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LT. GENERAL JAMES M. GAVIN (contiued) -4-

and together and get our people organzed for the fight that was sure to follow at daylight
if not before. Olsen cam back in about an hour and reported that [crossed out][illegible][end crossed out] [inserted] there was a [end inserted] railroad directly
across from where we were, direclty to the east and that the river was passable but that
it was should deep. He also had run in to some of the 508th and understood that the
commanding officer Col. Lindquist of the 508th was moving south towards Laviere
bridge. So he was moving along on schedule. I had at that time about 100 to 150 troopers
with me. They were scrambling to get the stuff out of the swamp. I remember seeing one
of them who was an aide, a Lt. Devine, stark naked out in the middle of the river. He
stood out like a white statue. I was wondering why he didn't keep his equipment on but
that was the way he wanted to do it and he was swimming around trying to fix things out
in the swamp. They were getting quite a bit in but a lot of that equipment hadn't been
in the water that long really wasn't much good to us. Our radios and bazookas were the
most precious items [inserted] that [end inserted] we lost. Gliders were to bring us our best antitank weapons and those
were the six pounders as the British called them. There were British version of the 57 MM
antitank gun. The gliders had a hard time. It was the first time we had flwon gliders
[crossed out][illegible][end crossed out] at night and flying gliders at the end of a 300 ft. rope through heavy fog from
aircraft in formaiton is quite an operation I must say. Despite all the difficulties quite
a few [crossed out] of them got in. We got siz antitank guns in around Ste. Mere Eglise for the
heavy fighting against armore the following morning but I had none with me. One landed about
100 to 200 yds away in the edge of the swamp and I sent a patrol out to help get the antitiank
gun out. Well it didn't accomplish anything and then I sent a young officer who I had a lot
of confidence in, a Lt.Green [inserted] or Crane? [end inserted] who had been with me in Sicily and Salerno to get out and get
a look at it and they came in a very heavy fog. By then it was getting on towards daylight.
The infantry with me, a lot of it was quite green and I was alittle uncertain about them
I thought I'd go out and take a look at the glider myself and I got quite close as a matter
of fact about 50 yards to it and it was as though you were walking along the rifle butts
on the range. small arms were flying at a great rate. I remember one that went by
look like the tail, light of a car going by, a tracer apparently. It was just no place