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YESTERDAY and TODAY |
 NORMANDY, JUNE 6, 1944 |
From paratrooper to spy:
Just one of many stories
By MAURY ALLEN
|of TheColumnists.com
There are two dates that stick in the mind of all of
us who have crossed that three score and ten threshold.
One, of course, is December 7, 1941, the Date That Will Leave
in Infamy--and has. I was in a movie theater down the block from
our Brooklyn home that Sunday afternoon with my brother. It was
a big deal because my big brother, four years older than I was
then at age 13, wouldn’t often be seen in public with his
little nine year old kid brother.
I forgot the movie but I remember coming home to our Brooklyn
walk-up apartment to see the somber look on the faces of my parents
as they stared into the floor radio and listened intently to
the war reports.
The next memorable date was June 6, 1944.
I was 12 years old by then, captain of the Writer-Fighter Corps
in my junior high school because I wrote more letters to the
GIs than anybody else. I nurtured a tomato garden on the window
sill with the dirt in cheese boxes and the seeds coming in five
cent packages.
I collected newspapers and old cans for the war effort. Today
they call that recycling. Somebody is getting rich off that now
the way they did in 1944. We even saved mom’s cooking grease
in a can to help build bombs. I always wondered if my mother’s
kitchen grease was on the Enola Gay with the first atomic bomb.
I occasionally trailed off years later from my sportswriting
identification with special stories or events, many of them connected
to World War II. Tom Brokaw called those guys who fought it The
Greatest Generation. I always called it the most thrilling.
About a dozen years ago I came across a story from World War
II and beyond that intrigued me no end. It was about a guy from
Yonkers, New York, not far from my Westchester County home.
His name was Hugh Francis Redmond. He was a member of the 506th
Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. He
was in Headquarters Company. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg later
immortalized the guys from the nearby E Company of the 506th
in "The Band of Brothers" TV miniseries.
Redmond’s story was bigger and better. I captured it in
a book entitled "China Spy" (Gazette Press) published
in 1998, some 28 years after Redmond died in a Shanghai, China
prison camp.
Redmond landed in Normandy near the Douve River on D-Day, June
6, 1944, about 10 miles from the projected drop spot. The time
was 1:54 a.m. when he landed in a marshy area. German defenders
cranked their phones and began screaming, “Amerikaner
fallschirmjaeger,” American paratroopers, to their Normandy
headquarters.
Redmond fought through the Normandy campaign starting that June
6th day, jumped again in Holland in the confused Market Garden
operation in September (Iraq is not our only botched military
operation), was wounded, recovered and returned home.
When the war ended he joined the old Office of Strategic Services
(OSS), soon to become the CIA. He was sent to China in 1946 to
spy on the Communists. They would take over China from the Nationalists
in 1949. He was ordered home in 1951 but was arrested as he boarded
a ship for San Francisco.
Redmond spent 19 years as a prisoner of the Chinese Communists.
He never revealed his CIA connection, a true hero. He died under
mysterious circumstances in 1970. He has never been fully honored
for his service.
A friend of his from Yonkers, Richard Falvey, now living in Hammondsport,
New York, is a retired railroad worker. He told me so much about
Redmond’s early life and his 101st Airborne service.
“He was a perfect CIA guy,” said Falvey. “There
was always something very mysterious about Hughie Redmond.”
I never met Redmond and didn’t know his story until after
his death. He was a great hero in a time when true heroism seemed
more common than today’s spin control heroes.
Falvey jumped at D-Day, fought in Market Garden, later became
one of the Battling Bastards of Bastogne as U.S. troops held
off Hitler’s last attack in World War II.
I became friends with Falvey after starting on the book. I kidded
him about his exciting jump again in 1994 on the 50th anniversary
of D-Day when a bunch of 70 plus guys jumped out of planes over
France. One of the jumpers 10 years ago was a former World War
II Navy pilot named George Herbert Walker Bush or Bush 41 as
he is known in his family.
Dick Falvey is 83 years old now, 60 years after his D-Day jump.
For months we have talked about his scheduled jump on June 6,
2004. He was training hard for his first jump in 10 years. He
was completely recovered from hip surgery. He was as sharp in
mind and body as a man could be after four score and three birthdays.
He called recently with sad news. The government has stepped
in and cancelled the jump of these former 101st Airbone Division
parachute troopers.
“They were concerned about injuries and how bad it might
look if somebody got hurt,” Falvey said.
Each elderly parachutist was to take some practice jumps in California
before flying to France. Each had signed a waiver. Each knew
what they were doing and why. Each had made a private decision
to jump. They thought that was what the event was all about,
guys reliving the past with private decisions. Something they
had fought for 60 years ago.
“We’re still going to France and we will be paraded
around like some trained monkeys,” said Falvey. “The
idea was to jump. That’s what we had trained for, that’s
what we cared about, that’s what we were looking forward
to for the last 10 years.”
There will be parades in France on June 6th. The returning soldiers
will be honored and feted. The French still admire these guys,
Falvey said. They understood what they did 60 years ago.
“This wasn’t about the past,” said Falvey. “It
was about the present. We just wanted to show that we are still
capable human beings even at these advanced ages. We are still
paratroopers.”
Hugh Redmond, Dick Falvey and all the others who served on D-Day,
June 6, 1944 are inspirational Americans. I’m just angry
the government didn’t butt out and let them jump. Geronimo.
©2004 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The cartoons are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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