80th ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY INVASION NORMANDY JUNE 6th 1944 TURNS TIDE OF WWII BINGHAMTON PARATROOPER ROBERT WARNER AND HIS BROTHERS WERE THERE

80th ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY INVASION NORMANDY JUNE 6th 1944 TURNS TIDE OF WWII BINGHAMTON PARATROOPER ROBERT WARNER AND HIS BROTHERS WERE THERE. Paratrooper Robert F. Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) made 2 combat parachute drops, Normandy "Operation Neptune",  Battle of the Bulge in the Ardenes Forest and the final combat jump, Rhineland "Operation Varsity" at the Wars end on March 24th, 1945 when he was wounded in combat.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower originally planned for D-Day to happen on June 5. The 'unpredictable' English weather intervened until Tuesday June 6th 1944. But Eisenhower still wrote a famous letter that day. "Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. 'Full victory-nothing less' to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe." Eisenhower is meeting with US Co. E, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (Strike) of the 101st Airborne Division, photo taken at Greenham Common Airfield in England about 8:30 p.m. on Monday June 5, 1944. The General was talking about fly fishing with his men as he always did before a stressful operation.

In Binghamton NY Katie Sullivan Warner had 4 Blue Stars in her window on June 4, 1944, D-Day the invasion of Europe at Normandy France signifying her 4 sons, Jim Warner, Bill Warner, Hank Warner and Robert Warner who would soon be fighting the Nazi's and taking back Europe.

A massive airborne operation preceded the Allied amphibious invasion of the Normandy beaches. In the early hours of June 6, 1944, several hours prior to troops landing on the beaches, over 13,000 elite paratroopers (Robert F. Warner Binghamton NY) of the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, as well as several thousand from the British 6th Airborne Division were dropped at night by over 1,200 aircraft. Almost 4,000 more paratroopers would later be brought in by gliders, known as Waco Gliders, during daylight hours. In total 23,000 paratroopers and glider troops would be used in Normandy. They were all to land inland, behind the main line of German defenders on the beach, and were given the job of taking the town of St. Mere Eglise and securing key approaches bridges like at La Fiere to the Allied beachhead.

VIDEO: Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American) (Official Music Video). WWI - WWII - Korea - Vietnam - Desert Storm - Global War on Terror (Oct 2001 – Sept 2021). The Global War on Terror (GWOT), including Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), were ongoing conflicts.........  
SONG LYRICS: "American girls and American guys, We'll always stand up and salute, We'll always recognize, When we see Old Glory flying.
There's a lot of men dead. So we can sleep in peace at night when we lay down our head. My daddy served in the army. Where he lost his right eye but he flew a flag out in our yard. Until the day that he died. He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me To grow up and live happy In the land of the free. Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack. A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in from somewhere in the back. Soon as we could see clearly, Through our big black eye. Man, we lit up your world, Like the fourth of July. Hey Uncle Sam, put your name at the top of his list, And the Statue of Liberty started shakin' her fist. And the eagle will fly man, it's gonna be hell, When you hear mother freedom start ringin' her bell. And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you. Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue. Justice will be served and the battle will rage, This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage, And you'll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American way."

 

Binghamton Press Article: BAND OF WARNER BROTHERS AT D-DAY INVASION OF NORMANDY & STE.-MERE-EGLISE JUNE 6TH 1944 WITH 82ND AIRBORNE; City of Binghamton WWII 'band of brothers', 4 Warner brothers,  James Warner, Robert (Bobby) Warner, Harry Warner & William (Bill) Warner, were involved in the D-Day invasion. Paratrooper Army Pvt. Robert Warner, who was in his early 20s at the time, landed in Normandy (Ste.- Mere- Eglise) with the 507th Parachute Infantry 82nd Airborne early on June 6th 1944.

D-DAY BAND OF BROTHERS: James Warner, Robert Warner, Harry Warner & William Warner. Press & Sun-Bulletin Binghamton NY: James, Robert, Harry and William Warner were literally a military "band of brothers. " The four sons of Harry J. and Katherine Warner grew up at 93 Schubert St. on Binghamton's West Side. After graduation from high school at St Patrick's and Binghamton Central, all the brothers enlisted in the armed services and served in World War II; they were involved in the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6th 1944. Like so many World War II veterans, though, members of the local "band of brothers" have all gone to graveyards, every one.

U.S. Coast Guard veteran William Warner, who was the youngest and last surviving of the male siblings, died Feb. 18 2007 at his home in Dearborn, Mich., a family member said. He graduated from Binghamton Central High in 1943 and was a retired executive with the Ford Motor Co. William, 82, was one of two Warner brothers who settled elsewhere after World War II. Harry, also a Binghamton Central High graduate who died 11 months ago, moved to Dallas after he got married. James, the oldest brother, who died in 1991, and Robert came home to Binghamton after the war. At one time, James worked for Koehler Manufacturing Co., and Robert, who died in 1995, was a U.S. Postal Service employee. As each Warner brother died through the years -- added to the deaths of all World War II veterans who are buried at a rate of 1,500 a day -- the curtain continued to drop on an entire generation that changed culture and society after America's defining war. 

"Their legacy is dying with them," said Brian Vojtisek, who is Broome County's director of Veterans Services. "Their stories are dwindling down to footnotes in history." In its most recent report in late 2006, the U.S. Census reported 3.9million living World War II veterans, out of 16 million who served between Dec. 1, 1941, and Dec. 31, 1946. The average age of living World War II vets is 96. According to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II were alive in 2022.

US Coast Guard 3rd Class Machine-Gunner William Bill" Warner on June 6 1944 D-Day Normandy served on 83-foot wooden rescue cutter, one of 60 Coast Guard wooden rescue cutters sent to England to serve as rescue craft off each of the beaches during the Normandy Invasion picking up the wounded under heavy Nazi machine gun fire. US Coast Guard Machine-Gunner William Bill" Warner returned covering fire from his 50 caliber machine gun from the 83-foot wooden rescue cutter so that Navy medics could remove wounded from the Normandy beaches, the CG Rescue Cutter was made of wood, he had no protection from Nazi machine guns. The 83-foot cutters 83401, renamed USCG 20, and the 83402, renamed USCG 21, were two of the sixty Coast Guard cutters sent to England to serve as rescue craft off each of the invasion beaches during the Normandy Invasion. These wooden-hulled rescue cutters were all built by Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, New York. The first 145 cutters were fitted with an Everdur bronze wheelhouse but due to a growing scarcity of that metal during the war, the latter units were fitted with a plywood wheelhouse (wow sure not bullet proof). A total of 230 83-footers were built and entered service with the Coast Guard during World War II. William "Bill" Warner was in his late teens in 1944-1945. After the war, he graduated from Binghamton University in 1951. He had attended Binghamton Central at the same time as science fiction writer Rod Serling of TV Twilight Zone fame.

 

 

 

A SILENT GENERATION; Despite their honorable service records, the Warner brothers carried their combat experiences to their graves, said Robert's son, Bill Warner, of Sarasota, Fla. "Not one of them ever told me anything about it," said Bill Warner now a Sarasota Fl Private Investigator, who graduated from Binghamton North High School and Broome Tech. "Not a word. Forget about it; it was something they had to do. They did it; that was it." That's not unusual for combat veterans, said Vojtisek, especially the World War II generation,"You don't hear specific stories about how horrific their experiences were. It's locked in the back of their minds," he said."For that generation, that was how many of them dealt with it.

The first time Sarasota PI Bill Warner watched the movie "Saving PrivateRyan," he understood why it was difficult for his father and uncles to talk about their war time experiences."When I saw the movie, I was stunned. I just never knew what it was all about or what they had to deal with or exactly how horrible it was," said Bill Warner, who lived in Binghamton NY before moving to Sarasota Fl in 1988, where his mother and father had been living. "I wish they would have talked about it. "The movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, chronicled an Army rescue mission to find paratrooper Pvt. James Ryan and send him home after three of his brothers were killed in combat. 

Unlike the fictional Mrs. Ryan in the movie, Katherine Warner did not lose any sons in combat. Katherine, a house wife, kept four Blue stars in the front window of the family's Schubert Street home to wait for her sons' return. She and her husband, Harry, who worked for Endicott Johnson Shoe Corp., also had a daughter, Mary Ann Warner, who was a registered nurse. Harry died in the mid-1960s; Katherine lived in the Schubert Street house until the mid-1970s when she moved to a nursing home.

AT WAR AND HOME; Robert, William and Harry Warner were involved in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. James Warner probably arrived in the war zone sometime after the initial assault on a Hospital ship. From air and sea, Allied troops invaded Normandy's beaches on June 6, 1944, with 5,300 ships, nearly 11,000 airplanes, about 50,000 military vehicles and 154,000 troops. The strategy was to establish five beachheads as gateways into the German-occupied territory. The assault eventually opened Western Europe to Allied forces and turned the tide against Adolf Hitler.

With two combat assaults under its belt, the 82nd Airborne Division was now ready for the most ambitious airborne operation of the war so far, as part of Operation Neptune, the invasion of Normandy. The 82nd Airborne Division conducted Operation Boston, part of the airborne assault phase of the Overlord plan. In preparation for the operation, the division was reorganized. Due to a need for integrating replacement troops, rest, and refitting following the fighting in Italy, the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment was not assigned to the division for the invasion. 

My dad, PFC Robert F. Warner, was a badass paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne during WWII carrying a .45 caliber M1A1 Thompson sub-machine gun with a 30-round mag mowing down Nazi's from Sainte-Mère-Eglise France to the Rhineland in Germany, and he never told me about it.

Two new parachute infantry regiments, the 507th and the 508th, were attached to provide, along with the 505th, a three-parachute infantry regiment punch. On June 5, 1944 (just hours before midnight) and June 6, 1944, these paratroopers, parachute artillery elements, the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 319th and 320th Glider Field Artillery Battalions, boarded hundreds of transport planes and gliders to begin the largest airborne assault in history.

In the early hours of June 6, 1944, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, All American (AA) dropped into Ste.-Mère-Église, a town of 1,500 astride a road network a few miles from the invasion sector called Utah Beach. Their mission was to block German troops from attacking the American infantrymen arriving at dawn in the vanguard of the D-Day invasion. By about 4:30 a.m., the paratroopers had seized the town, and Lt. Col. Edward Krause of the 505th Parachute Infantry raised an American flag outside the town hall. Paratrooper Army Pvt. Robert Warner, who was in his early 20s at the time, landed in Normandy (Ste.- Mere- Eglise) with the 507th Parachute Infantry (82nd Airborne). He had enlisted in April 1942 after graduation from the former St. Patrick Academy High School in Binghamton. A newspaper story reported him as getting injured in combat, although his injuries were not life-threatening.

Paratrooper Robert Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) received the "American Service Medal", the Soldier's Medal, the "Distinguished Unit Badge", the "European African Middle Eastern Service Medal" and a "Purple Heart" on March 24th, 1945 at the Rhineland "Operation Varsity" Jump. A Binghamton Press article of April 13, 1945 indicated that Paratrooper Robert Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division had been overseas since December 1943 and had been in combat since the invasion of Normandy France on June 6th 1944 up till when he was wounded on March 24th 1945 in the Rhineland Germany battle, that's 10 months straight of combat that included the Battle of the Bulge.

According to a Binghamton Press article of April 13, 1945, Pfc Robert F. Warner, 24, a paratrooper was injured in action in Germany on March 24, 1945. Overseas since December, 1943, Private Warner has been in combat since the invasion of Normandy on June 6th, 1944. Paratrooper Robert F. Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) made 2 combat parachute drops, Normandy "Operation Neptune", Battle of the Bulge in the Ardenes Forest and the final combat jump, Rhineland "Operation Varsity" at the Wars end on March 24th, 1945 when he was wounded in combat.

Paratrooper Robert Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division, 3rd Battalion Company G, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) appears to have been on the first wave of pathfinders at about 2:30 am on D-Day June 6th, 1944 that dropped in or near St Mere Eglise France.
During the invasion, Seaman William (Bill) Warner was stationed on a Coast Guard cutter in the English Channel. The cutter and crew helped rescue Allied troops during the critical days of the invasion, according to a newspaper story in August 1944. William was in his late teens at the time. After the war, he graduated from Binghamton University in 1951. He had attended Binghamton Central at the same time as science fiction writer Rod Serling.
 
Like his brother Robert, Harry Warner was also in his early 20s at the time of Normandy. Harry was a petty officer aboard a Navy destroyer that guarded Allied vessels from Nazi U-boats. After the war, he returned to Binghamton and married Elizabeth Ann Brink in November 1956. The wedding drew a lot of newspaper attention -- even a pre-nuptial story about the attendants and the color scheme. The bride was the daughter of Broome County Judge Robert O. Brink. The couple moved to Dallas where Harry became an executive with the Equitable Life Insurance Co.
 
Army Lt. James Warner was the first of the brothers to enlist. He began active duty on April 23, 1941, and served in England for 14 months with the Army Medical Corps. James, who was in his late 20s at the time of the D-Day invasion, probably arrived in the war zone after the initial assault. 

 

By March 24, 1945 Robert F. Warner was serving as a private in Company G, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division. On that day, his unit was dropped by parachute across the Rhine river near Fluren, Germany. PFC Robert Warner 82nd Airborne was wounded during the action and received a Purple Heart medal. 

PFC ROBERT F. WARNER 17th AIRBORNE DIVISION 507th PARACHUTE INFANTRY REGIMENT WAS A SOLDIER'S MEDAL RECIPIENT DURING WWII. The Soldier's Medal was established in 1926 and denotes acts of heroism in a non-combat situation. It is awarded for heroic actions on behalf of fellow soldiers or civilians. PFC Robert F. Warner, US Army 17th Airborne Division, 3rd Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Company G, was a proud veteran of the All American 82nd Airborne till the day he died in Sarasota Fl Sep 3rd 1995 at the age of 74.

 

Apparently on Jan 1st, 1945 while during a lull at the Battle of the Bulge, a soldier got too close to an open fire pit wearing the US Army full length winter coat and it caught on fire. The coat apparently had some gasoline fuel spilled on it from loading a truck and the coat exploded into a ball of flames. PFC Robert Warner knocked the soldier engulfed in flames to the ground and 'rolled him out in the snow', both men suffered burns but both survived.

 

While he lived in the Binghamton area after the war, James Warner once headed the Chamber of Commerce's Business-Industry-Education program that connected high school students with local business and corporate leaders for a real-world learning experience. "They are all gone now," Bill Warner said. "An era has ended". 

WWII vetren Robert 'Bobby' Warner was a product of a large military family that lived at 93 Schubert St in Binghamton NY. The 1940 census had the parents Harry Warner a WWI vet, his wife Catherine (Sullivan) Warner and sister in law Mary Sullivan at the Schubert St address along with William 'Bill' Warner US Coast Guard WWII, Richard Warner, Robert 'Bobby' Warner US Army WWII, James 'Jimmy' Warner US Army WWII , Mary Ann Warner RN (a lifelong Registered Nurse) and Harry 'Hank' Warner US Navy WWII. "Band of Brothers" Bill, Bobby, Jimmy and Hank Warner during WWII were all a part of the June 6, 1944 D-Day Invasion of Normandy, RIP all.

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