SNAFU: The Days after the Longest Day (D-Day +)
June 7, 2025
Situation Normal All F***ed Up (SNAFU)
My dad and his buddy, Jim Sheeran, had to regroup and figure out their next steps. By the following day, that step would be decided for them. They were discovered by the enemy and fought together to evade the larger force as best as they could. Outnumbered and confused, the two young men were finally captured. He and Jim were prisoners, captured by the paratroopers of von der Heydte’s 6th Regiment.
In his journal, he wrote, “The first thing they did was take my paratrooper boots. We were put into a truck to be taken to prison camps. Our own planes and British planes didn’t know we were prisoners they thought it was just a German convoy so they strafed the convoy - many were killed. I was lucky.”
They were forcibly marched in a southeasterly direction down the Cherbourg Peninsula. While he was no longer alone, he was miserable alongside other captured paratroopers who were, almost to a man, depressed, defeated, and humiliated. Sure, he had his ups and down in his young life; some family issues, and mistakes made or games lost on the playing fields of central Pennsylvania. This was different. Strong, healthy, and well-trained, he was now in a place he could not control. He was a soldier deprived of the opportunity to get into the fight. His way home was either to survive and wait out the war, or find a way to escape. For him, the first was not an option. The second would prove to be daunting.
Ashamed, afraid, and relying deeply on his training and his ever-present sense of natural optimism, he struggled to keep his positive mindset as he and the line of POWs passed through or near Carentan. He was unarmed, a slave if you will. He struggled with his feelings of helplessness, even despair, but kept his eyes and ears on the watch to shoot through an opening back to freedom.
He marched just a few paces ahead of his “left-behdin” 101st “brothers.” The historic invasion of Europe pressed on without him. When one reads the accounts of authors like Stephen Ambrose who tell of the journey from the start of training on Mt. Currahee near Toccoa, Georgia all the way to the Eagle’s Nest of Adolf Hitler, one is moved and thrilled by it all. Throw in the legendary jump into Normandy and the mighty stand in the very epicenter of the Battle of the Bulge, and one stands in awe. He was so very proud to call himself a Screaming Eagle and, even as I write these words, I can feel the pride swelling within my chest. All one needs to do is briefly read the exploits of the 101st as it moved through Europe and the greatness of this unit will be revealed. They were well-trained, tight-knit. They were killers determined to win this war. They were my father’s “tribe,” and his “India” Company mates were at Carentan fighting with the boys from “Easy” Company – all serving in the now famous 506th Regiment or the “Five-O-Sink,” in honor of their leader. Colonel “Bob” Sink.
Carentan sat about 17 kilometers inland from Utah Beach. Key to the success of protecting the causeways and preventing a serious counter offensive, this town had to be sealed off from the battlefield. There were German forces stationed there and they would be marshaled and directed to engage their enemy. Carentan would also play a key role in the advancement of the invasion forces and it was the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 101st who would help win the day there. My father’s “India Company” mates, as part of 3rd Battalion were directly engaged in this key battle. As mentioned earlier, his team’s first job within this broader context was to surprise a German position, kill, wound, and capture a maximum number of enemy soldiers. A successful operation like this would help slow the initial response from those closest to the beaches by creating havoc for the defenders. Had things gone differently, he might have marched into Carentan as a liberator rather than pass by it as prisoner. His war was now on a different path. Marching alongside his POW brothers, he was filled with sorrow to be “out of the fight,” and feeling terribly alone, once again. He was no longer under arms. He was in chains and feeling helpless.
The move toward Carentan began on June 7, possibly just a few hours after he passed the town. On June 10, the 101st assault on the town commenced. Two days later, on June 12, 1944, Carentan was taken under Allied control. For a brief, intense moment on June 13, the prize had to be defended against a German counterattack. The American paratroopers fought well, and finally the 29th Infantry Division relieved the 101st with tanks from the 2nd Armored. The “tankers,” longtime rivals of the Airborne, really poured into our old friend Colonel von der Heydte and his troopers. They blasted and rumbled through everything in their path. Carentan was secure.
My father was on his way to a German prison camp. His story was now a personal struggle to pull forth all his internal resources and find his way back to help win the war, and return home. This odyssey would take him across the European continent always a paratrooper, but also a prisoner, a determined young “Yank” and, finally, as a soldier in yet another “band of brothers.”
It was not long after the fall of Carentan when he was strafed by Allied fighter planes. This harrowing attack was one of the single most terrifying experiences of his war. The first instance was when he was being carted off in the back of a truck. He told me that these air attacks haunted him with memories of those awful moments when great big, impersonal flying monsters swooped in on him. He saw the impact of the guns on many around him, and never forgot that. Never. It was grotesque. He addressed these memories in brief, plain words that could not hide the horror he felt inside.
The next town he passed through was Ste. Lo. This was arguably one of the two most bombed cities in Western Europe. It was devastated from the air, and he felt the attacks, once again, on a very personal level. It was terrifying and ghoulish.