Corporal Victor Nelson of Midland, Michigan was a paratrooper on D

Apr 30, 2023

Corporal Victor Nelson of Midland, Michigan, was a paratrooper in the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, and later returned to his job at The Dow Chemical Company in Midland, then to Dow Corning. He married, built a home on Tittabawassee River Road and raised four children there. Refusing to be called a hero, Nelson said, "The only way I was going to get home was to fight like hell. That was pretty much everyone's motto. That and being scared to death!"

Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, about 822 planes, carrying 13,000 paratroopers, crossed the English Channel heading for drop zones in Normandy, France. Corporal Victor Nelson of Midland, Michigan, was one of 16 paratroopers in the lead plane, That's All Brother. It was the only plane with radar.

Paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division were the first men to reach Normandy, five hours ahead of the assault by the ground troops. That's All Brother was piloted by Lieutenant Colonel John Donalson with co-pilot Lieutenant Colonel David Daniel.

Every possibility had been considered to make the capture of Sainte Mere Eglise and the storming of the Normandy beaches safe for the 156,000 troops amassed for D-Day. Before the paratroopers jumped, before the infantry arrived, before the tanks rolled off the landing crafts, plans on paper sent the men into battle.

Specific plans were given to those in command. The paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were to land behind German coastal defenses and capture the Carentan-Cherbourg road, cutting the area off from the Germans. Sainte Mere Eglise was the town the paratroopers were to take, but many of the paratroopers landed near Sainte Marie du Mont and Utah Beach.

A poet once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray." Planes dropped 13,000 bombs on the wrong target. Ships at sea bombarded the beaches of Normandy but were too far out for the bombardment to reach the Germans, who were safely out of reach on the high cliffs. Landing crafts released tanks in water too deep, and the tanks sank. The tanks had never been tested in deep water, only in shallow water.

The planes filled with paratroopers were first to find out that the original plans had failed. The planes carrying the paratroopers met with anti-aircraft gunfire from German artillery, causing the planes to fall out of formation and scatter. Once the planes scattered to get away from the enemy fire, they lost their position in the darkness. The pilots fought a losing battle in keeping their aircraft above enemy shelling and realizing that their planes might be hit with all the paratroopers on board dying in the crash.

When plans did go right, a plane neared the drop zone with the pilot turning on a red light near the open back door. The order came: "Stand up. Hook up. Equipment check." The paratroopers hooked their static lines to the anchor cable running down the length of the cabin. Each man checked the gear of the man in front of him. When the green light came on, it was time to jump.

Corporal Victor Nelson, in the lead plane, was the eighth paratrooper to plunge into the early-morning darkness, not knowing where he was or where he would land. Captain Moseley, the first to jump out of That's All Brother, broke a leg when he plummeted to the ground but refused to give up his command. Nelson managed to find a wheelbarrow, and he and two other men managed to lift Moseley into the wheelbarrow, where he continued to be in charge for the next two days before finally going to an aid station.

Movies and photographs show paratroopers standing in a neat line, waiting for the signal to jump. In real life, on D-Day, paratroopers often found themselves slammed to the floor of the plane as pilots tried desperately to avoid flak from the Germans entrenched on the cliffs above the beaches of Normandy. Some of the paratroopers vomited in the plane, making the floor slippery for the men trying to reach the door to jump.

Sometimes men would be lined up to jump and were thrown out of the plane when the pilot was trying to avoid the flak filling the early-morning sky.

Of the 13,000 paratroopers who pulled the ripcord on their parachutes the morning of June 6, hundreds died or were wounded or missing in action. Some landed in marshlands and drowned because they couldn't get out of their parachute harness. Some were killed by anti-aircraft fire as they floated in the darkness to reach solid ground. Some floated into burning buildings, unable to guide their parachutes away from the buildings. Some hit the open water, drowning in the rising tide, unable to get out of the tangled lines of their parachutes.

For the men who participated in D-Day, no one ever forgot what it was like.

The D-Day invasion of Normandy had the largest sea invasion force ever assembled: 156,000 Allied troops; 6,000 landing craft, ships and other vessels; and 11,590 aircraft. A 50-mile stretch of beach front in Normandy had been selected as the invasion point.

The beaches were divided into five sections. The Americans had Utah and Omaha. Great Britain had Gold and Sword. The Canadians had Juno. Both Great Britain and Canada met little resistance. But Utah Beach was a disaster and Omaha Beach was even worse.

On Omaha Beach, the infantry had to run across 200 feet of open beach to reach the high cliffs and get some protection from enemy fire. Many of the men in the landing crafts carried 80 pounds of equipment on their backs and, once in the water, were dragged under and drowned, unable to disentangle themselves from their equipment. And there was a complete failure by Army intelligence in estimating how many Germans the Allied forces would have to fight.

Omaha Beach was surrounded by steep cliffs and was heavily defended by the Germans. Allied infantry and armored divisions began their assault at 6:30 in the morning of June 6. Strong winds blew landing crafts east of where they were supposed to be, leaving both Omaha and Utah beaches lacking in ground support. Heavy fire from the German emplacements met the infantry. The beaches were covered with wooden stakes, metal tripods, barbed wire and small bombs buried in the sand on the beaches.

Utah Beach was a little better but not much. The 4th Infantry Division landed 21,000 troops on Utah Beach. Paratroopers and gliders added another 14,000 men. About 2.500 casualties were counted on the first day of D-Day. Engineering units, responsible for clearing the beaches, accounted for 700 men lost. Included in those 2,500 casualties were the 70th Tank Battalion and vessels sunk by the Germans.

All the planning, all the aircraft, all the ships, all the landing crafts available couldn't save the 4,414 men who died on June 6, 1944. But the capture of Sainte Mere Eglise signaled the beginning of the downfall of the German occupation of France.

While mistakes were made by the Allies, mistakes were also made by the Germans. Erwin Rommel, the German general, felt so secure against any attack by the Allies that he took the day off and flew to see his wife on her birthday, giving her a pair of Parisian slippers he had purchased for the occasion.

German intelligence failed to identify the Normandy beaches and surrounding area as a threat to the Germans occupying France at that time. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who had complete control of sending men into battle, had stayed up late the night of June 5 and slept in on June 6, with orders not to wake him.

When the Allies attacked on the morning of June 6, the Germans on the high cliffs above the Normandy beaches could have used another battalion of soldiers. But they couldn't be deployed unless Hitler gave the order, and he was sound asleep at his private home at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. He slept until noon and then heard the news of the storming of Normandy.

Victor Nelson survived to return from World War II to Midland and lived a long life. He survived D-Day in France, Market Garden in Holland, Bastogne in Belgium, the "mop up" of the Ruhr Pocket near Dusseldorf, the capture of Berchtesgaden and Hitler's Eagle's Nest and the capture of Nazi war criminal Joseph Streicher.

Nelson returned to his job at The Dow Chemical Company in Midland and a year later went to Dow Corning. He married, built a home on Tittabawassee River Road and raised four children there.

Refusing to be considered a hero, Nelson said, "The only way I was going to get home was to fight like hell. That was pretty much everyone's motto. That and being scared to death!"

Even with all the mistakes made, D-Day was considered a victory, giving the Allies a foothold on the European continent.

We often find out details several decades after wars are over. General Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied commander for the D-Day sea invasion and later president of the United States, carried a note in his wallet that was to be read if the D-Day sea invasion was unsuccessful.

The note said, "Our landing in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone."

Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day. Two cemeteries mark that historic day. The Normandy American Cemetery has 9,387 graves. The German Cemetery at La Combe has 21,200 graves. The cemeteries are near each other. And the young men who fought each other in battle, now rest in peace together.