Cheel Jay E.

Monuments

C-47 D-Day losses over DZ-C

Upottery Airfield US Armed Forces Plaque

Name:

Jay E. Cheel

Rank:

Private First Class

Serial Number:

39905861

Unit:

506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

Date of Death:

1944-06-06

State:

Nevada

Cemetery:

Woodlawn Cemetery, Las Vegas, Nevada

Plot:

Row:

Grave:

Decoration:

Purple Heart

Comments:

Pfc Jay E. Cheel, paratrooper of 1/506th PIR’s C Company, took off from Upottery, East Devon, UK in the C-47 42-100819 to drop 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.