Behind Enemy Lines
A Paratrooper's Gripping Account of the Normandy Jump
Sergeant Arthur Parker’s narrative from June 6, 1944, unfolds a deeply personal and visceral portrayal of D-Day, as he and his comrades parachute into the heart of enemy territory. Through his eyes, we experience the fear, confusion, and tenacity that characterized this pivotal moment in history, shedding light on the human spirit amid warfare.
Sergeant Arthur Parker, 377 Parachute Art. Bat,, 101 Airborne Division
Date of letter/interview, 29th October 1980
I will start when we come out of the clouds from the west over the Normandy coast, we were supposed to be flying at 1500 ft. But from looking out the door we were much lower. Anti-air craft and ground fire started up towards our flight, every color in the rainbow in tracer bullets lit the sky and the pilots of our planes took evasive action, my pilot dove down and banked to the left and picked up speed, I did not think that a C-47 could move that fast. Our plane did suffer a few hits as we could feel the old bird shudder and hear the bullets or shrapnel like stones on a tin roof. Finally, the red light came on and the men stood up and hooked up. We moved three big equipment bundles to the door and hooked their static lines up all this was under very difficult conditions as we were being bounced around by the evasive action of the pilot and the shell bursts rocking the plane. We did manage a quick equipment check and stood in the door. I was number three man in the stick. Our plane never did slow down to the proper jump speed. We waited and waited, and it seemed that the sky was full of planes going every direction and at different heights. I just knew that there
was going to be a few midair collisions and if we did jump now, we would be chewed up by the planes around us.
The green light came on, out went the equipment bundles and away we went, ass over elbows, most everything we had tied or strapped to us blew off. My chute opened with a jerk that I thought broke my neck and cut my balls off at the same time. All the planes that were around us a minute ago were gone and you are hanging in the sky all alone.
Just before I hit the ground I looked around and I did not see one parachute in the air or on the ground, I hit the ground with a bounce and laid there a few seconds listening. I got my folding stock carbine out of its holster and loaded it and laid it besides me and started the long struggle to get out of the chute, the straps really tightened up from the opening shock after what seemed like a half hour I was out of the chute and took stock of what I had left, which was not much. All this time planes are crossing the sky all going in different directions, but no jumpers leaving the planes.
I got my trusty cricket out and gave it a few chirps and waited for an answer no luck. I started down the flight path knowing that there was 11 men jumped behind me and I would try to pick them up. After wandering around a while, I heard some talking and gave them the cricket and got a answer. It was four men from the 377 but not from my plane. We got into a huddle around a map. One man had a flashlight and we tried to figure out where we were. No luck as there were no landmarks that we could see. One of the troopers said that he crossed a black top road off to the right so I suggested we go to the road and see if we could pick up more men and find out where we were. On the way to the road we picked up six more men from the 101 but not our outfit. One of these men suffered a head wound and he asked that if we have to leave him that we kill him first. I told him that he goes where we go and nobody gets left unless he is dead. I kind of took charge of this group because I was the oldest man there, the ripe old age of 26.
We started down the road which ran in a west-so-west direction as we could see flashes in the sky that way and figured that we, the rest of the division was fighting. We heard someone on the road ahead of us and I got the men in the ditch along the road and told them to hold their fire unless we were discovered. These four soldiers were coming down the road like they were going to the movies. I gave them a chirp on the cricket and received a answer, it was a Capt. from the 82a/b and three men. I think that his name was Russell.
We had another huddle and looked at his map which was different from mine and we still did not know where we were. It was now starting to get lighter and I knew that we had to get off the road soon or the Germans would be on us. The captain said that there was a barn back down the road from where he came and wanted to go hide in the barn in the daylight hours or until we seen what kind of troops were in the area. I was against going to the barn as I knew that that was the first place the Germans were going to look for lost paratroopers and I was not going to the barn with him. He said that he could order us to go with him. But seeing we were 101 we could go wherever we wanted to go, but he was taking his three men and were going to hide in the barn until it got dark. I said that I was going out in the fields and have a little cover and room to maneuver if we had to. The 101 men said they didn’t like the barn idea and would rather be out in the open.
We went to the left of the road about two small fields with low hedge rows off the road. Everyone was dead tired, but I insisted on have at least one man on guard and one man to lay on top of the hedgerow to watch the road. There was traffic on the road now and it was all German. One of the men spotted an orange parachute over in the next field and another man and myself crawled over to it and opened the equipment bundle. The mark inks on the bundle were not 101 so it had to be a lost 82 a/b bundle. It had a 50-cal. machine gun complete with ammo. We were hoping that the bundle was food and water, as we were starting to hurt from the lack of water. Everybody drank theirs up the first few hours on the ground. We brought the machine gun back to our position along with the orange chute. We tore the chute up and gave every man a small piece to use as a flag if we ran in to friendly troops. We knew that the orange was a friendly color and the air force would see us as we use orange to mark our lines. Those orange flags almost got us all killed as I will explain later.
We changed bandages on our boy with the head wound and in the daylight it did not look good. I then wished that we had some water to clean that wound up, he wanted a shot of morphine, but he used his and I could not ask the other men for theirs. You know that in the paratroopers first aid kits that we wore tied to our helmet had a tube of morphine in it.
My lookout on the hedge row motioned to me to come up to him and pointed over towards the road. There was Capt. Russell and his three men being marched down the road by six German soldiers. I knew that the barn was not safe. The day wore on and everybody got a few hours of rest. Some did sleep. We ate the last of our k rations. Now we were out of food and water.
The red square area on the map is the area that the map I carried covered, my map was printed on a nylon hand-kerchief, I wish that I had, it to-day, but it was lost some-where in Europe.
The green circle with the A is probably where I landed, but i can’t be sure. B- is where we found the equipment bundle with the machine gun in it. C- is where the planes strafed us and we received the heavy shelling. D- is the French farmhouse where we rested and got some bread and jelly. E- where we had the fire fight with the German patrol and wiped it out. F- is the field where there was a big battle where we found the helmets from other men from the 377. G- is probably where we entered the American lines. H- is where he took part in the bayonet charge.
The two men that survived with me were, Sgt. Wm. Brown, later killed at Bastogne and Sgt. Wm. Crowley, but a funny part of this story is that when we returned to England and would rehash of where we were and what we done and what happened, Sgt Crowley said that he was not with me or Sgt. Brown but was with another group, I don’t know if he was trying to wipe that nightmare from his mind or just did not think that our little group did enough. Sgt. Crowley did survive the war and maybe someday he will read about this little group and will take the credit due him.
Authors note: Parker and some of his men ended up on the Carentan Causeway and took part in lt. col. Robert G. Cole’s famous bayonet charge in the morning of 11th June 1944. Parker had his Rendezvous with Destiny there acting as an infantry man. The day after, 12th of June, he turned 26.