Raymond L. Dunlap was a 101st Airborne paratrooper with the 502nd PIR, making his final jump and passing away, Monday, December 2, 2013.
His son, Jeff Dunlap recalls that his father was very proud to be a Screaming Eagle. He jumped into Normandy in 1944 on D-Day, and landed somewhere around Ste. Mere Elise. He had landed in a corral of horses that scared him to death, until he figured out what was going on. As it turned out, the horses did him no harm. They were as scared as he was. The horses stayed on the perimeter and trampled his parachute down. This was a Godsend, because when he looked around there was a road along one side of the corral with German tanks and trucks going by. The Germans must have thought their vehicles were causing the horses to run around in that corral. Whenever his father told this story, he says the horses saved his butt that night.
Raymond Dunlap didn’t speak much about the war. When his son, Jeff was growing up, he didn’t know enough to ask, but later when older and he did ask questions, his dad would answer. When Jeff could get him talking, he wanted to talk about the good times he had in England or with friends. On occasion, people would say how brave he was to jump out of airplanes to which he responded, “I’d jump anytime rather than come in on those beaches.” Jeff asked him about the battle of Carentan. The only thing his father would say was, “we were sitting ducks on those causeways – it was awful.” Carentan later became known as “Purple Heart Lane” due to the vast loss of life and injuries there.
Jeff’s father was a medic who during the liberation of Holland was dragging wounded men to a central foxhole, where they could receive medical attention. For this, Raymond received the Bronze Star Medal. From there, he was sent to Bastogne where the 101st Airborne became surrounded by the Germans. Raymond held down the fort and like every other paratrooper sure was happy to see General Patton break through those lines and putting an end to the Battle of the Bulge.
COMES A Soldier’s Whisper remembering our veterans and history one day at a time…
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