LMG platoon function makes for tracking their activities a little more complex. The member crews were frequently attached to the companies of the battalion. Sometimes more than one company in a day, depending on who needed the support or who had the heavier casualties and needed more men to fill the line.

THE LIFE OF A MACHINE GUNNER:

To give one an idea of the perilous and if not deadly situation the machine gunner faced one must understand a few things known and expressed about this group of men. Statistically, they were told, the machine gunner's life expectancy is about 2-3? minutes in battle. This was the thing known (sadly) by previous experience. The thing expressed came in the form of general slang terminology of the day.  A term sometimes used of men manning a machine gun in combat was "Suicide Squad" and of any individual of the machine gun crew "Suicide Soldier.'

The nature of the machine gunner's duty in a regular rifle company, while equally intense, was different in relationship. For the machinegunner in a rifle company, one trained with his unit for many months before combat. For Headquarters Company in a PIR, heavy weapons elements were separate and distinct from the regular rifle companies, they did not train directly with the rifle companies.  Less so for the paratrooper if, upon landing, he was not in contact  with his own crew members--or for that matter--any members of his platoon. For the LMG crews of an Headquarters company, however, there was another level of detatchment--a new dynamic was introduced with his fellow unit members. Serving in this position in the battalion often meant going from one hot situation to the next--whereever and whatever company needed (or expected to need) additional heavier weapons support. Troopers may be in a firefight with one company one day and a few days or even hours later find themselves attached to a different company for support as the situation heated up. The situation was guaranteed to be either tedious (mentally and physically demanding) as a listening post, or intense as the support for the entrenched unit. While most parataroopers were exceptional soldiers--the elite fighting men of the army-- there was no guarantee about the combat effectiveness of a particular unit the LMG gun crew might be attached to at a given time. The lmg crew and the unit they were supporting may not have had much direct contact or training previous to their combat engagement.

As Glen Derber wrote in his account, "we were like orphans among the rifle companies.." this meant getting your own supplies and ? and keeping your own guard duty. 

In addition to this, not only did your officers realize the importance of the machine gunner crew both tatically and strategically in the battle, but so did your foe. When revealed or discovered, you became the object of intense fire both from small arms and whatever else the enemy could throw at you. They knew your importance in holding and advancing the line as much as your fellow soldier did.

Their History:

TRAINING:

"Take them down to the water and I will sift them for you there."   Judges 7:4

As men flowed into the camp men also flowed out. Not unlike the soldiers chosen for Gideon's small army, the paratroopers were sifted from the many number of men who came to the call of a nation's gathering for war.  Like Gideon's final group of 300, they were selected. For Gideon's men, the selection was based on their their courage and instinct for survival.  Of many thousands, in the end, only 300 were chosen. The same qualities were sought after in the  paratroopers. It has been estimated that as few as one in four or one in five made it through the training and got their wings.  The resulting mixture of men all had that paratrooper "je ne se qua."

Once in the camp training began in earnest. It would, as they say, make you or break you. There were a thousand reasons you could quit at any time, and that was all it took--just say you didn't want any more of it--and you were out. Training was rough with extensive physical exercise and basic military training.

Charley Eckman recalled arriving in camp one afternoon in December with the training begining in earnest early the next morning with a run. Glen Derber arrived in camp a few weeks later and remembered being taken out to the 40 foot jump tower on the first day. He wrote that some of the men quit right there.

Machine gun training was specialized.  (did you have any specific classes on how to use a machine gun in different scenarios?) What was that training like?

Overseas - England.

Landed in Glasgow. Took train down to England.  Put in tents on estate outside of

In the days and weeks following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, hundreds of thousands men sought to enter the service to fight for and defend their country. Of those, thousands volunteered to become parataroopers. They did so for various reasons. For some it was the extra pay, for others it was the allure--the thrill--of being part of a new and elite group of soldiers. Many signed up. Some got their "wings" and went to war. Few came home. None returned unsacathed by battle. Here is their story.

In a farmhouse in Lancaster county Pennsylvania a young man by the name of Charley is sitting at the dinner table with his family. They are having their Sunday favorite--"sticky" fried chicken. At the same time, many hundreds of miles away in nothern Wisconsin another young man by the name of Glen is in an improvised darkroom--a closet--developing photos with a friend. In each home the radio is on. Each young man is enjoying the time. In an instant their world is changed. News comes over the radio--the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.

In California, in Virginia, in Ohio and Maine, other young men--Manuel, Gleason, Harry, Pelham, hear the announcement either on the radio or by word of mouth. Many other men in Pennsylvania and Montana and Florida--every state in the union--hear that same news. Each can tell you exactly where he was and what he was doing when he heard it. For most (all?), that was the event that triggered their decision--one to join the army and to volunteer for the paratroopers. By many paths and from many walks of life they all reached the same destination--Toccoa Georgia.

Training began for the men who would become the regiment at Camp Toccoa Georgia in late 1942. Over the course of several weeks the men who would become the core of the LMG platoon would arrive at camp and quickly be familiarized with the ways of the paratrooper. Charley Eckman left home for the service on the very same day that both of his older brothers were returning to their units. It was also a year to the day, the anniversayr of the attack on Pearl Harbor. His desitnation: Toccoa. The man who would become his machine gun crew leader, Gleason Roberts, had arrived a short time before him. Glen Derber, arrived few weeks later. They along with many others would be fully immersed in the toughest and most rigorus training the army had to offer.

Normandy: Blooded Risers

As much intense physical training and mental preparation that went into preparing for an invasion and for combat, every D-day veteran will tell you it was unlike anything they had experienced before. What was most difficult for some of the paratroopers was the waiting-- not only in the marshalling areas, but that time in flight before they made their first jump, before they experienced combat for the first time. It was that point of final commital. There was no going back.

Glen Derber recalled the night was an eerie one, everything being in monochrome under the full moonlight.

Bizory: "Misery with a B"

Bastogne: a "tailgate" jump

To members of the LMG platoon and doubtless many other men of the 501st PIR, especially 2nd Battalion, the small otherwise picturesque farm crossroads about a mile(? 3miles) west of Bastogne called Bizory would become the center of control of many days and weeks of bitter, sometimes rapid moving, often entrenched, intense winter fighting. It would prove to be the worst winter in ____ years.

The american soldiers had trouble pronouncing the names of the local towns and villages. Bastog-knee was a first try. Bye-zory or Bye-zroy were other  attempts at pronuciation of the locality. Some pronounced it like Misery only with a B.

Charley Eckman had just returned from the hospital when the Division received its call to move out. He found himself and the other paratroopers packed as tight as sardines in a truck bed, moving into Bastogne by open truck trailer through the night. He speculating with other members of his machine gun crew Roberts and ____ on what lay ahead.

Derber and his compatriots were on the first day of their leave in Paris when they received word to come back to camp. By the time they were able to get back Mourmelon was mostly empty.

WWII aerial view of Bizory courtesy James Frey.

Map showing the DZ "D" area courtesy Glen Derber.

As bad as the seemingly constant rain and dampness in the attritious 70-something days of battle in Holland, Bastogne brought the combat experience to a whole new level. There was not only the cumulative affects of being on the front for so long, there were now weather conditions and