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For Cornelius Ryan
Book about D-Day

Your name--James J. Coyle

Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, which
struck you more than anything else?

One incident stands out in my mind for several reasons, one of
which is that it began with just one of the closest calls that I had in the
war. Just before dark on June 6th, glider units of the 82nd Airborne
Division made a drop in the area around Ste. Mere Eglise. I had seen
several cut loose from the town planes above us but most of them landed
away from our platoon position, which was in a field on the edge of the
town. I was standing in a ditch along the edge of a road which bounded
our platoon area when I heard a teriffic crash behind me. As I turned
I saw a glider crashing through some large trees across the road.
I just had time to drop in the ditch which was about two feet deep and
the glider slid across the road stopping with the wing right on top of me
and extending along the ditch. By some miracle, I didn't get a scratch,
but when I crawled from under the wing I saw that the glider, which
was a large British "Horsa" type made mostly of wood, had struck a large
tree which split it the entire length of one side. The men seated on
the other side were just crawling out of the wreckage. Of approximately
35 men and two offiers in the glider, about half got out under their own
power, including a Lieutenant. From him I learned that they were from
one of our Division Artillery Battalions. He wanted to remain to aid his
injured men but he had an artillery piece in another glider which landed
nearby, and we needed artillery support badly. By promising to take care
of his injured as best we could, I persuaded him to take his men who were
not injured as best we could, I persuaded him to take his men who were
not injured and get the gun in action. All of the men we dug out of the
wreckage were unconscious or semi-conscious, and they were all badly injured.
Darkness had fallen by the time we had the first few out and the Germans
had started to shell the area with a heavy barrage which continued all
that night. Working in the dark we were able to locate the men in the
tangled debris only by their moans and cries. I found one kid, semi-conscious,
who was actually calling for his mother. This was hard to take because
there wasn't a great deal we could do for them other than wrap them in
blankets and parachutes to try to keep them from going into shock, put them
in trenches to protect them from the artillery, and give them a shot of
morphine when they regained consciousness. We were afraid to try to move
them very far until the medics got to them for fear of killing them, since
we had no way of telling how many were hurt internally. It must have taken
a couple of hours to find them all and get them out. I recall that the last
one we found was the pilot. The only way we recognised him was that
we couldn't lift him at first, until we discovered that he was wearing
a heavy metal flak suit which probably saved his life. He was unconscious,
but as it later turned out had escaped with a broken ankle. By coincidence,
when I was evacuated to a field hospital on Utah beach two days later, I
was put on a truck with a glider pilot who had a broken ankle. When I
questioned him, we discrovered that he was the one I had found in the wrecked
glider at Ste. Mers Eglise. Although none of the men were killed, many
of them were so beat up that I can't say if they survived after they made
the aid station the next day. Of the men who worked on the wreck I can
recall T.L. Peterson, K.L. Russell, and Ben Popilsky (later killed in
action in Holland). ("Pete" Peterson and Ken Russell are on the E Company
Poop Sheets mailing list.) Prior to the Normandy operation, the "Glider
Riders" were looked down upon by the paratroopers but after Normandy, I
never heard an experienced paratrooper knock a glider man. Every paratrooper
who made the Normandy operation would thereafter freely admit that if given
the choice of going into combat by glider or parachute, he'd take the parachute.