Speake Roy Herman, Jr.

Monuments

C-47 D-Day losses over DZ-C

Upottery Airfield US Armed Forces Plaque

Name:

Roy Herman, Jr. Speake

Rank:

Sergeant

Serial Number:

18125290

Unit:

506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

Date of Death:

1944-06-06

State:

Texas

Cemetery:

Spring Creek Cemetery, Texas

Plot:

Row:

Grave:

Decoration:

Purple Heart

Comments:

Sgt Roy H. Speake, paratrooper of 506th PIR, 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.