Private John M Steele

Blastmaster1972 · Jun 6, 2013

Just a pic I took last year. Thought I'd share it with you guys on this 6th of June! Guess I don't really have to say WHERE I took it...

Can anybody tell me which exact unit Private Steele belonged to? My google skills are letting me down, and I'm about 1500km separated from my books...

Kind regards,

Jos

BFBSM · Mar 4, 2017

I will combine my two posts from WW2Talk:

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/47978-private-john-m-steele/#entry564988
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia....le_(paratrooper)

The operation

On the night before D-Day (June 5–6, 1944), American soldiers of the 82nd Airborne parachuted into the area west of Ste-Mère-Église in successive waves. The town had been the target of an aerial attack and a stray incendiary bomb had set fire to a house east of the town square. The church bell was rung to alert the town of the emergency and townspeople turned out in large numbers to form a bucket brigade supervised by members of the German garrison. By 0100 hours, the town square was well lit and filled with German soldiers and villagers when two sticks (planeloads of paratroopers) from the 1st and 2nd battalions were dropped in error directly over the village.
The paratroopers were easy targets, and Steele was one of only a few non-casualties. His parachute was caught in one of the back pinnacles of the church tower, causing the cables on his parachute to stretch to their full length, leaving him hanging on the backside of the church to witness the carnage. The wounded paratrooper hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. Steele later escaped from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the village capturing thirty Germans and killing another eleven. For these actions and his wounds, Steele was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart for being wounded in combat.
Later life
Though injured, Private Steele survived his ordeal. He continued to visit the town throughout his life and was an honorary citizen of Ste. Mère Église. The tavern, Auberge John Steele, stands adjacent to the square and maintains his memory through photos, letters and articles hung on its walls. Steele died of throat cancer on May 16, 1969 in Fayetteville, NC just three weeks short of the 25th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Click to expand...

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/47978-private-john-m-steele/#entry565002
After checking D-Day by Stephen Ambrose, (p.210), I would suggest 2nd Platoon F Company:

Quote

At 0145, the second platoon of F Company, 505th, had the bad luck to jump right over the town, where the German garrison was fully alerted.
Click to expand...

Ryan in a footnote of The Longest Day, would seem to corroborate this.

Mark

BFBSM · Jun 6, 2013

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