Colour home movie - 101st Airborne, June 5th 1944

[Phil Lloyd]

As apt as films get; especially today, 5th June.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idNbxUBof_U

Info below, taken from a press release in 2004.

Pathfinders of the American 101st Airborne Division, preparing in Britain for Operation Overlord the next day. The film, shot on the eve of D-Day, shows Captain Frank Lillyman, commander of the 101st Pathfinders, who at 12.12am on 6 June, 1944, would become the first Allied serviceman to parachute into France.

Found in the US national archives in Washington, shows the C47 Skytrain that carried Lillyman and led the entire US air fleet. Its number, 293098, is clearly visible. It was piloted by Lieutenant- Colonel Joel Crouch, commanding the Ninth Troop Carrier Command, Pathfinder Group.

Shot as the afternoon of 5 June wore on, shows Crouch and Lillyman making final preparations and waiting for the off. Badsey said: 'If you look behind them you can see the black and white invasion stripes painted on the aircraft, and they've actually put masking around parts of the aircraft they don't want damaged by paint. That paint is probably still drying as this film is being taken. That is an indication of how immediate and real this film is.'

There are final handshakes and a last cigarette. At 9.54pm Crouch and Lillyman's aircraft takes off from Britain. It was followed by 1,431 others carrying 6,600 men from the 101st Airborne. The flight would take two hours, encountering bad weather and, for the last few minutes, German anti-aircraft fire.

Lillyman, who always jumped with a cigar in his mouth, was first out of the plane, at 12.12am according to Crouch's watch. His Pathfinder team of about 15 men set up electronic equipment ,called Rebecca/Eureka, that sent out a signal to the oncoming waves of planes, telling the pilots when the paratroopers should jump. They also set burning pots in fields as a signal to glider pilots. Later in the day Lillyman was wounded in combat. Then 29, from Syracuse, New York, he remained in the army after the war and retired in 1968 as a lieutenant-colonel. He died in 1971