Name:
Steve C. Baran
Rank:
Flight Officer
Serial Number:
T-190790
Unit:
91st Troop Carrier Squadron, 439th Troop Carrier Group
Date of Death:
1944-06-06
State:
Illinois
Cemetery:
Normandy American Cemetery, France
Plot:
A
Row:
7
Grave:
25
Decoration:
Air Medal, Purple Heart
Comments:
F/O Steve C. Baran, co-pilot of the C-47 42-100819, took off from Upottery, East Devon, UK to drop 16 paratroopers over DZ-C as part of Operation Albany during the Normandy invasion. Their target time was 0114. To complicate matters, there were heavy clouds at 1500 feet, gone unreported due to the strict radio silence. Some pilots decided to pull up and find their DZs with the Eureka-Rebecca system, others went low to obtain a visual of their DZs, and a rare few stayed the course through the cloud bank. While approaching DZ-C, flak hit the plane, sending it crashing in flames before any of the paras had a chance to jump.