Glenn BALL

COMPANY

BATTALION 

Company F

2^nd Battalion

C-47 42-23638

MACR 6139

Map of Normandy American Cemetery

He was the son of Glenn and Myrth Ball.

Son of a cereals farmer, he is the second of five siblings.

After finishing his studies, married and employed in the railways, he enlisted into the US Army on February 1943, in Columbus.

He integrated Fort Benning until March 1943. He will be trained and carded there.

On this month of march, the regiment moved to Louisiana for big manoeuvers with the Third Army.

Then, it reached Nebraska where it performed tactical jumps.

From then to early September, manoeuvers and presentations punctuated the activity. On September, the regiment went in bivouac in Stockdale Lake to get some rest.

On late October, the regiment arrived at Camp Shanks, in the State of New York.

On December 3, the regiment left the camp.

On December 5, it boarded the SS Strathnaver which took it to the European continent, in England.

After an eleven day crossing, the 507th arrived in Liverpool.

From there, it took a train to Scotland and a Liberty ship to Ireland.

On January 1944, the 507th P.I.R. was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.

On March 11, 1944, the Regiment left Ireland for Nottingham in England where manoeuvers, night and mass jumps were scheduled.

At the end of May, it was the move to the airfield of Barkston Heath for the 2nd Battalion.

After a first 24 hour report, the big night came at last on June 5, 1944.

Glenn boarded the C-47 42-23638 which was in position 31 in the serial 24.

The C-47 belonged to the 14th T.C.S. of the 61th T.C.G. and was piloted by the 1st Lt Hitztaler. Voir plan de vol

Glenn was in position 13 of his 19 paratroops stick. As the Cotentin littoral arrived, the aircraft entered a cloud. It was the last time the aircraft could be seen.

The C-47 was hit by the DCA, the left motor and the left fuselage side were hit and a paratroop was also wounded.

Then, the radio operator was fatally injured.

Once again, the aircraft came under heavy fire from the DCA.

The paratroops had barely time to lie down when the green light was switched on.

At 3.15 am, the 1st Lt Hitztaler gave the order to evacuate.

The paratroops found themselves scattered throughout the Négreville and Saint-Joseph sector.

The aircraft kept going abandoned and crashed in the hamlet of Rouville.

Glenn was captured shortly afterwards, locked up in a camp at first, then transported by truck to Tourlaville.

But the Germans decided to move the prisoners to the south, first by train to Bricquebec but since the railway was destroyed, they were placed on trucks while others continued walking.

It was the case for Glenn who kept going to Haye-du-Puits walking in column. On June 10, 1944, the prisoners were located in a place called Gassey. They were about a hundred.

Then, some P-47 Thunderbolt appeared.

The prisoners waved small yellow fabrics to indicate a column of prisoners.

The planes left but a P-47 came back and shot the column.

The prisoners dived into ditches.

When a second P-47 appeared, the prisoners took refuge on the apple trees, thinking they would be safe but the P-47 precisely targeted the orchards and a real tragedy took place there.

Once the planes gone, the survivors witnessed a sad sight.

The wounded were many and more than a dozen of bodies laid on the road and the ditches.

Glenn was among the serious injured.

The inhabitants of the village ran with sheets to make bandages for the injured.

They were taken to a barn to be treated in the best possible way. Some of them didn’t make it through the night. This was Glenn’s destiny, despite the care provided by other paratoops.

He died of his wounds.

Glenn sacrified himself to save his brother of arms’ life, the Sergeant Carl Leston.

During the shooting, he collapsed on top of him and so, protected him from the bullets.

The date inscribed on the grave in the American Cemetery is June 30, 1944.

It is the date when the corpses of the soldiers were buried in the Carquebut cemetery after being exhumed from the Besneville cemetery, which means that they were dead before this date.