2nd Lt. Ted Weatherhead flew
101st Airborne to its D-Day jump
PHOTO PROVIDED
Cadet Ted Weatherhead stands on the wing of a Fairchild PT-19A two-seat trainer at an airfield near Uvalde,Texas, 70 miles west of San Antonio, where he took preliminary flight training in 1943 during World War II.
PHOTO PROVIDED
This is a C-47 transport plane like the one Weatherhead flew during the D-Day Invasion in the Second World War.
PHOTO PROVIDED
2nd Lt. Ted Weatherhead is pictured in his officer's dress uniform shortly after receiving his wings. He flew with the 316th Troop Carrier Group, 44th Troop Carrier Wing, 9th Air Force in Europe during World War II.
SUN PHOTO BY DON MOORE
Ted Weatherhead, 88, at his home in Englewood.
Ted Weatherhead was a 21-year-old green 2nd lieutenant and co-pilot of a
C-47 twin-engine transport
plane — a member of the 316th Troop Carrier Group, 44th Troop Carrier Wing,
9th Air Force — that dropped
19 fully-equipped 101st Airborne paratroopers behind
enemy lines on D-Day hours before the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of
Normandy in World War II.
“That night we took off for France and flew south from Cottesmore, England, to Land’s End, at the southern tip of the country, and crossed the English Channel,” said the 88-year-old, who now resides in Tangerine Woods in Englewood. “We came across the north side of Normandy and dropped our paratroopers.
