A nation should be grateful and should remember
- Thread starter KyMUfan
- Start date
Just a few hours after this photo was taken on 05 June 1944, this American Paratrooper (pictured) will die, making the night combat jump into France on D-Day.
Col. Robert "Bull" Wolverton, commander of the 3rd Bn., 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, is preparing to jump on Saint-Come-du-Mont, Normandy in this photo.
His unit was the same regiment to which belonged the legendary "Band of Brothers," Wolverton's men fought in the epic Operation Overlord, Operation Market Garden, and Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne.
Despite being killed before landing on French soil Order of battle for the American airborne landings in Normandy, Wolverton's legacy endured, particularly on the strength of a prayer spoken to the 750 men in his battalion hours before the D-Day parachute drop behind enemy lines.
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He was from Elkins, WV
Wolverton sustained "162 bullet holes and bayonet wounds" due to German troops using him as target practice. Of the paratroopers in his plane, 5 were killed (including Wolverton), 7 were captured (some later escaped) and 3 successfully fought on.
His prayer before their jump into Normdandy
"Men, I am not a religious man and I don't know your feelings in this matter, but I am going to ask you to pray with me for the success of the mission before us. And while we pray, let us get on our knees and not look down but up with faces raised to the sky so that we can see God and ask His blessing in what we are about to do:God almighty, in a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy.We do not join battle afraid.We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that,if You will, use us as Your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world.We do not know or seek what our fate will be.We ask only this,that if die we must,that we die as men would die,without complaining,without pleadingand safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right.O Lord, protect our loved onesand be near us in the fire aheadand with us now as we pray to you."
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