The 6th of June, 1944, Robert Murphy, better known as “Sargent”, jumps into Normandy and lands exactly in the planned drop zone. During the course of the day, Robert is able to join up with his company and engages in the fighting on the west-side of Sainte-Mere-Eglise in the wetlands where A Company’s objective is to take and hold the bridge at La Fiere.
All day long the fighting is brutal as the American paratroopers endure mortar fire and must push back several German counter-attacks which were reinforced by 3 armored tanks coming from the Cauquigny.
A team of 2 bazookas and a 57mm canon are going to be able to stop the armored tanks. The A company will be relieved the 8th of June but not before Robert Murphy is wounded by shrapnel and evacuated after the fighting where he will spend the next fifty days in the hospital. He returns several days before the launch of Operation Market Garden in Holland on the 17th of September 1944.
« Never forget the job of a Pathfinder: It’s to guide the aircrafts so that they can drop their sticks into the drop zone. After that, the Pathfinder becomes a simple airborne infantry soldier! »
On June 6th, 1944, Bob Murphy, aka Sargent, jumped into Normandy, France. The mission of A Company of the 505 PIR, was to take over and hold the bridge at La Fiere which was located west of Sainte-Mere-Eglise and to cross over the Merderet River to reach the towns of Cauquigny and Amfreville.
« The jump was very tough, I was a part of the Pathfinders. I landed exactly in the Drop Zone, to the West of Sainte Mere Eglise.”
Regarding the commemorative events of the Battle of Normandy:
“I would return for the first time in 1961. I told Madame Renaud, the wife of the Mayor of Sainte Mere Eglise, that I wanted to jump into the area for the 20th Anniversary and notably, with John F. Lee.
“We brought our own parachutes. We jumped for the 20th Anniversary, then we did it again in the following years, always during the D-Day anniversary.”
