<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Okay, so you jump, and you land. Describe what happened next.

TT: Well, when we were going down, they were shooting at us. But then when you're on the ground, too, you have to have those guys jump near you, so it worked both ways. But then we were fortunate in that our casualty wasn't that heavy. But then H Company, company commander, first sergeant, the rest of the group, I don't know, there must have been sixteen, seventeen, in that planeload. They landed right on top of a German encampment and every single one was wiped out.

TI: So a lot of it is just where you land.

TT: Yeah, right.

TI: So it sounds like, but your company landed in a safe place, or a better place.

TT: Yeah, right. So when you land, you just gotta get out of your chute and head for the woods. [Laughs]

TI: And then what happened? So you land...

TT: Oh, then we had to gather together. And then about an hour or two later, B-24s, the liberators, they came over. And through the open doors, they kicked out supplies, extra supplies for us. What they had was a cotton chute, and different colored chutes. Maybe the red is for ammunition, green is for medical supply or something, and blue for weapons, and food for another. So we went back out and got some extra ammunition.

TI: So you go out there and you collect all that.

TT: Huh?

TI: So you collect all that...

TT: Oh, we didn't touch the other things. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, just the ammunition.

TT: Yeah. Because, well, people, they need different things. 'Cause machine gun ammunition, it goes so fast. It comes in a box, you've seen those. So each one of us carried a box of extra ammo. Oh, another thing, over in Europe during the war, they had a couple of publications, Stars and Stripes, you've heard of that, news? And then Yank Magazine, we had one of the reporters from Yank jump with us, jump with our company. So after we landed, he was supposed to stay with us and report our doings. I remember laying around, he'd come around asking us our names and where we're from and all this different thing. Next day he was killed. And when they did, all the things that he had written about us, gone, too. So we never got the publicity. [Laughs]

TI: Wow. I didn't realize that they would... I mean, in that case, I guess that's equivalent to what they call embedding reporters in units, I guess that's... so he was right with you. But boy, that seems so dangerous, a reporter.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.