Scattered across the Cotentin Peninsula, American paratroopers implemented a directive laid down in training: If a unit did not reach its drop zone, it should carry out those missions assigned to the area where it found itself. The headquarters group was close to its drop zone and did not have to implement a fallback plan. Taylor sent several officers off to establish a division headquarters at the village of Hiesville, while he and the remainder of his band set out toward Utah Beach.

The men of the 101st had had little time to get to know their commanding general. Forty-three years old and a graduate of West Point, Taylor was given command of the division in March after his predecessor, Maj. Gen. William C. Lee, had suffered a heart attack. There was nothing avuncular about Taylor, and he did not inspire universal affection. When he spoke to one of his men, he addressed him crisply as soldier. But there was something about Taylor that suggested confidence and competence. In England he had told his men: All paratroopers are hell-raisers. During the first 24 hours after you jump, raise all the hell you can.

There were many small clashes in the early hours of June 6, but the initial German reaction to the airborne landings was confusion and uncertainty. In the words of historian David Howarth, The Americans knew what was happening, but few of them knew where they were; the Germans knew where they were, but none of them knew what was happening. Reports of paratrooper landings poured into German headquarters, but no pattern was discernable.

Captain Ernst During commanded a German machine gun company at Brevands, near where the Vire River empties into the Channel. He had been asleep for a couple of hours when, shortly after midnight on the night of June 5-6, he was awakened by the sound of explosions:

There was the noise of many planes coming from the direction of Ste. Mre-Eglise. I thought to myself, This is it! I got dressed as quickly as I could….When I got to my command post I telephoned battalion headquarters two miles to the rear and said, Paratroops have landed here. The answer came back, Here, too, then the line went dead….Then I heard strange sounds — a kind of click, click, click at regular intervals. It sounded like the castanets of Spanish dancers. I couldn’t explain it….I felt very uneasy and isolated.

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Elsewhere, a German patrol mistook Taylor’s jumpmaster, Major Larry Legere, and a companion for French farmers. Challenged by the Germans, Legere explained in French that they were returning from a visit to his cousin. As he spoke, he pulled the pin of a grenade, which exploded among the unsuspecting Germans.

Prisoners were an encumbrance for small groups of paratroopers, and those taken were expected to be totally docile. When one group of prisoners attempted to jump their captors, Sergeant Bill Guarnere shot each in turn with his pistol.No remorse, he recalled many years later.No pity. It was as easy as stepping on a bug.

After a hike of about four miles, Taylor’s group made its first real contact with the enemy at about 9 a.m. near Pouppeville, at the base of the southernmost causeway leading to Utah Beach. The German garrison put up stiff resistance from inside the stone houses of the village, and Taylor nearly became a casualty when a badly aimed grenade from one of his soldiers bounced off a house and exploded among the paratroopers. By noon, however, the Americans had occupied the village, killing or wounding thirty Germans and taking forty prisoners at the cost of twenty U.S. casualties.

One of Taylor’s aides saw troops moving to the east and fired an identification flare. The newcomers were an advance party from the U.S. 4th Division, and they were able to tell the paratroopers that the landings at Utah Beach were going smoothly. Word also arrived that troopers from the 101st had reached the remaining causeways from the beach.

To the north, causeway Exits 3 and 4 had been the objectives of the 502nd Regiment, led by acting commander Lt. Col. John Mike Michaelis. He and his three battalion commanders gathered what men they could find and headed toward their objectives. Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Cole’s battalion captured the unguarded Exit 3 without a fight before moving north to where Michaelis was encountering considerable resistance.

Near Exit 4, Colonel Pat Cassidy, commanding a battalion of the 502nd, had ordered one of his noncoms, Sergeant Harrison Summers, to assemble some men and clear out a nearby barracks complex, code-named X,Y,Z. Summers knew none of the men in his impromptu squad, and as they neared the stone farm buildings serving as barracks, Summers set out on his own. Armed with a submachine gun, he kicked open the door of the first building, ducked inside, and opened fire, killing four German soldiers. He was joined there by a captain from the 82nd, but as the two moved toward a second building the captain fell dead. Summers, alone, slipped into the building, where he gunned down six more Germans.

Summers’ squad had largely been spectators thus far, but now Private John Camien joined the sergeant. The two went through five more buildings, killing thirty more enemy soldiers. The final building in the complex turned out to be the mess hall. Bursting through the door, the amazed Americans found fifteen Germans still at breakfast and shot them all. By this time Summers and Camien had the support of a bazooka team, and some fifty Germans still in the complex chose to run for it. Many were cut down, while others were taken prisoner.

A second important clash took place near Exit 2, where the Germans had a battery of 105mm cannons dug into hedgerows overlooking Utah Beach. Captain Richard Winters of the 506th was given a dozen men and directed to take care of the battery.

Winters went to work, telling his makeshift command to discard all their equipment except weapons and ammunition. He explained that their attack would be supported by flanking fire — two machine guns as close to the enemy as possible. Winters’ force brought the enemy guns under fire from three sides, one by one. In turn, the Germans withdrew. One of the attacking Americans, Sergeant Carwood Lipton, recalled: We fought as a team without standout stars….We didn’t have anyone who leaped up and charged a machine-gun. We knocked it out or made it withdraw by maneuver and teamwork or mortar fire.

Historian Max Hastings has noted that all wars become a matter of small private battles to those who are fighting them. This was notably true in the struggle for Normandy, where one could rarely see more than one hundred to two hundred yards in any direction, and where infantry was often out of touch with armor. The attrition within infantry units was high, and nowhere higher than in the airborne divisions, which had yet to locate their glider-borne artillery. It took the 101st three days to collect scattered paratroopers, acquire some vehicles, and clear out areas of resistance north of the Douve River.

There was a lot to learn. Although the Americans had been briefed about hedgerows, they were not prepared for their size. A trooper from the 82nd, Sergeant Fred Schlemmer, recalled, We assumed that they would be similar to the English hedgerows, which were like small fences that the fox hunters jumped over. Instead, the invaders were confronted with great banks of foliage that made every road a potential revetment ideal for defense.

As evening turned into night, Taylor made his way to the division headquarters at Hiesville, satisfied that the landings at Utah Beach were proceeding well but ignorant of the situation elsewhere because his radios were still missing. In quickly securing the invasion causeways, the 101st had made a major contribution to the success of Overlord. In a second mission, however — destruction of the Douve River bridges — his men had run into difficulties. The unit responsible, Colonel Howard R.Jumpy Johnson’s 501st Regiment, had been badly scattered and subsequently encountered severe resistance. Johnson gained a toehold on the river at the La Barquette locks but could not reach the bridges.

Elsewhere the record was also mixed. The British glider forces had found their landing zones and quickly captured bridges over the Orne River. Ridgway’s 82nd Division, however, had had a dreadful drop; not only were its paratroopers scattered but fewer than half of its gliders had reached their designated landing areas. A force from the 82nd, aided by some men of the 101st, captured Ste. Mre-Eglise shortly after dawn on D-Day, but was subjected to fierce enemy counterattacks for the remainder of the day.

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