O’Neil Boe, depicted in a historic photo with the allied commander, still experiences nightmares about his rigorous training and famed D-Day jump.
O’Neil Boe remembers meeting Gen. Dwight Eisenhower on June 5, 1944, when the allied commander rallied paratroopers hours before launching the D-Day invasion.
“Eisenhower said, ‘Where are you from, soldier?’ recalled Boe, who appears in the middle of the iconic photograph of the general and the troops. “I said, ‘I am from Louisiana.’ He said, ‘Frog country.’ ”
Boe said that Eisenhower asked another soldier if he was scared. “He said, ‘No, sir.’ And Eisenhower said, “Well, I’m scared. Many of you boys ain’t coming back.”
The general was correct. Boe said that his 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment Company B started with 300 people but only 52 survived Normandy.
“I was so scared, they dropped me in the dark, bullets were flying everywhere,” said Boe, a member of American Legion Post 383 in Reserve, La. “After daylight, on June 6, I told one of my buddies, ‘I don’t think we’re going to see home no more.’ A minute later, he fell dead (from a sniper’s bullet). That left quite an impression on me ever since. I still get nightmares.”
The paratroopers were charged with securing bridges and roads for troops moving inward after storming the beaches. Boe, who landed near railroad tracks, remembered looking back and seeing the bodies “of the boys floating in the water.”
Boe, a radio operator, received a Silver Star for re-capturing a radio from the Germans who had taken it from another unit. “I had to get the radio. I killed about 11 Germans getting it back.”
Boe jumped twice more, in Belgium and Bastogne, “which was a real battle. We were almost prisoners. We were surrounded by Germans. It was cold. Snowbanks were eight foot tall. I told the guys that if I ever got home, I would never be cold again. Now, I can’t even watch movies with snow. I’ll freeze.”
Like many members of his generation, Boe says he wanted to join the military after Pearl Harbor, originally hoping to be a pilot, but he failed a vision test. However, he was invited to join a new division called paratroopers. The training was rigorous, but he says he loved it.
“I would always sneak in next in line to get another turn (jumping out),” said Boe, who proudly says he has never landed in an airplane. “The sergeant would say, ‘Boy, you gonna be a good soldier.’ “
After he left the Army, Boe raised a family with his late wife and worked as a barber for 50 years. Now, Boe spends his days tending his gardens, which are full of tomatoes and leafy vegetables. Reflecting back to the historic Eisenhower meeting and his paratrooper comrades, Boe pauses.
“You are looking at a miracle. I’m still here.”
- Honor & Remembrance