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16-274 Garand Picture of the Day
Infantrymen in Jeep get directions from a MP at a Normandy crossroads
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09-24-2016 07:39 AM
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That little comms cart would have been just screaming along behind the jeep...not quite made for that.
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I see now, it seems a bit small for that though. I see the T bar handle that would attach to the ring up front...
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He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose
There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.
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Neat...we had to hand hump... I've seen these before though. Of course there's the footage of them hauling John Wayne through the Longest Day on one...
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Brown Boots
When I took Basic in 1960 the Army had just changed from brown to black... some guys were issued black, others were issued the old brown and a can of black dye (which kind of turned purple in the rain). "Brown Shoe Army" became an insult denoting old fashioned or out of date.
Real men measure once and cut.
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Neat...we had to hand hump... I've seen these before though. Of course there's the footage of them hauling John Wayne through the Longest Day on one...
Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin H. Vandervoort was the commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR, of the 82nd Airborne Division on June 6th, 1944. The 27 year old Colonel's objective was to land behind enemy lines on D-Day and block all German
attempts to move against the small French village Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Colonel Vandervoort's journey to his objective became harder than he expected.
When both 101st and 82nd Airborne paratroopers overshot their drop zone that morning, they began landing directly in the streets of Sainte-Mere-Eglise. That night, some buildings were on fire and the German troops assigned to the town were all awake, helping civilians put out the fires. The paratroopers became easy targets for the Germans. They were shot in air before they hit the ground or were quickly gunned down once they landed. Some paratroopers were sucked into the burning buildings. One paratrooper dangled from the spire of the town church and watched the battle take place below him. Their attempt to take Sainte-Mere-Eglise early that morning had failed. Nearly every paratrooper who landed in the town was killed.
Colonel Ben Vandervoort had a rough landing that morning. He missed his drop zone by a mile and broke his left ankle when he hit the ground. With his ankle broken, running into combat to fight the enemy was out of the question. But Vandervoort knew that there was nothing to be done about it. He instructed the medic to tie his boot extra tight to work as a splint. With help from his men, Vandervoort pushed forward hobbling towards Sainte-Mere-Eglise.
"It was the hardest opening I ever experienced. I had to jump at 130-140 m.p.h. This was the roughest jump I ever had. It tore off some of my equipment. I landed heavily and broke my leg. It was a clean fracture, just above the ankle." -Benjamin Vandervoort
After daylight, Vandervoort approached two 101st Airborne Sergeants who were in the wrong location. They were unarmed and pulling along a captured German ammunition cart. Because of the pain and slow pace Vandervoort was moving, he ordered the two Sergeants to pull him into Sainte-Mere-Eglise on their cart. According to Vandervoort and his men, one of the 101st Sergeants replied with, "I didn't come to Normandy to pull a ****ing colonel around." Apparently Vandervoort gave the Sergeant a verbal beating which he later paraphrased to "I persuaded him otherwise!"
Colonel Vandervoort arrived in Sainte-Mere-Eglise riding atop the ammunition cart. His 2nd Battalion took the town at noon with little resistance. Bodies from earlier that morning were scattered all over the town. The hobbled Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort held Sainte-Mere-Eglise that morning from the Germans, and prevented German counterattacks the following days in the Battle of Normandy.
German If8 cart
Last edited by Mark in Rochester; 09-25-2016 at 09:36 PM.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose
There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.
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I had a training NCO still wore oxblood jumpers. He later died in a car crash, two years on. Tragic...
That's the scene with John Wayne of course, I was also aware of the real story... Benjamin H. Vandervoort - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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They were actually made as either hand pull or to be pulled behind a jeep. The "T" handle is usually missing from examples found .
Originally Posted by 
