Dawn of D-Day: The American Air Drop   Martin Hersh's Personal Alamo Cotentin Peninsula "Scouts were sent out to our front as we began the march to the outskirts of Sainte-Mère-Église and it was quiet, except for the sporadic firing coming from within the town. Some of the men had wire cutters and they would stop now and then to clip the telephone lines on both sides of the road. We passed a small electric power station, and one of the troopers blew it up with two hand grenades. We passed the church, where a trooper had landed directly on its steeple. His chute was still swaying slowly in the breeze with no one in it. Many of the troopers were killed before they hit the ground or shortly after they landed, and some were still hanging in trees looking like rag dolls shot full of holes. Their blood was dripping on this place they came to free. Seeing these first Americans dead and the way they had died had a chilling effect on us. While looking for water to fill my canteen, I spotted a well at the rear of a nearby farmhouse. On my way to the well, the scene I came upon was one that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers--the body closest to the hole only three feet away, a "potato masher" [German hand grenade] clutched in its fist. The other distorted forms lay where they fell, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, but empty of all the M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two, its splinters adding to the debris. He had fought alone, and like many others that night, he had died alone. I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did."   Edited transcript John Fitzgerald Cotentin Peninsula 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, U.S. 101st Airborne Division