By Donia Moore

Field training day at Yanks Air Museum. (Donia Moore)It was only their third combat jump. Stealthily landing in the dark and foggy pre-dawn early hours, the paratroopers of the 82^nd Airborne All American division dropped behind Utah Beach, Normandy, France between Ste Mere-Eglise and Carentan on June 6, 1944. It was the most ambitious airborne operation of the World War II, Operation Neptune–the airborne invasion of Normandy. The operation was part of Operation OVERLORD, the amphibious assault on the northern coast of Nazi-occupied France.