Public Relations - In The News

By TRAVIS ROBERTS
Narragansett Times

SOUTH KINGSTOWN - Hundreds of planes flew through cloud filled darkened skies in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, to drop American para-troopers behind enemy lines in preparation for the massive D-Day landings later that day.
Amongst those paratroopers was Lt. Walter "Chris" Heisler, of the 82nd Airborne's 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Earlier that day, after loading himself and his men into to C-47 transport planes, they took off toward the Normandy coast of France, headed for the unknown.
"I remember standing in the door with my communication man and seeing the beautiful, peaceful white sand shore of France. I was relieved because I had expected a wall of fire from the German guns," remembered Heisler, 90, who now resides in Matunuck.
However, that's when all hell broke loose. Tracers from anti-aircraft-artillery began to arch towards the sky, lighting it up in a brilliant yet deadly display, knocking out planes and wound-ing men everywhere.

Heisler's story and the sto-ries of five other Rhode Island D-Day veterans were recently features in a documentary called D-Day+_62 Years: Rhode Island Veterans Return to Normandy.

The film, written and pro-duced by Kingston native and former NBC 10 sports anchor, Tim Gray, recently won two Emmy Awards at the 30th an-nual Boston/New England Emmy Award dinner.

One for outstanding writing for a documentary and an-other for outstanding photog-raphy, which went to Director of Photography, Jim Kar-peichik.
On June 1, a translated ver-sion of the film was shown in Normandy before a grateful French audience during an-nual D-Day remembrance celebrations.
"The French still consider them hero's," said Gray. "It was fun to see them interact with the French 62 years later. Kids swarm them to get auto-graphs, it's like travelling with Bon Jovi," he added.

Gray brought the group of veterans over to France while he was filming the documen-tary about their experiences.

Some of the veterans had been back many times since D-Day, others hadn't been back since they originally left.

"Not everyone who fought won the Medal of Honor and they all had different experi-ences.

"One guy met his wife over there on June 7 and lived in France for 44 years with her. He's from Central Falls. Chris was a paratrooper who got captured after three days and another guy was a Higgins boat driver who got shot while landing troops on the beach."

Gray came up with the idea for the documentary during a personal trip to Normandy with his wife in September 2005.

"I went to the American cemetery there and I won-dered about the role of Rhode Islanders in the battle. There are 99 Rhode Islanders buried at Normandy.

"Then I began to wonder if anyone had taken D-Day vet-erans back to Normandy so I started to ID living veterans around the state to see if it was possible."

After figuring out the costs, Gray was able to solicit dona-tions from Bank of America, the University of Rhode Is-land, Gilbane Development Company, former governor Bruce Sundlin and the Rhode Island National Guard.

The final result was a great success, airing a year ago on NBC in Rhode Island, the documentary is currently be-ing broadcast on 123 Public Television channels across the nation.

However, Heisler's World War II story lasted long past the D-Day landings.
After surviving long enough to jump out of his plane, Heisler's parachute landed in a tree. After cutting himself down, he found that he was all-alone in German occupied France.

"I landed 14 miles from the drop zone and never found a single man from my unit."
Heisler's story was typical on that days, as thousands of para-troopers were scattered over a 20-mile area during the botched drop.

"That first night I landed in the middle of all kinds of military operations. I spent all night looking for my men, I didn't know which way to go."

Sneaking on his elbows through thick hedgerows that divided farmers fields in the French countryside, Heisler said he frequently had to avoid detec-tion while massive allied aerial and naval bombardments were occurring.

On the following day, Heisler, alone, but ever the hard fighting soldier, came across a road in which German conveys had been passing by.

There he decided to orchestra a one-man ambush.

"I sneaked up to the edge of the road, then a truck came through and I jumped up and splattered it with my Tommy Gun.
"After I did that, some troops who were riding in the back of the truck started firing back at me. Thankfully I had pulled pins out of two hand grenades so I threw them at the truck and ran."

Heisler said he didn't see what happened after that because he was just trying to get away.

While trying to find fellow soldiers from the 507th PIR in the dark of night, Heisler joked that he "sneaked up on more cows than you know."

On June 8, three days after landing, Heisler said that he still hadn't encountered a single American soldier.

However, while hiding behind a tree near a hedgerow, Heisler was surprised by lone German soldier.

"We saw each other at the same time and I got the first shot off. I'm sure it was my years of pheasant hunting that saved my life."

Heisler had killed the soldier, but he feared that an entire col-umn of troops might be follow-ing behind the German. Thankfully, for his sake, that never happened.
Later that day, while hiding in a field, Heisler was captured by three German soldiers. The field he was in turned out to be an area that Germans were storing vehicles in.
"They told me to put my arms, to surrender and throw down my gun. I was afraid it was going to go off when I threw it on the ground and that they would shoot me, but that didn't hap-pen."

After being captured, Heisler was taken to a house in Amfre-ville, France, where he was grilled by a German interrogator and kept in solitary confinement.
"My unit had killed a German general earlier that day and the Germans were very militaristic and didn't think it was ethical to kill a general. So all the ques-tions they asked me were about that."

After a stint in solitary con-finement, Heisler was later transferred to OFLAG 64, a prisoner of war camp in Schubin, Poland.

He remained at the camp until January 1945, when the Ger-mans forced the entire camp to March 600 kilometers west un-der the threat of the oncoming Russians.
Heisler was later liberated by General George Patton's army, recaptured again and liberated by Patton once more.

Heisler speaks modestly of his experiences, something that is common amongst WWII veter-ans.

"I'm not a hero you see, what I'm telling you were the same stories for a million men. The only difference between me and them is that I survived."

Having returned to France eight times since wars end, most recently last week, Heisler has received honors from the French government, spoken at memorial events and even had a plaque placed on the building in which he was interrogated.

He said that the people of Normandy, and their children still have the memories of WWII alive and are still grateful to-wards their liberators.

"The children over there mobbed me to ask for my signa-ture. The children there spend the whole week discussing WWII and are involved in the Normandy celebrations every year.

"We found that the French in Normandy really do appreciate democracy. They want to be sure that their kids remember the war well."