"DEAR MOTHER AND DAD,"
_________________
Richard J. Adams

 

 

 

 

 

New York Troopers

The second group of troopers from New York.

                                                 March 11th, 1945
Dear Mother and Dad,

     
One night on Corregidor I was talking about school and I mentioned I was from N.Y.M.A.. The Lt said there was a Lt in I Co, from N.Y.M.A.. I met him to�day, DeRond, knew him quite well. He is going home on furlough in a few days and so I am going to ask to take this with him.
      We left San Francisco on Oct 27th arrived at Oro Bay about twenty miles south of Buna (New Guinea), we stayed there in a replacement depot, had details loading boats, moving supplies etc, on Dec 3l we loaded on board ship on the way to 11/A/B, from Oro Bay we went to Finchman, N. G. .then over to Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands. We spent a few days there and then over to Hollandia N.G. we stayed aboard ship all the time, I did get a chance to get off at Manus, got some ice cream. From Hollandia we went up to Leyte around the east aide of Mindanao. We disembarked on the beach at Leyte on about the 29th of Jan.

     
It took us about three days to get to Mindoro where we joined the 503rd. The boys who were originally supposed to go to 503rd went to 11 A/B and we to the 503rd.

     
Pat and I am in a 81 M/M/ Mortar Squad we sorta like it, I believe we could get into communications, we may not try.
      On the 15th of Feb I received about l0 letters, it took me till 2 A. M. to read them all, we had been breaking camp all. day. We had to get up at 4. A.M. Feb 16th, had chow although no one ate too much, all the tents had been taken down the day before, duffel bags put away at R. S. O. we were sleeping on cots in the open ready to go. The cots were stacked up in the Co street, and then we got into our equipment, fatigues work clothes, boots, steel helmets, mussette bag, carbine, two canteens, jungle kit( first aid) 7 clips of ammunition, two grenades, change of socks, toilet articles, Trench Knife, Knife Dad gave me, Mae West, then our chutes. Amen.

     
We loaded on trucks I was in truck number 27 it would go to C-47 number 27. From there to the air strip, it was just like it would be in pictures, dark, just the faintest gleam of light, you could see the rows of dark planes against the sky line. Some P-38 and a few A-20 were taking off. As we passed the M. P. gate on to the strip someone yelled--Good Luck---Give em hell.-- I forgot we didn�t put our chutes on till we were alongside of the ship.

     
About 7.40 we took off, it took us a little over an hour to reach the target, we were to jump at 8,30, They had been dive-bombing and had Navy big guns firing at the Island and they had started fires in the jump zone. We Jumped about 9.20, Funny I didn�t sweat it out a bit, in fact I sweated out the fact I wasn't sweating it out.

     
The day before the jump we had been briefed quite thoroughly, maps, air photos and then a scale model so we knew what it would look like ...Each plane made three passes at the field, (What field) 8 men on each pass, I was about 5th man in the third stick.


     
The 3rd Bn was the first wave--we jumped-I didn�t count--when the chute opened I never checked it, I was watching the ground-I was right over the field ( we jumped at about 600 feet) we learned later there was about a 23 mile an hour ground wind--I climbed the risers and tried to hit the field but the wind was too strong it took me right over the Cliff
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Document courtesy of Alyson Adams.

 

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