Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories

Hours before the Allied Forces hit the beaches of Normandy, courageous British and American soldiers entered France with parachutes and gliders to secure key bridges and enemy artillery positions. Their dangerous missions led the way for the D-Day invasion and ultimate victory in Europe. Wally Parr, Terance Otway and Bill True recount their dramatic stories, In Their Own Words. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By 1943, the war in the Pacific burned in its full fury. On November 20th, the Allies launched the first amphibious assault against heavily defended beaches in US history. The 2nd division of the US Marine Corps, used amphibious tractors and assault boats to reach the beaches of the Tarawa atoll, an enemy stronghold protected by 5,000 hardened Imperial Japanese marines. Ed Moore and Tommy Reed were decorated veterans of the 2nd Marine Division during the island campaigns in the Pacific War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They are known as America's first military stealth aircraft. Under cover of darkness, the Waco CG-4A combat glider carried U.S. troops and materiel into battle during World War II. William Horn and Leo Cordier, pilots who flew these unarmed and un-powered planes, landed behind enemy lines before the invasion troops arrived in Europe on D-Day. Their courageous stories are a little known chapter in the Allied march to victory during WWII. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched the largest amphibious military assault in history known as D-Day. More than 150,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. Some of the first men to hit the beach on D-Day were the U.S. Navy Combat Demolition Unit. Jerry Markham and John Talton were members of this elite group. In this episode, these courageous veterans tell their dramatic stories, In Their Own Words. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1944, the Allies fought their way from the beaches of Normandy towards German soil. Their sites were firmly set on pushing all the way to Hitler's capital Berlin and putting an end to WWII. Robert Weiss was a US Army forward observer. His mission was to move ahead of the troops and find targets for the artillery, but being out in front placed him closer to the enemy and a greater risk of being cut off from his comrades. These are his experiences In His Own Words. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By 1942, the skies over Germany were aflame with German fighters battling Allied bombers for the survival of Europe and the free world. Central to victory were the fighter planes of the Allies. At first they were obsolete and woefully inadequate. But with the advent of aircraft like the P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang, the tide of war was about to change. In this episode we hear the words of fighter aces Clarence "Bud" Anderson in his revolutionary P-51 and Francis "Gabby" Gabreski, flying the P-47 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On December 8th, 1941, Japanese forces attacked Wake Island. The Americans were outmanned and out gunned, but fought hard for 15 days before surrendering. Sgt. Pearsall and his fellow Marines were taken as prisoners of war, and spent 3 ½ years at a prison camp in China during WWII. Sergeant John Edward ‘Swede’ Pearsall served in the Marines as a part of the 1st Defense Battalion, D Battery on Wake Island in 1941. Wake Island is located 2,458 miles west of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. knew a Japanese attack was coming, so men were stationed on the island to protect it. On December 8th, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. The Battle of Wake Island lasted for a little over two weeks until American forces surrendered in order to protect civilian lives. After the surrender, Sgt. Pearsall and his fellow Marines were almost executed before the Japanese decided to take them as prisoners. They would eventually be taken on a prison ship to Yokohama Harbor, and then transported to Wusong China, where they would spend three and a half years in a prison camp. At the camp, conditions were brutal. They had little water to drink or bathe with, were beaten often, were not adequately fed, and were forced to do physical labor. During the interview, Pearsall had this to say about the camps: “Starvation, I found, was the toughest thing. The beatings you took. Almost daily, you took beatings from the Japanese, but you kind of became punch-drunk, so to speak. You expected them and you lived with them. But starvation you don't live with. When you're hungry, you're hungry 24 hours a day. You go to sleep hungry. You wake up during the night hungry, and you're hungry all day. Starvation is one of the toughest things we found to face. The work and labor that they made us do was tough, but the food was totally inadequate for the work and to sustain life. Myself, I went from a 200 pound Marine. When the war ended, I weighed somewhere around 85 pounds, so that when the war finally came to end, there wasn't much left of us. We couldn't have sustained life, under the food we were getting, much longer.” Finally on Easter Sunday, 1945, American forces arrived and liberated the camp, saving Sgt. Pearsall and his fellow prisoners. Upon arriving home, Pearsall was awarded the Purple Heart. To learn more about J. Edward Pearsall and the Battle of Wake Island, check out ⁠Son of Wake Island⁠. It's written by J. Edward Pearsall's son, David Pearsall, with the help of his father and the other surviving defenders of Wake island. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices