D-Day +75 Years-- Part 4: "I'd Like To Volunteer, Sir"

These are the stories of those beaches on June 6, 1944, as told by those who were there -- the voices of D-Day.

" I'D LIKE TO VOLUNTEER, SIR"

As a boy in Machias, New York, Fayette Richardson was fascinated with airplanes and ear movies.  At 17, he enlisted but didn't qualify for pilot training.  Instead, he was asked to join a parachute regiment's Pathfinder team: those who jump first and guide those who follow.  It was strictly a voluntary thing according to his commanding officer.

"I think of Errol Flynn and how he and David Niven volunteered to do things in 'Dawn Patrol,' " Richardson recalled.  he told his commanding officer: "I'd like to volunteer, sir."   This is according to Richardson's personal story in an oral history story "I Wouldn't Want to Do It Again" by Joel Baret.

Richardson and others of the 82nd and 101st Airborne dropped inland on Normandy just after midnight the day of the invasion.

--GreGen