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Belt 9 - Page 5

which he had chosen for his CP. Not one Fox man landed in that nice triangle just
north of Hiesville so carefully briefed over at the marshalling area. It was days
before platoons or the company got together.

Continuing excerpts from the proposed history by George Goodrich of Company F, Fox
Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Screaming Eagle Airborne
Division.

"If a man thought things were plumb crazy from what he saw standing in the
plane, these things became utterly fantastic when he saw them from the ground. For
when Tom Alley, 1st Scout, 1st Platoon, landed in the pasture among seven scared
cows he saw planes everywhere. Their paths criss-crossing at different levels and
the never-ending streams of tracer lit them up twice as big. He saw men pouring out
from the doors, hurly-burly -- seemingly smack into Heinie bullets and when a shell
burst near a plane, he could make out arms and legs of men catapulting down before
their chutes opened. The sky was one infernal, gigantic 4th of July celebration.
Planes of the 101st Airborne Division carrying the 501st, 502nd and 506th Parachute
Infantry regiments crossed the planes of the 82nd Airborne Division carrying the
505th, 507th and 508th Regiments all jumbled together on the ground in one grand
hodgepodge. Captured German inter-unit messages reveal later such reports as these:
"There are about 200 American paratroopers on my right flank." "There is a Battalion
of American troops approaching a position from the left rear." These messages were
dates June the 6th. On these days there was no such thing as 200 or more battalion
of GIs operating as units in all of Normandy, as far as the parachute operation was
concerned. Under these circumstances it is impossible to give the big picture of
what Fox Company and their rifles did these first hectic days. There was no big
picture. Rather hundreds of little ones - - one for each small band and at the same