Capt. Edwin Sayre was a company commander with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. As night fell on July 9, 1943, his unit boarded C-47 transports in Tunisia for the airborne assault of Sicily. His flight of aircraft drifted off course and had to make a second run for the drop zone, delaying their arrival. Instead of a moonlit jump the paratroopers faced total darkness. High winds then wrought havoc, scattering them over a wide area. Unable to see the hand in front of his face, Sayre was able to collect only a handful of his men by dawn.
Shortly after daylight, Sayre and his men were taken under fire by an enemy machine gun. Moving forward, they found not one machine gun but a series of pillboxes. This was not the primary objective, but General Gavin had told the paratroopers, “ If you land somewhere and don’t know where you are, just find the nearest enemy and attack.”216
Well, here was Sayre’s nearest enemy. He was able to contact some of his unit by radio, and, by firing a series of shots, gave them a signal to find him. He gradually assembled enough men and weapons to organize an assault of the enemy emplacements. In close fighting with small arms and grenades they eliminated the pillboxes and captured about fifty prisoners.
General Gavin’s instruction to his paratroopers is often the kind of direction that is appropriate for us as Christians. As we try to do the right thing in our service to God’s kingdom, we sometimes face uncertainty or lack a clear direction. At such times, we simply have to do what we can do. Even if a bigger mission is unclear, we can lovingly tend to the everyday tasks that present themselves in our families and churches. A child or a friend with a problem is an opportunity for each of us to do God’s work on a personal level, possibly the most important level of all.
His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”
June 3
Sgt. Timothy Dyas was knocked unconscious when he hit the ground near Gela, Sicily. Jumping from three hundred feet, there was barely time for his parachute to open before he made a hard landing. When he regained consciousness, he started gathering scattered soldiers together. He knew his mission was to keep enemy reinforcements from moving down to the invasion beaches. With only a dozen men, he engaged and stopped a German panzer column. When his bazooka team killed the German commander, confusion spread in the enemy ranks. Dyas made this pointed observation:
Without their leader they didn’t know what to do. In the American Army every private is a general meaning they could adapt. This wasn’t the case with the German army. When their chain of command was broken they were helpless and didn’t know what to do. It took them a good two or three hours to get a junior officer to organize them.217
Timothy Dyas was somewhat overstating his case. Any unit is adversely affected by the loss of a commander, and German units were able to regroup under such circumstances. However, I believe his main point is valid. The hallmark of American soldiers has always been individual initiative. They think for themselves and do what has to be done.
This trait causes nightmares for their officers in peacetime. Young enlisted men are very imaginative in their pranks and subversion of regulations. However, in combat this individualism comes to the forefront. This trait comes straight from our Founding Fathers, who knew that human dignity and rights flow from God to individual citizens, not to governments or organizations. The individual has always stood at the top of the hierarchy in America, as it is the individual’s relationship to God that is sacrosanct. As the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image.”
June 4
In July 1943, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment jumped at night into the hills north of Gela, Sicily, to disrupt enemy communications and to slow reinforcements to the invasion beaches. Even though high winds and navigation errors caused mass confusion among the airborne units, the officers and NCOs (noncommissioned officers) gathered stragglers together to get the job done. In one hard-fought action (described on another day of this month) a series of enemy pillboxes were eliminated along a strategic resupply route leading into Gela.
Sixty-one years later a group of U.S. Navy and Italian officials joined together in a ceremony to honor the American paratroopers who fell in this action. A memorial was built on the site where three German pillboxes are still visible. The names of thirty-nine Americans who lost their lives in the battle are inscribed on the memorial.
The acting mayor of the nearby Sicilian village of Niscemi said, “ These young American Soldiers defended the ideals of freedom and democracy upon which western civilization was founded.”
“We give thanks to the American soldiers who fought and died for our liberation, an event that changed the history of our country,” said the mayor of Gela. “Yet we see them not as foreigners, but as our heroes for what they did.”
During the ceremony a minister talked about the courage of the fallen paratroopers and the courage of those American and Italian soldiers serving in the present. “ We ask you to continue instilling that same courage in (these soldiers) who at this moment are putting their lives on the line on foreign soil so that people may be free.”218
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
June 5
