Airborne Invasion, 1943

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Our family moved from Carolina Beach, NC back to the Southern Pines neighborhood known as Knollwood in the summer of 1942. Our Mom was afraid of the war, which was going on regularly off the Carolina shore at that time. The sky was often lit up at night by ships burning offshore and various flotsams washed ashore in the mornings. Don, my half brother, and I were not allowed on the beach until after the Beach Patrol had cleaned up anything Mom didn't want us to see.

Our step-dad was prosperous and bought us a marvelous tudor home (Knoll Cottage) on top of the highest hill around. Knollwood was lightly populated by fine homes that mostly housed senior military officers' families. The Pine Needles Inn and country club at the bottom of the hill had been taken over by the Army Air Corps as a school.

Knoll Cottage was mostly surrounded by long leaf pine and blackjack oak woodland. Less than a mile away was a chain of spring fed ponds nestled in the woods. What a wonderful environment for small boys to explore and learn! Within a year we knew every inch of our "territory".

Then one day our territory was inhabited by soldiers in battle dress, digging foxholes and camouflaging them. One squad had set up practically in our back yard. I don't know, or don't remember, how they got there but I immediately recognized the screaming eagle patch they wore on their shoulders. They were from the 101st Airborne Division, stationed for training at Camp Mackall a few miles away.

It didn't occur to me that the war had followed us to the peaceful pine woods of the Carolina Sandhills. We went to their bivouac and asked them what was happening. After hemming and hawing a bit one of them told us that they were on maneuvers... practicing, and they would be gone in a couple of days.

One of the soldiers offered me a bar of chocolate from his rations pack, which I enthusiastically accepted. He then asked if we had any hot coffee and maybe a sandwich and a glass of milk back at the house.

We sped back to our house as fast as our short legs would carry us and relayed the soldier's request to our teenaged, sister. She hadn't even noticed the invasion of the paratroopers, but sprang into action. Soon she accompanied us back to the bivouac with a big plate of chicken sandwiches and pitchers of coffee and milk. What a joyful reception we got!

Those mostly young men were enchanted by our beautiful sister. Don and I got little attention while they traded addresses and small talk with her. We stayed with them for a couple of hours listening to their stories of the training that made them paratroopers. I don't recall that any of them had ever been in actual combat, but their pride and confidence impressed me a lot.

The next morning they were gone. Their foxholes had been carefully filled back up and smoothed over.

Over the next few months Don and I found a lot of evidence of the maneuvers. They had apparently assaulted the neighborhood airport, which was used by the Air Corps for training. We found many cartridge cases from 30-06 blank ammunition in locations where they might have formed firing lines.

Don and I also haunted the airport, watching the aircraft take off and land and making friends among the ground crews and a few pilots. More than once we were treated to aerobatic displays when one of the pilots would fly over our house in their Piper scout planes and do every trick maneuver he knew.

It was a magical time for little boys. We followed the war news as carefully as modern youngsters follow baseball teams. We debated whether the Nazi and Japanese were really like some comic book villains with supernatural evil powers.

Our fantasies were crushed after Christmas, 1944. Our sister had been pen-palling with several of the troopers who had bivouacked in our back yard. The true meaning of war came home to us in a shattering moment when our sister read us the Sergeant's letter. Most of them died at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge.

There was a lot more learning that came in the next year, but the memory of those jolly young warriors has stuck with me.

(JB Cornwell writes from "The Hideout" in Whitt, TX, and is also an expert moderator, instructor, and fountain-of-knowledge in the iboats.com Boating Forums, where he may occasionally share a yarn of his own.)