D-Day

Not many words of my own wisdom to share but a brief portion of my dads journal to me regarding his D-Day experience...

The next evening things began to repeat themselves until about midnight when we loaded in the planes and took off for France.  Every thing went as usual until we began to see tracer bullets and anti-aircraft shells flash by or explode.
The green light flashed and out we went.  It was cloudy with an occasionally a moon shinning through. We were not anywhere that looked like the sand table.  In the night or in the morning it is almost impossible to tell distances.  I could see shimmering light occasionally on water below me. I saw a tree line not too far away and decided to prepare to land when I thought I was level with the tree tops.  I had no idea how deep the water was.  Maybe a flooded field or a small lake.  Lucky for me it was a flooded field only deep enough that i could keep my head above water from a partial lying position.  I was heavily loaded, the water shrunk the cotton parachute straps so I couldn't get the harness unfastened.  We all had a push button knife in the collar of our uniform.  I unzipped the collar pocket, got out my knife and began sawing on the straps until I could free myself from the parachute and get to my feet.  I didn't have a faint idea where I was and I was alone...

Thus began my dads journey into WWII on D-DAY, June 6, 1944