At 12:15 AM on June 6, 1944 — nearly six hours before the first soldiers hit the beaches — three sticks of pathfinders from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions jumped out of their C-47 aircraft into the darkness over Normandy. They were the first Allied soldiers to set foot in occupied France on D-Day.

Their mission was terrifyingly simple: land in the correct drop zones, set up Eureka radar beacons and Holophane marking lights, and guide in the main airborne force. The problem was that they jumped into an area the Germans had deliberately flooded and heavily defended.

Into the Flood

Captain Frank Lillyman of the 101st Airborne's pathfinders was the first American paratrooper to land in France on D-Day. His team was scattered across miles of Normandy countryside. Some men landed in the flooded marshes of the Merderet and Douve rivers, where several drowned under the weight of their equipment in water that was sometimes chest-deep.

Despite the chaos, the pathfinder teams managed to set up partial navigation aids for seven of the planned drop zones. It wasn't perfect — many of the main force paratroopers still landed far from their intended targets — but without the pathfinders, the drops would have been even more scattered and chaotic.

The Forgotten Cost

Team members who landed in or near German positions had to fight immediately, without support, while simultaneously trying to complete their marking mission. Some engaged German patrols at point-blank range while other team members scrambled to assemble the Eureka beacons.

The pathfinders received little recognition after the war. They were a footnote in the larger D-Day narrative. But their willingness to jump first, into total darkness, into unknown enemy territory, with a mission they knew might be one-way — represents one of the purest examples of courage in the entire war. Every one of them was a volunteer. They knew the odds. They jumped anyway.