The jumpmaster calls out and the paratroopers rise. I’m tapped by the soldier behind me. Equipment check: OK. We hook our lines to the cable. The bell rings: Jump!
I’m in the seat of PFC Francis J. Mellett, flying in the Douglas C-47 that dropped him and 17 other paratroopers over Normandy ahead of the D-Day invasion. Mellett’s aircraft was number 67 of the 438 that flew that day. Number 66 was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire, killing everyone aboard.
Nicknamed the Second Chance, the twin-engine plane was operated by volunteers with the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale. As part of their Living History Flight Experience, I was fitted with a World War II jacket and helmet and briefed as if I were PFC Mellett, alongside the other paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division. They were told no prisoners would be taken. Less than half were expected to survive.
Mellett carried more than 300 pounds of equipment. In addition to his parachute and M1 rifle, he was issued three days’ worth of ammunition, an anti-tank mine, a first aid kit with morphine, and a pin indicating the painkiller had already been administered so medics wouldn’t repeat the dose.
The twin engines roared as we lifted off into a bright, windless sky. The C-47 rose quickly and ran smoothly, not unlike a modern aircraft. The Great South Bay passed beneath us, and I imagined it as the English Channel. The real trip would have taken two hours before Mellett went out the door over France. His mission was to help liberate coastal towns and deny the Germans access to Utah Beach and the other landing zones that would bring thousands of Allied soldiers into the fight.
The jumpmaster called for us to stand and attach our static lines. Ten of us inched toward the door, imagining what it must have felt like for those young men as they leaped into the dark night.
Francis J. Mellett was born in Brooklyn in 1920. After volunteering to serve, he joined the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Toccoa and was assigned to the 3rd Platoon as an assistant machine gunner. After training at Fort Benning and Camps Mackall and Shanks with the famed Easy Company—later featured in the movie, Band of Brothers—he headed to Aldbourne, England, to await the invasion of Europe.
They 101st paratroopers were the forerunners of today’s special forces—screened for toughness, hardened by two years of training. They were put into action after making only five qualifying jumps. These soldiers, many of them starting out as teenagers, were sent behind enemy lines, charged with securing vital objectives, enduring relentless fire, and carrying out their mission with little hope of rescue.
Twenty-three years old, Mellett landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. After regrouping with other paratroopers in Ste. Marie-du-Mont, he helped secure the town of Carentan and survived the remainder of the campaign.
In my uniform pocket was a card describing the fate of PFC Francis J. Mellett. After heading to Bastogne on December 18, while taking the town of Foy, Mellett was killed by a sniper. Eight weeks later, his younger brother, John, was also killed in action in Luzon, Philippines, at the age of 22. They are both interred at Long Island National Cemetery in East Farmingdale.
Their sacrifice helped shaped the course of history. The courage of these young Americans—who faced overwhelming danger to confront tyranny—helped secure the freedoms we know today. Remembering their service ensures that the cost of liberty, paid in full by men like the Mellett brothers, will never be forgotten.