American paratroopers Inside a CG-4 Waco glider

 On the way to Normandy drop zone

Pathfinders of  the 3rd battalion, 505th regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, under Lieutenant-Colonel Krause was the closest to the town and had a mission to seize Sainte-Mère-Église, Normandy, France. 

Pathfinders just before their mission

The 2nd battalion of the 505th’ pathfinders - 82nd Airborne Division - prior to the taking off, in England; June 5, 1944.

Destination Normandy, France

The respected 1st battalion of the pathfinders of the 505th parachute regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, in the late hours of 5 June 1944.

Still in England, not for long...

The Waco CG-4 was the most widely used American troop/cargo military glider of World War II. It was designated the CG-4A by the United States Army Air Forces,[1] and given the service name Hadrian (after the Roman emperor) by the British.

Waco Glider

Paratroopers waiting in England for "The longest day", on the evening of June 5, 1944, bound for the Cotentin peninsula; France...

The Airborne Invasion about to begin

The men of the 506th parachute regiment of the 101st Airborne Division within the airfield of England in the late hours of June 5, 1944

Waiting for departure for Normandy 

U.S. Army nurses, newly arrived, line the rail of their vessel as it pulls into port of Greenock, Scotland, in European Theater of Operations. They are waiting to disembark as the gangplank is lowered to the dock.; August 15, 1944. 

Arrival of Army Nurses

US Infantry squad advances past a dead German Nazi after taking Cherbourg, France;  June 1944.

U.S. soldiers on mop-up activity

Infantrymen and a Sherman tank of the U.S. 3rd Army cautiously advance down a walled lane near Metz, north-east France; November 1944, as German troops pull back.

Looking out for ambush

US troops negotiating the narrow sunken lanes of the bocage country in Normandy; summer 1944.
Most fields only had one gated entrance and were surrounded by high hedgerows, which were ideal for German ambushes.

Hedgerow country

Soldiers of the 32nd Infantry Division with the M1 Garand and M1903 Springfield rifles ready to disembark in Australia; 1942. 
   The 32nd was a National Guard unit from Michigan and Wisconsin and would initially fight in New Guinea and later in the Philippines. It spent more days in combat than any other unit.

Newcomers to down under

U.S. Army paratroopers climb into a C-47 transport plane en route to their jump into the Netherlands during September 1944's Operation Market Garden.

Destination Dutch drop one

Miserable autumn weather forced many in Patton’s Third Army to seek shelter - even if that shelter was  only a muddy foxhole under canvas. Somewhere in France; November 1944.

Keep out of rain and wind

American wounded aboard a landing craft, awaiting evacuation, Munda Point, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, south-western Pacific; 12 July 1943.

Heroic survivors

A U.S. soldier stumbles upon the dead body of a fallen American paratrooper.
Bastogne, Belgium. January 12, 1945.

What hides the pristine snow...

Members of a machine-gun crew load a pack mule with machine gun and ammunition for the long trek up a mountain pass in the Venafro sector, just east of Monte Cassino; Venafro, Italy, 12 December 1943.

Best transportation for the location

Five Texans of the U.S. 96th Infantry Division, each credited with killing five or more Japanese soldiers on Okinawa; 30 June, 1945.

Don't mess with Texas

A U.S. soldier of the 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, guarding German P.O.W.-s in the commune of Suzzano, northern Italy; 1945. - On the left is the grave of a German corporal, named Gunther Müller. 

Fighting is over for them

U.S. Army units moving toward the front on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands; January 1943.

Heat, humidity and palm trees

PFC Urban Masiero (left) and Staff Sergeant Andy Minicozzi (right) of Company A, 289th Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division examine Masiero’s helmet which was pierced by an enemy’s bullet and drew blood from his temple, but left him otherwise unscathed. The Ardennes, Belgium, January1944.

Close call, but safe...

General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, During World War II. ; 18 January, 1944. 

At his desk

U.S. Army soldiers talking to a little French girl in Cerisy-la-salle, north-western France, after the Allied invasion of Normandy. July 25, 1944

Good to see you, little one...

Col. Wolverton (left) is checking the kit of Lt. Bobuck (right) in preparation for their upcoming jump into France; Sunday June 4, 1944.

   
- Lt. Col. Robert Lee Wolverton, CO 3rd Btn., 506 PIR, 101st Airborne (KIA 6/6/44 Normandy) and 1st Lt. Alex Bobuck (POW 6/6-8, 1944)

Equipment check

A Horsa glider lies flipped onto its back on the Cotentin Peninsula, France, where it attempted to land in support of paratroopers on the evening of D-Day, June 6, 1944. Troopers killed in the crash are laid out on the grass.

US Army

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