The maX-Files - Page 2

Note 5: 508th PIR

I have not yet been able to determine conclusively what regiment my father served with as a paratrooper, but I have several reasons to believe that he had something to do with the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR). I know from his photo that he earned “sleeve rank” in an elite unit, that many soldiers in regular outfits, who were sergeants, were willing to take a demotion to private just to become a part of.

If you visit the web-site for the 508th PIR at http://www.508pir.org/

In the gallery section, you will see a photo of Unknown 508th Men. After close examination, my brother and I both believe that the man in the lower left of the photo is my father. It’s not just a gut feeling - He looks like my brother when he was that age. In fact, I thought it was my brother, and he is “smiling” in a manner that my father always was accustomed to do, i.e. gritting his teeth. Though all these men are listed as unknown, there is another photo on the website with a man who looks a lot like one of the men in this photo, (rt. rear) and a sign that says 1st Battalion HQ Company…

Interestingly enough, what first led me to consider the 508th PIR was a completely different photograph. Well, actually two of them. When I was a boy, I would imitate my father’s unique casual stance, or at least I thought it was unique. He had ricketts when he was a boy, and most people would find it awkward or uncomfortable to stand that way. I know, because I couldn’t stand that way for very long, when I mimiced him. It puts a great deal of pressure on the hip, to keep both feet pointing in the same direction. Of course, everybody else thinks I’m crazy - that everybody stands that-a-way.

Anyway, I saw a photo taken of the 508th Pathfinders just before they took off for Normandy. The man on the far right stood just like my father. I asked the webmaster for a blow-up, and he was kind enough to provide one. Everything about the man’s size matches photos that I have of dad. Even the way he is holding his cigarette. Yet the face was obviously different. No matter how I wanted to believe otherwise, the face was not that of my father.

I want to stress, that all of the men in that photo were heroes, who parachuted into occupied France hours before the actual invasion of Normandy, and the Pathfinders went in an hour before the first wave of paratroopers even. I don’t want anybody to think that I am saying that the man in the photo is my father, or that I am trying to detract from their bravery. The face is surely not my dad’s, and I was only drawn to this because of the man’s unique stance. I would also add, if the photo contains any anomalies, I did not put them there.

I wrote the man who provided the photo, and he told me the names of the two men on either end were Lt. Gene Williams and Lt. Edward Czepinski. Both men died in Normandy. Initially, he told me that the men were wearing each others jackets, and later I read a version that Lt. Williams uniform had been given to a French boy who was assisting the troops.

This is the Chalk 18 photo of the 508th Pathfinders, just before they took off for Normandy:

 

Here is a photo of my brother and myself. Note how I am mimicing the photographer:

 

I have several other reasons to believe that dad might have been in the 508th PIR. Several years ago, when I was working as a cab-driver, I met a man named John M—– III. One day I game him a ride home, and he invited me up to his place, and we talked about JFK and WWII and the Army, all very casually. Several years later, when I was going through the rosters of the men of the 508th, I ran across that name again - only this time it was John M—– Jr. Of course, it could have been just a coincidence, but I prefer to believe that our meeting was more than by chance.

One other note: When she was a Senior in high school, my sister began dating a boy who was in the Army, and joined the paratroopers, and was in the 101st Airborne stationed at Fort Ord. One day, he went AWOL, and she asked my dad to talk to him, to get him to go back. I happened to overhear a little of the conversation, and my dad was telling him that he had not been in the 101st Airborne, but a different unit. This doesn’t jive with the photo of my dad, however, in which he is wearing the Screaming Eagle patch of the 101st. I don’t know how to explain this discrepancy. It seems to suggest that either my dad was transferred, or perhaps the entire unit changed divisions. I do know that the 508th was part of the 82nd Airborne when it went into action, and that it was derived largely from the 502nd PIR, which belonged to the 101st.