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a few moments he lay in a ditch considering him. Opposite him,
on the other side of the road, was a large chateau. His first
impulse was to go over and ask share he was, but he thought better
of it immediately. It was a proper instinct. He found out later
that this was the German HQ for the immediate district. He had
dropped right on top of a well-prepared position. There had been
no warning other than the first rifle shots. He had heard nothing
of the enemy. But he felt that he had come down on something hot,
that even then he was "fighting for his life." He knew he was
carrying too much weight for easy movement, so while he lay there
he stripped himself of everything that he thought he could afford
to drop. He then started working down the hedgerow, crawling on
his hands and knees and sometimes on his belly. He came to a
small stream opposite the chateau, thought he could crawl through
it, started, then found himself in over his head and having to
struggle to recover his balance and get to the other side. At this
time he didn't know where any of his men were likely to be. Ordin-
arily, on hitting the ground , he would have looked up to see where
the rest of the serial was dropping and would have gone that way,
but the enemy rifleman had allowed him no chance. So he kept
crawling blind for about 15 minutes. Then he looked at his compass.
He figured he was going in approximately the right direction. There
was still not much sound of fighting, however, and later he was to
learn from the French living in this exact neighborhood that the
German garrison was wholly terrified at the invasion came on, and
that its early terror probably accounted for his own escape and
that of some of his men. As he paused, another serial came over.
He thought it might be his own second Bn as he watched it, but
subsequent information showed that it was a Bn of the 506th. The
only one of his own men to drop near him had been the No. 2 man
from his own plane. He had come down in back of the chateau.
They found his pack later in a tree where he must have hung up
for a few minutes before cutting loose. His body was found near
the Chateau. He had been shot to death. Johnson believed that he
must have heard the exchange between himself and the rifleman,
come on the run to help, and so met his death. Many other things
had happened in those 15 minutes. The ack-ack fire had picked up
steadily and then Johnson had heard mortar shells landing on all
four sides as if the Germans were pouring it into the fields
broadcast on the chance that someone might be landing there. He
had heard two of our own planes crash as he worked his way along,
and looking back, had seen a double glare in the sky. Out of the
night had come prolonged screaming, and then a scream which died
suddenly as if a man had been bayoneted. He couldn't tell whether
they were friend or enemy, but he felt the rising tide of sound and
fire, as of many small encounters building up. He was moving down
into a swampy area now, and though he was still not sure of his
location, he thought that he was working toward a river. He knew
he was crawling south and he figured it must be the Douve. The
direction was taking him away from the sounds of the fighting. He
kept on going for another 15 minutes, keeping to the ditches and
the shadows around the hedges. The moon was quite bright. He
decided to wait where he was and see if could pick up men on the
spot. Another 15 minutes passed and he heard the chirp of a cricket ,