Chester Brooks
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Chester Brooks of Duluth, Minnesota graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis in June 1942 and was drafted into the Army. After basic training he was accepted into paratroop training. He eventually became a member of the famed 101st Airborne Division and was among those who parachuted behind German lines just before the D-Day landings in Normandy.
He was later with the 101st when its members parachuted into Holland as part of Operation Market Garden. With others in the unit he was caught up in the Battle of the Bulge, and surrounded by Germans at Bastogne during that time. He was a platoon sergeant and jumpmaster.
After the war, Brooks joined the U.S. Park Service and managed several national parks and a multi-state region of the Service. He moved to Duluth, Minnesota after retiring from his federal post.
Here are excerpts of his recollections of his World War II service at the time of the Normandy invasion:
"As we marched to the planes it seemed the throbbing of the motors was attempting to keep pace with the throbs of excitement within us. At about 10:30 p.m. we started down the runway. We circled the field to gain altitude until all 45 planes of our serial were airborne. We flew in Vs of nine planes each. Our line of flight extended over 200 miles. We flew at about 500 feet above the channel to avoid radar. We climbed to about 1,500 feet as we crossed the French coast to avoid small arms fire.
As the jumpmaster, I gave the order to stand up and hook up as we neared the coast of France. Our pilot found some of the formation and we proceeded inland. Except for the chatter of machine guns from the ground, everything was peaceful enough for the first few minutes. Soon after that it seemed the sky was filled with various colors of fiery fingers reaching out for us.
When we returned to what we thought was our rightful place in the sky the rest of the formation was nowhere to be found. Most of them had scattered also. During this period our pilot became lost and flew us almost 30 miles south of our objective. Of course we had no knowledge we were not flying as scheduled even though we did wonder at the absence of other planes.
We received the four-minute warning light and I shouted the routine, "Sound off for equipment check." I had moved the equipment bundles well into the doorway and leaned on them with my knee to keep them from sliding out of the lurching plane. Suddenly the crew chief came dashing back calling, "jump-jump-jump." I had been watching for the green light, our signal to go, but while I was in the plane it was not given.
Up to this point I had been surrounded by comrades in my war with the German enemy and the enemy within me -- fear. Suddenly there I was hanging in the sky all alone. With my weight, the parachutes and my other equipment my total weight on the manifest loading chart was over 300 pounds. We had never jumped with this much equipment before. Items were hung on us wherever it seemed convenient. It was not intended that we should carry all this stuff but to stockpile it after we assembled on the ground.
The field I landed in was about 25 feet square enclosed by hedgerows. A hedgerow is like an earthen dike, three to four feet high with bushes or trees growing out of the top. In other words the country was entirely different from what intelligence had told us. Little did I know we had jumped almost 30 miles deeper into France than we were supposed to.
Scanning the dark shrubby patches of the hedgerows I could see German soldiers forming behind them. I hastily attempted to get out of my parachute harness. I unhooked my reserve but was unable to unhook my chest strap or my leg straps. I was trapped in my own shroud. The weight of my equipment, the speed of the flight, and the sudden opening shock had pushed me deeper into my harness. It was not too much unlike shaking potatoes into a gunny sack. The more I attempted to unhook the snaps that fastened me in the harness the more my fingers shook. Almost overcome by fear of the Germans who supposedly were zeroing in on me I said to myself, though probably not out loud, get a hold of yourself. Finally I struggled free.
I was ashamed that my near panic had almost overwhelmed me. I now became angry and determined to get the Germans who were on the other side of the hedgerow. I pulled out my machete (I don't know what I would have done with it if I had met the enemy) and with my folding stock carbine in the other hand advanced toward the hedgerow. With each step the bullets in my carbine clip rattled. The opening shock had been so great that some of the rounds had gotten into the part of the clip that contained the spring. I removed the clip and put a new one in the gun. But now the damaged clip rattled in my pocket. I had to stop and remove each cartridge from the damaged clip. By now my intense fear and intense "bravery" had left me.
I searched out the hedgerow that surrounded me and fortunately discovered there were no enemies in sight. There were many times in tight combat situations after that where I was scared, but none even came close as those few moments that night.
Suddenly a hulking, brutish-looking silhouette of the enemy appeared. I hid in the brush and kept his head in my carbine sights as much as possible in the dark. Several cows came over to stare at me and expose my position to the enemy. I dared not move. As he came closer I noticed he had a white patch on his arm. I had worn one just like it. It was a three-inch white band with an American flag on it. It was to identify us to the French, the British, to ourselves. The part I did not like was that it also identified us to the enemy. I had taken mine off when my spirit had been wrestling with my fear.
I still was not sure he was an American. When he was reasonably close I clicked my little toy cricket once. He stopped looked warily about. He clicked back twice, and then I clicked. For awhile it must have sounded like the place was infested with crickets.
I eased out of my hiding place and we approached each other cautiously. At about four feet we simultaneously recognized one another. It was big Jack McDowell. We rushed together and embraced although it was probably no more than 15 minutes before that we had been riding the plane together.
Out of our group of 14, I found nine that night. The ten of us assembled in the dark. We looked for possible landmarks to give us some indication of where we were. As daylight gradually approached and we were as confused as ever. I had the men hide in a brushy spot of hedgerow near a rural road. I had spied a church steeple off some distance. Since the only French I knew was "merci beaucoup' and "le Bosch" I had hopes I could find a priest who could tell me where I was.
The townspeople were beginning to stir. I tried to avoid detection but had no choice in several instances. After inquiring of several, "Le Bosch?" and getting a silent gesture of fingers across their throat (I didn't know if that was to signify I was to cut the Bosches' throats or the Bosch would cut mine or theirs), I finally met one Frenchman who grabbed me by the arm and led me through alleys toward the church.
There were a large number of German paratroopers sleeping in the church cemetery. I sneaked to the opposite side of the church, entered, and sought out a priest who could speak English. Since I did not want to give out any military information, I took out one of three maps inside my helmet and asked him to show where I was. It seems I was not on any of my maps. He took me to a map of France on the wall and showed me where I was. My heart sank. And besides the troops sleeping outside the church, he informed me there were a German paratroop major and a captain in the steeple and I should be careful when I left.
The priest told me to head for a flooded area and cross it on a narrow path and someone would meet me on the other side. I sneaked out of town and hoped I would not be observed from the steeple. When I got back to my men they were already packed and ready to move out. Shortly before I arrived a young lady (I never saw her) had come and warned them that soldiers were searching the hedgerows for them. When you are in a ticklish situation it seems there is always someone who comes forward with talents of which you were unaware.
Since we did not know who were and who were not collaborators, we tried to stay away from houses as much as possible. It was broad daylight and we were skirting one farmhouse when a Frenchman popped out from around some outbuildings. We had not seen him and he had not seen us until we were almost on top of one another. We pointed our guns at him and in his fright he threw a tray of cabbage leaves into the air. We soon learned he was on his way to feed his rabbits. He was a World War I veteran and was happy to see us after the initial fright.
We reached the marsh and were preparing to cross it, as the priest had instructed me, when a wiry Frenchman stepped out of the underbrush and identified himself. We figured the priest must have been with or in communication with the underground. He was Jacques Capiten. He had been imprisoned by the Germans and showed us scars on his back where the Germans had beat him in hopes of extracting information. He led us to his farm and found us a good place to hide at the south end of the marsh.
While in this situation we thought we should do something for the war effort. We hid our men in Capiten's barn and three of us planned an early morning raid on the village of Sainteny. We understood German munitions were stored in a house on one edge of town. Our plan was to have certain of our men cut the telephone wires and other wires leading in and out of town.
We were all in place when all of a sudden German troops were moving through the town in trucks going north. We canceled our operation. It was probably fortunate we did as our position would have been untenable if we had been discovered.
While we were waiting the SS unit moved in and some of them were on the other side of the hedgerow. I could hear Germans talking on the other side of the hedgerow and not too far from where we were. We had decided that if someone came into our position they would not expect to be attacked. At this precarious time two others in my group started arguing (in English of course) about whose turn it was to go on guard. I slipped over to them as quietly as possible to tell them to shut up as not only could I hear them but also the Krauts. We survived that tense moment and were ready to start out across the water even though it was not as dark as we would have liked.
Capiten had shown us earlier where a farm track (not quite a road) had led through the marsh before the Germans had flooded the area. The road was under about a foot of water. He had also warned us about all the little and not so little irrigation ditches. I instructed the men to carry their guns at port but about head high and not to lift their feet out of the water but to feel along the bottom with them and not splash unduly.
We were in a closed up double file so the men could pass the information back by hand signal where the ditches were. We were proceeding quite well when we came to the big ditch. Of course we did not know it was the big ditch, but dog-paddled and tried to stand and sank several times till we finally reached the other side.
I gathered our wet bedraggled crew along a brushy hedgerow to dry out some while two of us scouted the surrounding area. Then I spotted an American tank, easily identified even at great distance by the big star on its side. Several of us took the yellow identification cloths out of our helmets and started waving them so we would not be fired on. When we were abreast of the tank an armored lieutenant with a big smile on his face said, "you sure wanted us to see you, waving those rags like that". I informed him they were identification panels. His response was "Oh." We knew what they were but no one in our Army had bothered to notify units we might meet.
During the 10 days we operated on our own we generally cussed our pilot for the messed-up drop. When we found out what happened to the other groups we were most happy with the pilot's error. At least all the men in our plane were still alive up to that time.
