Warren Wilt jumped into Normandy feet first at 2 a.m. on June 6, 1944, as part of the 82nd Airborne Division.



With a loaded gun secured across his chest, a bayonet strapped to one leg and a shovel to the other, the then-21-year-old paratrooper from Reno County was ready to do what needed to be done.



�It�s crazy to think of what he did,� said Sid Eells, a friend of Wilt�s and a member of the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team. Both Wilt and Eells are in Normandy today, Wilt to receive the French Legion of Honor medal for his service during the D-Day invasion, Eells to imitate what Wilt did that day.



�It didn�t bother me,� the 91-year-old Wilt said. He recently recalled the jump into the darkness of night in a foreign country, lit up by the bright streaks in the distance from anti-aircraft fire.



He was one of 13,100-plus paratroopers, Americans and British, who jumped into the D-Day conflict.



�You knew what you had to do. You had to go by what you learned. I was loaded down with 135 pounds,� Wilt said. In retrospect, he didn�t need all the equipment such as the auxiliary parachute, because the jump was only from 500 feet above the ground. Nor the clothes dipped in a solvent that would protect the paratroopers from the possibility of being gassed by the Germans. They were not gassed.



Seven decades later, Wilt can still remember how it felt to make the jump. How he stayed in position with his knees bent. And how it was dark so he couldn�t see the ground coming up.



�When you hit the dirt, you knew it,� Wilt said. �Eight of us landed pretty close. I was almost in whispering distance of one fellow.�



While it would be several more hours before light, Wilt didn�t sleep. Not that night or for days afterward. But he took time to get oriented to his surroundings.



By daybreak Wilt knew they were in trouble.



A family



Wilt described himself as a footloose kid who attended the same Sunflower School in Morton County that track legend Glen Cunningham had attended. Wilt moved often as a child and attended 15 different grade schools. By the time he was a junior in high school he came to Abbyville and met Charlene, his future wife, living on a neighboring farm. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps before he could be drafted.



�I saw a brochure to join the paratroopers and thought it was for me,� Wilt said.



Eells said they were the pioneers of their time. Prior to that, people jumping from planes was something to be seen at circuses or the state fair.



Wilt was promised an extra $50, which was a lot of money for the time. He volunteered. By June 6, 1944, he was making only his eighth jump.



The day before the jump he was in Falkingham, England.



�We had been sleeping in the hangar for five days on cots, watching movies,� Wilt said. He had a bath, the last for more than 30 days. He can�t imagine what he smelled like.



But, back to that evening before the men headed across the English Channel, they were served coffee and doughnuts. There remains a snapshot taken of the group prior to heading across the channel. Wilt was the tall, dark, handsome guy. After they jumped, they were all scattered.



Moments before jumping out of the plane, they had dropped a bazooka and ammunition in a bag. At daylight their first priority was to find the bag, and the rest of their unit.



�We were supposed to be at a bridge and there was no way we could make it,� Wilt said. �We just needed to get familiar to where we were and find the rest of the group. One of our fellows spent three days looking for the others. But he couldn�t find a single American.�



Sacrifice



The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division�s mission was to protect the far-right flank of the invasion in the Cherbourg Peninsula, in Normandy, that forms part of the northwest coast of France. According to www.militaryhistory.com, �The mission hoped to accomplish this by destroying bridges over the Douve River and by securing the Merderet River by occupying both sides. It also had the mission to capture Ste. Mere-Eglise from the German garrison stationed there.�



It took a massive number of lives to eventually push the Germans out of France and into defeat. By the 15th day, half the men of the 82nd Airborne had been killed. Wilt estimates there were 918 left; a few days later he was wounded.



Wilt had been in Normandy for 20 days, traveling and fighting in a small group. Then on June 26 he was hit in the thigh by shrapnel from a mortar round. At the field hospital they cut the uniform off him and burned it.



When he was back on his feet, though not walking as he once did, Wilt returned to battle, but not with his old company. Instead he was in Belgium and knee-deep in snow in the Battle of the Bulge.



�I was lucky,� he said with a smile. He had a small devotional in his breast pocket, over his heart. It protected him from some flying shrapnel. The piece of metal went three-fourths through the small book, stopping on the page where the words were �I will protect you.�



His legs hadn�t fully recovered and he eventually became an MP in Berlin, where Wilt says he didn�t do much until the Potsdam Conference in 1945. There was a lake with big houses around it and he saw Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and President Harry S. Truman posing for the famous photograph in the palace garden.



Remembering



Today Eells is hoping to meet up with Wilt in the sea of humanity expected to be at the 70th anniversary celebration.



Wilt returned with his wife for the 1993 celebration. And in 1994 he jumped once again, feet first, into Normandy. Wilt said that on that anniversary jump he was thinking about his buddies who jumped with him back on June 6, 1944.



�I was thinking about the others and what I could have done to make a difference. There were a lot of mistakes made,� he said.



Charlene Wilt said that when they were there for the 50th anniversary, the people were so friendly.



�They were welcoming and open,� Charlene Wilt said. �He is a hero over there, but not always here in the house.�



She didn�t make the trip this time. Instead, Warren Wilt left on May 30 from Wichita, traveling alone, as he did so many years ago as a young man.



He met up with someone coordinating the trip in Dallas and then flew on to Paris. Two other World War II veterans traveled from Paris to Normandy, one from the same regiment.



�It will be an interesting trip,� Wilt said.



Meanwhile, on Wednesday Eells made his jump representing the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team along with a Round Canopy Parachuting Team made up of French and English citizens. They boarded a plane in England and flew across the English Channel to Normandy.



For Eells, the jump was a childhood dream come true.



Eels lived out his dream, and Wilt is reliving his.