Chris Hesiler - US Army Paratrooper
“When we finally got over the shore, I looked down and saw the beach of France and I thought beautiful beach down there. Before it got very much further, maybe a minute, maybe five minutes, I don’t know, I started seeing flak coming up at the plane. It wasn’t very long after that that somebody said Stout has been hit. I got back there and put him on the bucket seat and laid him down. At that point somebody yelled at me, the green light is on Lt.. Now, I’d already had the boys half stand-up and hook-up because the red light had been on earlier and at that point I turned and hollered to the group Geronimo! Lets go! And I turned and went out.”
“I don’t remember anything until I hit the ground, it was the softest landing I ever had. My feet just touched the ground as I went down…I was hung up in a tree.”
“I had no inkling of where I was.”
“I was all alone, the only thing I got scared of really, ran into because I avoided roads and so-forth was cows. I was sneaking up on cows because I thought they may be some of our men.”
“I could hear the guns on the shore opening up with the bombardment. I could hear that all the time, every morning noon and night during that period.”
“I was looking over the hedgerow, over the hedgeway to see what was going on there and as I sat down, a German walked right in front of me that I hadn’t seen and he hadn’t seen me. Fortunately, I had my Tommy Gun cocked and when he came around the tree, I’m trying to remember if he had his gun slung over, I think so, but I just stitched him all the way up with the machine gun. That was the most difficult period I had in all my career because I thought he was the point of a squad and I was standing there expecting any minute to get shot, saying to myself I wonder if I know when I die, if I feel the bullets when they go in me or anything. Pretty soon I realized, I better get the hell out of here so I moved to another hide and it was at that hide that I was captured.”
“I just can’t explain, there are no words that can describe it, how much gratitude the people have for what we did. The one guy that I thought expressed it best said, he said, I never could understand, when he sent some pictures, why good American men would give up their families to come over and come to France and sacrifice, but I want you to know that we really appreciate it.”
