Descending from the Clouds

A Memoir of Combat in the 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division

Spencer F. Wurst, Gayle Wurst

• Publisher: Open Road Distribution
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781504021845
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Wearing the remnants of a WWI uniform and pulling a water-cooled 30-caliber machine-gun, Spencer Wurst marched through his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1940 as a member of the National Guard. He was 15 years old. Five years later he was a hardened platoon sergeant leading his troopers through the frozen killing fields of "Death Valley" in Germany's Heurtgen Forest. A squad leader in Company F, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne, for most of the war, Wurst jumped into Italy in September 1943, and received his baptism of fire at Arnone. Jumping into Normandy on D-Day, he received his first Purple Heart in the liberation of Ste. Mère-Eglise, and a second Purple Heart in grueling combat through the hedgerows. On his third jump, Wurst's bravery under fire earned him the coveted Silver Star when he and his fellow paratroopers were swept up in the ferocious battle with the SS for the Highway Bridge at Nijmegen, Holland, in Operation Market Garden. A few months later, the dawn of his twentieth birthday found him serving on point in the long, freezing march to the shoulder of the Bulge. A unique view of combat from pre-war training and mobilization to First Army maneuvers, parachute school at Fort Benning, and Europe's killing fields, Wurst's poignantly written and carefully researched memoir has been hailed as an outstanding addition to the literature of WWII.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Praise for Descending from the Clouds
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Enlistment and Premobilization Training, 112th Infantry, Pennsylvania Army National Guard
• Chapter 2: Mobilization, Basic, and Small Unit Training
• Chapter 3: Company, Battalion, Regimental, and First Army Maneuvers, 1941
• Chapter 4: Units in Turmoil: Pearl Harbor, Southern Training Camps, and War-time Expansion
• Chapter 5: From the 112th Infantry to Parachute School, Fort Benning
• Chapter 6: First Assignment: 507 Parachute Infantry Regiment
• Chapter 7: Second Assignment: Cadre, 513 Parachute Infantry Regiment; Volunteering for Overseas Duty
• Chapter 8: French Morocco: Fifth Army Mines and Demolition School
• Chapter 9: Permanent Assignment: Company F, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment; the Move to Sicily
• Chapter 10: First Combat Jump: Salerno, Italy 73
• Chapter 11: Baptism by Fire: The Battle of Arnone 83
• Chapter 12: A City Torn by War: Duty and Bombings in Naples
• Chapter 13: Cookstown and Belfast, Northern Ireland
• Chapter 14: Camp Quorn, England 105
• Chapter 15: D-Day, Normandy: Preparations for the Big Jump
• Chapter 16: D-Day Jump: The Defense of Ste. Mère-Eglise
• Chapter 17: Patrols and Hedgerow Battles: From Neuville-au-Plain and Le Ham to St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte
• Chapter 18: Long Days in Normandy: The Battle of St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte, the Bois de Limors, and Hill 131
• Chapter 19: As Close to Home as it Gets: Return to Camp Quorn
• Chapter 20: Market-Garden: The Combat Jump at Groesbeek and Entry into Nijmegen
• Chapter 21: Nijmegen: The Battle for Hunner Park and Control of the South End of the Highway Bridge
• Chapter 22: Aftermath: Hunner Park and Bridge Security
• Chapter 23: Defensive Operations: Road Blocks, Dikes, and the End of the Holland Mission
• Chapter 24: The Ardennes Campaign: From Camp Suippes, France, to Trois Ponts, Belgium
• Chapter 25: From the Battle of the Bulge to the Hurtgen Forest, Germany
• Chapter 26: The End in Sight: Through the Siegfried Line to the Roer River
• Epilogue: Homeward Bound
• Image Gallery
• Notes
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright Page