LA FIERE, France – Nearly 1,000 paratroopers dropped out of the sky in Normandy on Sunday – but this time they did so in peace, instead of to wrest western France from the Nazis as they did during World War II.
Among the planes ferrying paratroopers for the event was a restored C-47 U.S. military transport plane that dropped Allied troops on the village of Sainte-Mere-Eglise – a stone’s throw from La Fiere – on June 6, 1944. And the pilots who originally flew it took the controls again last week, 70 years later, remembering their experiences.
They were scenes reminiscent of the pivotal event, when around 15,000 Allied paratroopers were dropped in and around the village of Sainte-Mere-Eglise on D-Day. It became the first to be liberated by the Allies and remains one of the enduring symbols of the Normandy invasion.
Veteran Julian “Bud” Rice, a C-47 pilot who participated in the airdrops of Normandy on D-Day, watched the show.
“It’s good to see 800 paratroopers jump here today, but the night that we came in, we had 800 airplanes with 10,000 paratroopers that we dropped that night, so it was a little more,” he said.
Rice flew in a C-47 aircraft earlier in the week, similar to the one he flew on D-Day. With him was veteran pilot Bill Prindible, with whom he watched the show.
