NORMANDY D-DAY The 504th Parachute Infantry as a whole was too chewed up from battle on Anzio Beachhead to participate in "Operation Overlord". The 504th was therefore sent to Leicester England to refit, rest and receive replacements. Once in camp, the call came out for volunteer pathfinders for a secret mission. Some fifty pathfinders volunteered but only twenty-seven troopers, two or three from each company of the 504th, were selected to represent the regiment in the greatest invasion of the Second World War in Normandy.

They would jump with other regiments in the 82nd as pathfinders. They had the mission to jump with and set up the devices that would lead the airborne armada to the drop zones. This mission was accomplished by using two types of aides. One was the EUREKA Radar set, which sent a radar pulse to the REBECCA set in the C-47's to guide the pilots to the Drop Zone. Another was the signal corps light beacons, which once illuminated could be seen as far as ten miles away. Consider lightly armed paratroopers jumping miles behind enemy lines in small numbers and then not thinking of self-preservation but of setting up signal devices. It has been called a suicide mission for that reason. Once the mission was accomplished they would return to the 504th if they survived. Plane 13 only photo taken without number showing T.L Rodgers is top row 3rd from left. Tom McCarthy is top row 4th from right. Lt. Lt. James H. Goethe bottom row left.

**Photo courtesy of David R. Berry