[Dowly]

"The Devils Have Landed"

0220 6 June 1944, C/1/508 PIR DZ

Captain Evans felt a sharp jerk as his parachute opened. He scanned the skies
above him, trying to assess how well the drop was going. He noticed that his
chalk was in good formation, and thought, "Good. It should be pretty easy to
assemble once we're on the ground." The cloudy air made it difficult to see
much further than his own chalk. The moon was also mostly obscured by the clouds,
so most of the lighting was provided by the German anti-aircraft guns and
searchlights-a terrifying, if beautiful scene.

Captain Evans was torn away from his reverie by the realization that he was
approaching the ground "****," he mumbled, as he realized he was headed for a
treeline. He couldn't aim his descent, though, so he had no recourse other
than to brace for the inevitable impact. With a tremendous cracking and rustling,
his body plowed through the upper branches of the tree, and he found his body
hanging just above the ground, suspended only by his parachute cords.
With difficulty, he grabbed his knife and set about cutting himself free.

Evans fell awkwardly to the ground, but after gingerly testing his legs and arms,
he realized he hadn't sustained any serious injury from his landing in the tree.
His equipment lay only fifteen feet away in the middle of a sunken lane.

As he picked up his M1 Garand and gathered the rest of his equipment, he saw
PFC Blaes off to his right. "Wow," Evans thought. "My stick's landing was
really tight." He walked over to the radioman, who was on his knees fiddling
with his radio. "Are you good to go, Blaes?"

The radioman replied, "Uh, not sure. Sir, I don't think you're going to like this."

"What is it?"

"I think the radio's busted, sir."

"Well, ****," said Evans, although he then noted that a broken radio was a
small price to pay for such a tight grouping of his paratroopers' landings.
"All right, Blaes, saddle up. We need to find more of our guys and get moving."
The radioman nodded his assent, and the pair began moving along the sunken lane.

Only thirty feet down the sunken lane, theur lane intersected with another at
an angle. Evans heard movement, dropped to his knees, readied his rifle, and
challenged with a whisper, "Flash."

"Thunder," came the familiar-sounding reply.

"Welcome; who's there?"

"Glad we found you so fast, sir," whispered Lieutenant Johnson, stepping into
view. "Our sticks dropped pretty tight. I've got all of my platoon HQ and the
whole squad that jumped in our bird. Sergeant Mulligan is looking," he paused,
and peered down the road he had emerged from, "yeah, he found a bunch of guys
that jumped with you, sir." Among the paratroopers hustling down the road towards
the intersection was Lieutenant Bautz.

"Good to see you, sir," whispered Evans' XO. "Looks like we've got one squad
here, and there's another coming down the road. Let's move out and see if we
can find some more."

"Good idea, Bautz," said Evans. The paratroopers all began moving along the
road in the opposite direction from that which Lieutenant Bautz had come.

Upon approaching the hedgerow on the other side of the road, they heard a
rustling noise that abruptly stopped. The soldiers all dropped to their knees
and aimed their rifles at the bocage. With a hand signal, Johnson and two of
his soldiers began moving closer. "Flash," he whispered.

"Noch mal?" came the response.

Johnson raised his voice slightly. "All right, Fritz, hold it right there or
you're a dead man," he said as he identified the shape of the German sentry
on the other side of the hedgerow and pointed his Garand at it.

The German sentry's eyes widened, and instinct took over as he tore away
from the hedgerow towards a small building about a hundred feet down the
hedge line, screaming "AMIS!" as he went. Johnson's Garand barked, and his
screams ceased.

"****," said Johnson as he shrank back into the earthen part of the hedgerow.

"What is it, sir?" asked one of his wide-eyed paratroopers.

Johnson looked at the man and was about to say something, but stopped.
Then, all of the paratroopers began to hear the sound of doors opening in
the farm complex in the fields beyond the hedgerow, and panicked shouting in
German. Johnson lackadaisically thrust his thumb in the direction of the farm.
"That's what, Private."

Lieutenant Bautz began evaluating the surrounding terrain. "Sir, we're going
to need to take that farm complex if more waves are coming in after us. If the
Krauts are still in there when dawn breaks, they'll **** us up."

"Agreed," replied Evans, and he began to issue his orders.