As I was browsing the ww2db.com image archive late one night, I came across this gem of a 101st Airborne trooper…in color. There are more than a few 101st A/B ww2 images floating around in B/W…so this image caught my eye.
The caption (click on the image) reveals this is Corporal Louis E. Laird, though I couldn’t find much on the web about him beyond the caption here (as his name isn’t listed in the archives via the National WW2 Memorial Registry).
An nara.gov search shows young Laird hailed from Florida and joined the Army on March, 6, 1943, and that his occupation was “MOTORCYCLE MECHANIC or PACKER, HIGH EXPLOSIVES (Munitions worker, ammunition.) or TOOLROOM KEEPER or STOCK CLERK or STOCK CONTROL CLERK.” Caps belong to the web page. So here’s to you, Louis Laird, in that brown M42 jumpsuit and jump (not combat) boots.
Men like Laird would face some tough times, as illustrated by the story of trooper Doug Garrett in the War Stories section of Mark Bando’s excellent 101st A/B Trigger time web site (visit the site and buy his books).
“Finding out in jig time that war was kill or be killed, it took me less than five minutes to find that out. A bullet had hit my reserve chute and felt like being hit in the stomach with a sledge hammer. I then hit the ground and pulled a .45 cal. pistol given to me by my supply sgt cousin in the Air Corps.
While I lay there, gasping, a German came out of the bushes in a dive for my throat with a razor sharp knife. It was his last dive at anybody. That .45 roared like a cannon and he was dead when he landed on top of me. I cussed him out for getting his blood on me, but then thought ‘better his than mine’. I then waded into a flooded area and washed his blood off.
Then I saw 3 gliders come in, with machineguns and artillery following them to the ground. Then mortars took over. Then, I started up a road and a machinegun opened fire at me and I learned how to do the jitterbug faster than any man had ever learned it before or since. How it missed me, I’ll never know. I’m just glad it did.
I only spent five days in Normandy before being seriously wounded, but it was five days of my life that I can never forget.”
This has been another entry in the ww2db.com Featured Image partnership. The idea behind this post (and the weekly posts to come) is to highlight ww2db.com’s collection of 3500 plus photos, many culled from the National Archives, Library of Congress, the US Naval Historical Center, and other research institutions.
SPECS: https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=3541
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