Military Records: Robert J. Smith, 1993, Winn Parish, LA. Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: June 30, 1993 Winn Parish Enterprise News American World War II-Parachuting Into France It was exactly 50 years ago on July 10, 1943, that 226 airplanes dropped 3,400 men on the island of Sicily in Operation Husky of World War II. One of those brave young men who fell from the skies in an offensive against that strategic isle was Robert J. Smith of Winnfield. Smith was with the 82nd Airborne Division. Their objective that day was to eliminate Italy from the war and gain control of the Mediterranean Sea. This was necessary before the Allies could focus attention on the cross-channel assault. High winds and poor navigation techniques as well as improperly trained air crews scattered the paratroopers all over Sicily, placing only 12 percent where they were supposed to be. Many died. Nearly 11 months later, Smith was part of a much larger and well remembered landing. He was part of the landing party that fell over Normandy, D-Day, 1944. "It was 49 years ago that we dropped into Ste. Mere's Eglise," Smith remembers. More than 14,000 young Americans dropped out of the skies into the small town on that day. They had come to cut off German access to the Normandy beaches a few miles away, just before the Allies began the world's largest amphibian landing, the beginning of the end of World War II. "One of the paratroopers got caught on the church steeple," Smith remembers. "The Germans shot him several times, managing only to hit him in the foot." Smith walked beneath the young man stranded high above the town. "The medics went inside and came out on a balcony and got him down," he remembers. Smith joined the Air Force and started out at Fort Claiborne, served in North Africa, and went all the way to Berlin. Was it hard for a country boy to jump out of planes? "It was hard to learn how but once you put that harness on, you were gone out of the plane, that wasn't hard to do at all," he says with a smile. Smith says everything the 82nd did was behind enemy lines. The planes dropped them into the worst of places and they were to accomplish their mission and await the troops to get them out. "We released the people in one concentration camp," he remembers. "The people were just rotten. The Allies made the Germans bury hundreds and then we tried to ship others to Hanover, but many died before getting anywhere." In the town of Ste. Mere's Eglise today, children wear the patch of the 82nd airborne on back packs and jackets. A granite column in the square commemorates the day the 82nd, with Smith along, dropped into their town liberating it from the Germans, half a century ago. (I was fortunate enough to have known Mr. Bob Smith for most of my life and was also very fortunate to have been able to visit with him on many, many occasions and listen to many stories involving Winn Parish history. He was a great storyteller and like most real veterans, would not talk of any of his own heroics, only about the war in general. One of his greatest stories involved his standing out in front of Shaw's store on Abel Street in Winnfield when a young couple drove up, exited their car, and entered the Bank of Winnfield. The couple stayed inside for a few minutes, exited, and drove off. In a few moments, Sheriff Bryant Sholars drove by the bank and headed east toward "Gorhamtown", as Mr. Smith called it, at one point known as Menefee, now Joyce. Mr. Smith later learned that the couple was Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. He said that Winn Parish was so poor that Bonnie and Clyde probably felt sorry for the people and decided to go rob some other bank. Mr. Smith recently passed away and is certainly missed by the fine family he raised as well as his many friends.