Dennis Trudeau, a D-Day veteran and the mayor of Grovetown, was a member of the Canadian Airborne that dropped into Normandy on June 6, 1944. He was captured by the Germans soon after the jump and was a POW for 10 months. Chris Thelen/Staff

A delay that proved costly

DENNIS TRUDEAU
AGE 79

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SERVICE: Born in Minnesota, Mr. Trudeau enlisted in the Canadian Army in October 1942 because his family was living in Canada when the war started. He served in the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, attached to the 6th British Airborne Division.

RANK: Private

WHERE HE LANDED: After jumping out of a C-47 transport at about midnight June 5 in nearly pitch-black darkness, Mr. Trudeau landed shoulder-deep in water in a field flooded by the Germans near Varaville. During the drop, Mr. Trudeau lost a bag that contained most of his equipment, leaving him with only a bandoleer of ammunition for a Sten gun he no longer had, a few grenades and a small knife.

"I've just turned 19, and here I am liberating France with a parachute knife," he said.

The objective of his company was to seize a bridge over the Divette River to keep the Nazis from reaching the beaches. British engineers were to lay explosives on the bridge in case it had to be blown up. But they were taking fire from a German machine gun nest, and he and two other soldiers were "volunteered" to take it out. After wading across the river, the three men lobbed grenades at the pillbox, silencing the gun. They sent up a flare letting British troops know they'd been successful. In turn, the engineers were supposed to send up a flare alerting them that it was OK to come back across, but instead the Brits shot off a flare and exploded the bridge at the same time, stranding them on the German side of the river.

Mr. Trudeau said the three of them decided to wait until daylight to cross the river for fear they might be shot by one of their compatriots. That decision would prove costly as a German patrol stumbled upon them in the early morning hours of June 6.

He would spend the rest of the war as a POW.

MOST VIVID MEMORY: The sky was filled with Allied planes on the flight across the English Channel, and Mr. Trudeau recalled being amazed by the sheer number of them, and how close they seemed to one another.

"If you were standing in the doorway, you could see the guy standing in the door of the plane beside you."

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--From the Sunday, June 6, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle