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World War II Normandy paratrooper makes last jump at age 89

Photos: D-Day vet, 89, goes skydiving

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By Katherine Ullmer Staff Writer Updated 9:16 AM Tuesday, July 13, 2010

XENIA — Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1944, the start of D-Day, Jim Martin, a 23-year-old U.S. Army paratrooper, made his first combat jump amid enemy fire.

He and his fellow troops in the “Screaming Eagles” 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, dropped behind German lines from a C-47 transport from 400 feet. Martin had 17 training jumps before making his first of two combat jumps during the war, he said.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, July 11, 2010, Martin, of Sugarcreek Twp., still spry at age 89, made what he called his final parachute jump, surrounded by about 30 family and friends, from a small white Beech 18, Westwind 3 turbine prop conversion, hovering at 12,500 feet in the air at SkyDive Greene County Inc. Airport.

Asked how his jump differed from that at Normandy, he said, “Nobody’s shooting at me. It was much more fun than having tracers coming down all around.”

Also, “there was almost no opening shock from those chutes,” he said, though during the free fall, “you could feel the wind pretty good.”

Because Martin’s last sport jump was 30 years ago at SkyDive, he was required to jump in tandem, attached by harness to the front of Bob Tyson, of Columbus, a jump master at SkyDive.

Martin expressed no fear before the jump, stating that if the jump failed, the photographers should keep shooting to show the reality of the scene. After the jump he admitted, “I thought I might have a little trouble pushing off, but as soon as he said go, I went.”

“That was the softest landing I ever had,” he said after a short free fall and about a seven-minute glide through the air.

As an army paratrooper, Martin exited the C-47 transport in Normandy attached to a static line that pulled the rip cord. He and his fellow paratroopers were weighed down with 140 pounds of ammunition, mortars, rations and his M-1 rifle. Their three-day mission to secure nearby bridges so the Germans could not transport their armored vehicles to the beaches turned into 33 days.

His second combat jump was Sept. 17, 1944, in Holland. From there they were trucked standing up in the trucks bed to the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne, Belgium, and then to Hitler’s Eagles Nest bunker in Berchtessgarden, Germany. His battalion also helped liberate a concentration camp. He earned the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

A retired tool and die worker, Martin was on the Sugarcreek Twp. Zoning Commission 15 years. He and his wife, Donna, who worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base during the war, hand-built their own house on a large wooded lot.

Always one to keep his options open, Martin’s closing words to the airport crowd were: “I’m going to do this again when I’m 100.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2341 or kullmer@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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