True story
Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2000 7:20 pm
I just wanted to share this story with you all. It is from the night between June 5th and June 6th 1944.
Ken Russell from Tennessee. He was 18 years old, in the airborne, and as they were flying across the Channel he was struck by the thought, my high school class is graduating tonight. He came down in Ste.Msre Eglise, where there was a fire on the edge of town in a hay barn, set by a tracer bullet. He watched as the guy next to him got hit in his grenade, coming down in his parachute, and that set off -- they all were carrying land mines underneath their reserve chutes, and that grenade set off that land mine, and just suddenly the guy wasn't there. It was just an empty parachute. He looked to his right, and his buddy over to his right was being sucked into the fire. The fire was drawing oxygen and drawing parachutists into it. He screamed once, Ken says, and he screamed once more and then he disappeared into the fire and he didn't scream anymore. Ken came down onto the steeple of the church at Ste.Msre Eglise.
Now, this is famous from Cornelius Ryan's book and Daryl Zanuck's movie, but actually, it was more than one guy. It wasn't just John Steele who was caught on that roof. Ken Russell also was. He's hanging there, trying to get to his trench knife so he can cut himself loose from his risers, when a German sergeant came around the corner. Ken says, "I'll never forget him -- blue-eyed and red-haired." And this German sergeant pulled up his Schmeisser -- a machine pistol -- to shoot Russell and Steele, hanging there on the steeple, and Sgt. John Ray from Homer, Louisiana, came down right behind that German. The German turned and cut him, as I gather from Ken's story, almost literally just cut him in half with a burst from that Schmeisser, turned back to shoot Russell and Steele, and Sgt. Ray, in his dying gasp with his guts spilling out, got that .45 out and shot that German in the back of the head.
Then Ken cut himself loose from his risers, and in the process he cut off one of his fingers and didn't know it for the next three hours. He ran. He said, "I was the loneliest man in the world." He ran through the village, got to the edge, and there was a German Flakwagen, a 20mm gun, shooting up at the Dakotas, the C-47s bringing in the American airborne. Ken says, "I did what I was trained to do. I pulled the pin on my grenade and tossed it up there on that platform, and they weren't shooting anymore." Then he saw a German runner on a bicycle, obviously carrying a message, and he pulled up his M1 and shoots him. Now, all this happens before 5 a.m. from an 18-year-old kid.
How about that
Steve
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Panzerjaeger Hortlund
-=Fear is only a state of mind=-
Ken Russell from Tennessee. He was 18 years old, in the airborne, and as they were flying across the Channel he was struck by the thought, my high school class is graduating tonight. He came down in Ste.Msre Eglise, where there was a fire on the edge of town in a hay barn, set by a tracer bullet. He watched as the guy next to him got hit in his grenade, coming down in his parachute, and that set off -- they all were carrying land mines underneath their reserve chutes, and that grenade set off that land mine, and just suddenly the guy wasn't there. It was just an empty parachute. He looked to his right, and his buddy over to his right was being sucked into the fire. The fire was drawing oxygen and drawing parachutists into it. He screamed once, Ken says, and he screamed once more and then he disappeared into the fire and he didn't scream anymore. Ken came down onto the steeple of the church at Ste.Msre Eglise.
Now, this is famous from Cornelius Ryan's book and Daryl Zanuck's movie, but actually, it was more than one guy. It wasn't just John Steele who was caught on that roof. Ken Russell also was. He's hanging there, trying to get to his trench knife so he can cut himself loose from his risers, when a German sergeant came around the corner. Ken says, "I'll never forget him -- blue-eyed and red-haired." And this German sergeant pulled up his Schmeisser -- a machine pistol -- to shoot Russell and Steele, hanging there on the steeple, and Sgt. John Ray from Homer, Louisiana, came down right behind that German. The German turned and cut him, as I gather from Ken's story, almost literally just cut him in half with a burst from that Schmeisser, turned back to shoot Russell and Steele, and Sgt. Ray, in his dying gasp with his guts spilling out, got that .45 out and shot that German in the back of the head.
Then Ken cut himself loose from his risers, and in the process he cut off one of his fingers and didn't know it for the next three hours. He ran. He said, "I was the loneliest man in the world." He ran through the village, got to the edge, and there was a German Flakwagen, a 20mm gun, shooting up at the Dakotas, the C-47s bringing in the American airborne. Ken says, "I did what I was trained to do. I pulled the pin on my grenade and tossed it up there on that platform, and they weren't shooting anymore." Then he saw a German runner on a bicycle, obviously carrying a message, and he pulled up his M1 and shoots him. Now, all this happens before 5 a.m. from an 18-year-old kid.
How about that
Steve
------------------
Panzerjaeger Hortlund
-=Fear is only a state of mind=-
