Just a few words to add to the commnets made by Randy Hils. "Historians" like Marshall, and Ambrose have made much of the reading public conscious of the role played by Troop Carrier personnel during WWII. But their assessments, as Hils points out is dramatically wrong. All one has to do is research the official records (debriefings,and other after=action reports) of TC performances to come closer to the truth. Unfortunately, this has not happened. All that one need do is to read two recent histories in which TC is taken to task ala Ambrose and Marshall. These are E. M. Flanagan Jr. "Airborne. A Combat History of American Airborne Forces" and Victor Brooks, "The Normandy Campaign. From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris."
When Hils and others took Flanagan to task for his irresponsible hisytory,his respond was an apology with the excuse that he did not knbow that such data was available when he wrote his material. Strange, since these official records date back to Torch (North Afica), and Husky (the invasion of Sicily)and are readily available to any historian who is will ing to pursue the truth.
In the same context, when Brooks was taken to task for his Ambrosians, he never had the courage to neither apologize nor to object to the Troop Carrier's assertions that he, too, should pursue the truth from the official records.
Again, unfortunately, for those of us who saw combat as Troop Carrier crewmen, all we have left is the truth, and to mourn our comrades who sleep restlessly in their honored graves throughout the European and Pacific theaters. If we do not pursue the truth and continue to object to those who mangle and distort it, then we have no legacy except that history which is painted by these errant "historians" and our comrade's death's will forever seem
fruitless and their honor unfilfulled.
by Mike Ingrisano on April 23, 2003 at 8:39 PM