//------------------------------// // Dropping in // Story: The Screaming Eagles // by PSY //------------------------------// June 6, 1944 D-Day: aka Operation Overlord Sergeant Buckshot, 502nd, 101st Airborne Division En route to Drop Zone Alpha Time 1:02 am Flak shook the plane as I stared out the doorway and into the forests of Normandy below me. In front of the thick hedgerows I saw the the beach designated as Utah. I saw other planes around mine as they were getting shot down or just getting their hulls filled with lead. The operation were dropping into, Operation Overlord as I heard, involved us dropping in behind Germane lines under the cover of night and disrupting their troop movement while our invading forces hit the beaches in the morning under probable heavy fire. The way I'm saying it, it sounds like we have the easy job. I knew this won't be easy, all of us would be dropping into unknown territory and and possibly under intense flak and machine gun fire. " 30 seconds!" yelled the parapony next to me. I tugged on my gear as I made sure it was tight on me. Parachuting out of moving airplane over intense flak fire I wanted to make sure nothing fell loose when I jumped out. I checked again. Good. Everything was tight. With my parachute over my back I prepared to jump out of the plane when the light turned green. " 10 seconds!" he yelled again. I looked around the plane one more time before I leaped into the darkness. The plane was filled with mares and stallions of my company, A Company, along with the C-47 flying next to us. We all trained together at boot camp and learned to respect on another as we all got to know each other. My two best friends were not with me. They were on the other plane and I hoped that they landed safely as well as us. As I looked into my plane for the last time, I stared at everyone else and I wished to them to myself Good luck everypony. Just then the plane exploded. That's all I could remember before I was freefalling through the sky on my way down to certain death as I continued my way toward the ground. Being an earth pony I had no magic like unicorns or wings like pegasus ponies. I know I had no chance of surviving this fall unless... That right! I realized that I had my parachute on me. I searched my chest for the pull, finding it I gave it as hard of a tug as I could. Expecting a parachute to pop out all I got was a pull that was supposed to release my chute. Shit I though as I tried to grab the handle for my backup chute. Grabbing it I pulled again and hoped for a chute to be deployed this time. Sure enough, a large white piece of cloth came out of my pack as I slowly descended to the ground, hoping that nopony has saw me. Hitting the ground was the next thing I felt after what felt like forever of falling out of the sky. Being an earth pony I had a heavy tolerance for pain and shook of the disorientation. I soon recovered from the fall and quickly ran into the nearby foilage to avoid being seen easily by Germane patrols. I checked my equipment to make sure I had everything. Canteen? Check. Bandages? Check. Rifle... wait? I thought. Wheres my rifle?! I looked around me desperately trying to find my rifle. I peered into a nearby bush and found my weapon, an M1 Carbine, sitting among the leaves. I checked it over and, seeing that it still works, wrapped the sling around my neck and ran deeper into the forest. After what felt like forever of walking through the thick forest and avoiding at least two patrols I heard the distinctive sound of a Germane AA battery close by and decided to investigate it. Upon arriving though I noticed two figures crouching behind a hill which appeared to overlook the gun site. One looked like it had a purple coat with a dark purple mane with what appeared to be a highlight running through it. The other on had a white coat and a styled purple mane. As I made my way up to them I whispered the codeword that we paraponies used to identify if a pony is friend or foe. " Thunder." Upon hearing this the two figures turned around to me and responded. " Flash." Hearing the correct response I trotted quietly over to them. I was just glad that they were friendlies and I neared them I could tell they were mares. Somewhat of a relief I thought. " Whats your name and rank soldier?" I asked the pony next to me. " Private First Class Twilight Sparkle." she replied. I saw that they both had horns on their head, meaning that they were unicorns. " Private Rarity is my name darling." said the second mare. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't enjoy lying in the dirt too much. Oh well, that the life of a soldier in my opinion. Lying in dirt all day and getting shot at by enemies determined to take your life. " Who are you?" she asked me. " Sergeant Buckshot ma'am. Pleased to meet you both." I said. " Oh!" they both replied," Sorry for the disrespect sir." they said together, clearly embarrassed by their lack of respect toward a higher ranking pony. " None taken," I said " Whats the situation you have here?" I asked returning to the subject at hand. " We got an AA battery and some ground troops protecting the gun sir." Twilight said. " I've been trying to figure out a way to take it out without alerting anypony for the past ten minutes." I can tell already that Twilight was a pony to over think a situation like this and block out everything else. For ten minutes they both let this AA gun to fire on our fellow paraponies in the skies without doing a thing about it. i felt a little disappointed in her not silencing the gun as quickly as possible to save numerous lives still in the sky. " Got it, here is what we'll do about it." I said, taking command of the problem. " Twilight, I want you and Rarity to lay down suppressive fire on those Germanes protecting the gun while I flank. Got it?" " Yes sir!" they said together. As I ran along side the mounds of dirt that I think the Germanes used to protect the gun I could see the enemy infantry as they took cover in trenches surrounding the emplacement and firing back at Twilight and Rarity. I have to give them credit, despite not looking like ponies who could put up a fight they were giving those Germanes hell. They had already dropped three by the time I killed the crew of the Flakvierling 38 and destroyed the gun. The Germanes soon saw this and started to turn around to shoot me. This gave Twilight and Rarity the chance to stand up and shoot the flanks of the occupied ponies that were concentrated on me. After a few more minutes every Germane protecting the gun was dead, silent minus the numerous other gun emplacement firing on the planes above us. " Good job girls, one less gun site to worry about." I said to them as they trotted down the hill. " Thank you sir!" they both said. " Until we link up with the rest of the division you two are with me. Understood?" " Yes sir!" they said again. We continued to walk about the country and thick hedgerows and forests of Normandy, trying to find the rest of the 502nd and in doing so we took out two more AA gun positions along the way. Twilight and Rarity, being residents of Ponyville, had never experienced such violence and chaos before in there lives from what I found out from them. They had never fought in hoof to hoof combat before and never seen another pony with his or her limbs being blown up by grenades or other explosions. I felt kind of bad for them, hearing that they never have fought in a battle before. They both told me that they came fresh out of training when they got on those planes, and that they were separated from their friend during the drops. That's when I remembered about my friends. Were they okay? Did they survive the drop? These thoughts continued to pop into my mind until Twilight came up to me. " Sarge? Are you okay? You seem to be distracted by something." she asked me. " I'm fine Twi." I said. " I'm just worried about my friends like you and Rarity are." She told me about her friends, who's names were Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Spike. Rainbow Dash was in the same company as Twilight and Rarity but was separated from them after they jumped and the plane was shot by flak. They saw Dash jump out just before the plane exploded and saw her fly toward a nearby forest. When they went to go look for her, all they found were her goggles on the ground, next to a dead Germane. That's all they knew of their friends conditions. They heard Fluttershy joined the medical corps and was now serving as a combat medic. Applejack and Spike were sent into the 1st Infantry Division, and they both hoped for them to stay alive for they would be involved in assaulting the beach codenamed 'Omaha'. All I thought is how brutal the assault will be to take those beaches. Pinkie had joined the armored corps and they read from her letters that she commands her own M4 Sherman tank. She even wrote to them that she put a 'party cannon' on her tank, whatever that meant. As we kept searching for friendly paraponies, almost the entire next day had passed by without any luck. The only paraponies we found we dead ones who appeared to be either captured or were killed in a firefight. We were running low on rations and ammunition which was used during small firefights with Germane patrols. All of us were tired and were in desperation of sleep. Rarity kept complaining about how the lack of her 'beauty sleep' would affect her appearance and Twilight kept asking me about my life before the war. I tried to tune out both whining and questions as we continued walking down a dirt road but ended up yelling at Rarity to be quiet and at Twilight to stop asking questions. This caused them to stop talking until we came up to a sign that read, CARENTAN After reading the sign and looking behind it we saw the town and we all decided to rest there until the next day to go looking for the division. We entered an empty house on the near edge of the town and went up to the second floor. Seeing no enemy soldiers around we agreed to be on guard in shifts. Twilight and Rarity went to sleep with me on watch. I tried my best to stay awake but the fatigue eventually got to me.