “We spotted a 1936 Ford painted
of airborne troops, all the vast effort to with camouflage,” he recalled. “We “Stand in the door!” and, “Go!”
defeat Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich and thought it might be the French Resis- First jumper stepped out into the
end Nazi tyranny. tance we heard so much about.” Next, sky, and the rest of us followed in one-
In the Antelope Valley, there was a they spotted the driver’s German hel- second intervals. The prop blast and
time when a reporter could pick up a Photographs courtesy of Julia Akoury met, and his buddy made a killing shot. breeze is blowing my cheeks sideways,
phone and interview a veteran of D-Day Sgt. Daniel McBride, D-Day veteran of 101st Airborne, awards renewal jump “The rear door of the car came open my boots are set, hands on the door.
on the spot. Those days are mostly gone wings to Cold War Airborne veteran Dennis Anderson. with this square-head armed with a Next, I’m in rushing air, and I look
now, but not completely. For example, handgun getting out, and I opened up up to check a green nylon canopy that
Navy man Art Ray, veteran of D-Day Ullman ditched in the waves and was self, and I may even be joined by my (with a submachine gun). It fired four blossoms like a giant mandala. The
lobbing shells over the beaches from scooped out of the frigid English Chan- son, Garrett, a combat Marine veteran rounds, and stopped, but they must lines are slightly twisted, so I bicycle
the cruiser USS Quincy, is still among nel waters by Sea-Air-Rescue. who made the jump with us on the Lib- have all hit him.” with my legs the way I was trained
us. My father, Army Cpl. Carl R. Ander- erty Jump Team. McBride took the German’s pistol, in 1973, and the thing straightens out
“The Quincy was a good ship,” he son didn’t make it to Normandy, but he McBride, whose jumping days are a 9mm Luger. They commandeered nicely.
recalled recently in a telephone inter- arrived in England the day after D-Day, over, is kind of an elder statesman. the vehicle, and later found the town At a little above 1,000 feet, sudden
view. “We cruised up and down the just in time to start processing Signal At Memorial Day this year, he was of Ste. Mere Eglise — the first town silence and a cool breeze hits me in the
coast of France for two weeks after Corps invasion film, and classified pho- honored, and featured in a documen- liberated in Normandy. face. A panoramic view of Earth rotates
D-Day,” sending shells ashore to take tos of the V-1 and V-2 Nazi rockets and tary produced by Emmy winner Tracie “That’s all we did on D-Day,” he beneath my jump boots. Exhilaration
out Nazi artillery batteries and troop missiles that were raining on London, Hunter, young enough to be his grand- concluded in a masterpiece of under- flows through the pores … even if you
formations. killing thousands of civilians. daughter, but accomplished enough to statement. are 68 years old, like me. Back, under
Ray’s ship, the Quincy, went on to Lew Shoemaker of Lancaster waded make her own parachute training jumps To honor these men, the Liberty canopy, in the heady performance of
carry President Franklin D. Roosevelt ashore with the 1st Infantry Division, and make a documentary about Mc- Jump Team, a non-profit association confident youth. With eyes on horizon,
on his journey to the Big Three Confer- the famed “Big Red One.” With artil- Bride and other Screaming Eagles, “A comprised mostly of paratrooper vet- I guesstimate last seconds, put feet and
ence at Yalta, with Winston Churchill lery screaming overhead and blowing Rendezvous With Destiny.” It opened erans, makes its own commemorative knees together, and drop to Earth in a
and Joseph Stalin. And Art was aboard Americans to bits, he said, “You may in Ohio at the National Veterans Mu- jump most years on D-Day. Last year’s heap, hitting terra firma like a lineman
the Quincy in Tokyo Bay when Gen. not believe it but you can actually seum. jump was canceled because of the pan- sacking the quarterback.
Douglas MacArthur and the Allies wit- breathe dirt for a while” if your face is He was awarded three Purple Hearts demic, but the team is already prepar- My jump buddy, Klint Jackson, his
nessed Japan’s unconditional surrender. pressed that hard to land. gear bundled, trudges my direction and
I spent my Army time in the Cold Lew survived to be a teacher and
War dreaming of earning my jump football coach at Quartz Hill High calls out, “You good?”
wings, then jumping with other Air- School, and never bothered to see “All OK,” I answer. At sunset, we
borne troopers in Europe, always aware “Saving Private Ryan,” saying, “I was plod toward the hangar at dusk, feeling
of our heritage and the legacy of D- there. Why see a movie about it?” our age a bit.
Day. Anyone with time in service and All these good men are gone now. The next day, a blue sky Saturday,
belief in our country reveres our D-Day Memorial Day is how we remember we line up like many of us did in ser-
predecessors celebrated in books and them but I also know they enjoyed Fa- vice a long time ago.
film like “Band of Brothers” and “Sav- ther’s Day with family, because I know Our Liberty Jump Team wings are
ing Private Ryan.” their sons and daughters from my gen- pinned to our chest by Sgt. Daniel Mc-
During the past 20-some years as an eration who enjoyed the freedoms they Bride, veteran of D-Day, Holland, the
Antelope Valley journalist, I met and fought to preserve. So that puts a few Defense of Bastogne, and capture of
made friends with D-Day veterans who of our Military Appreciation Month Parachute landing at sunset, Operation Lone Star. Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.
survived to long life. Most are gone days together — Father’s Day, and Me- Sgt. McBride saluted, shook hands,
now, but not all. They all earned our morial Day, and the memory of what and said, “Congratulations. Proud to
gratitude, along with their comrades America achieved in saving the world for combat wounds, and a Bronze Star ing for next year. know you.”
who fought in the Pacific to defeat Ja- from the evils of Nazism and fascism. for valor. He’s nearly 100, but his Liberty Jump Team also has provid- With our silver wings, both old and
pan’s empire that launched the attack Soon after D-Day, Adolph Marti- memories of the long ago World War II ed all-expenses paid trips to Normandy new, we were qualified to return to
on the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. nez of Quartz Hill arrived with the are clear. McBride lifted off for D-Day for dozens of surviving D-Day veterans Normandy and jump in honor of the
On June 5, 1944, Pvt. Henry Ochsner 17th Airborne. In a fight to the death, with his buddies in the same model like McBride, and Jim “Pee Wee” Mar- fast-vanishing veterans of D-Day, un-
— of California City — was barely old he was taken POW in the Battle of the year of C-47 transport we younger vets tin, who just turned 100. der peaceful skies, with our friends.
enough to drink a legal beer. His youth Bulge, and escaped — twice. He be- would use to jump for our “refresher” In March of this year, March 26 to Next year, 2022, the 78th anniversa-
a strategic necessity, he joined his came an educator and school principal wings. be exact, a half dozen of us “retreads” ry of D-Day, I plan to be in Normandy,
101st Airborne buddies to climb aboard and raised a great family, many who In the hours before D-Day, McBride trained as if we were back in harness at accompanied by my Marine combat
the aerial armada of C-47 transports reside in the Antelope Valley. and his “Screaming Eagle” buddies re- jump school on active duty. At a small veteran son, Garrett, who plans to train
that would carry 13,000 paratroopers In March of this year, I met 97-year- ceived a special visitor, Gen. Dwight airfield in Texas, we boarded a World for the jump. Nothing in life is certain,
and glider troops to Normandy. As he old Daniel McBride, another 101st Air- D. Eisenhower, overall commander of War II vintage aircraft dubbed “South- but that would close out Father’s Day,
was climbing aboard with 100 pounds borne D-Day vet. He is yet another the Allied invasion, Operation Over- ern Cross,” a C-47 troop transport like
of extra gear, so was Pvt. John Hum- dad and grandfather honored this Fa- lord, who would go on to be 35th Presi- one of the 2,000 planes that dropped and D-Day plus 78 nicely.
phrey of Rosamond, an 82nd Airborne ther’s Day. I met him in Texas during dent of the United States. thousands of American paratroopers
trooper who would spend a week miss- Operation Lone Star, with a group of “He asked me if I was afraid, and over Normandy on the “Day of Days.” Editor’s note: Dennis Anderson
ing behind enemy lines after the D-Day paratrooper vets who gathered to train I said ‘No,’ because I wasn’t,” Mc- The lovingly restored plane took off trained as an Army paratrooper in
drop. He would be awarded the Bronze for our own commemorative jump at Bride recalled at a dinner for the Lib- with a roar, and we Airborne veterans Cold War Europe during the 1970s and
Star for valor. Normandy, in expectation that the Co- erty Jump Team hosted by Veterans of were airborne again. made more than 100 free falls with the
On the second day of the Normandy vid-19 clouds will have cleared by next Foreign Wars Post 3066 in Corsicana, “On your feet!” our Jump Master, a 8th Infantry Division’s Coleman Bar-
invasion, Lt. Kurt Ullman, who grew year. Texas. Green Beret named Kris shouted, then racks Parachute Team. He deployed
up on a farm in Lancaster, was fly- And that is my D-Day tribute to the Around midnight June 5-6, 1944, shouted, “Hook Static Lines!” to Iraq as an embedded reporter and
ing his C-47 “Skytrain” to resupply war our fathers won: a planned trip McBride and the Airborne troops flew Our static lines hooked up to the currently works on veterans issues as
82nd Airborne paratroopers. With his to Normandy to jump on D-Day next into fog, scattering the planes across long steel cable that spans the cabin’s a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at
aircraft shot up and engine on fire, year. It’s my Father’s Day gift to my- the sky above the French coast, with interior like a clothesline. High Desert Medical Group.
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