RUSS SNELL
Age: 87
Born: Sept. 21, 1923
Hometown: New Castle, Ind.
Residence: Desert Edge
Military branch: U.S. Army
Airborne: 101st Airborne Division; 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment; Company C
Years served: Aug. 6, 1942-July 13, 1945
Rank: Private first class
Family: Wife Marjorie; five children, Jane Wood of Glendale, Ariz., Lisa Hindsley of Fullerton, Rob Tomlin and Rick Tomlin of Riverside and Tanya Turley of Long Beach; 10 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Navy veteran Robert A. Voigt of Palm Springs.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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U.S. Army Airborne veteran Russ Snell jumped behind enemy lines in Normandy, France, fought in Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded three Purple Hearts for combat wounds suffered while fighting with the 101st Airborne Division during World War II.
“I was scared to death every minute I was there,” Snell said. “The good Lord smiled at me for some reason.”
Snell was a member of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Company C.
“Band of Brothers,” the Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg HBO miniseries was based on the men of Company E (“Easy Company) of the 506th.
Snell said he was inspired to join the paratroopers after watching a movie about the U.S. Army jumpers — but it was also a practical decision.
“I knew I was going to be drafted,” he said. “By joining, I could choose what I wanted. It also paid $50 a month extra jump pay.”
“They shipped us to Camp Toccoa right away,” he said. “We were one of the first divisions to go there for paratroop training.”
“We ran up and down this mountain in Georgia — 3 miles up, 3 miles down — with a 30-pound backpack,” Snell said.
The men of the 506th built their endurance running the rugged Currahee Mountain trail — the same mountain made famous in “Band of Brothers.”
After 13 weeks of physically grueling boot camp, the men were sent to Fort Benning, Ga., for parachute training, where they packed their own chutes for their five training jumps.
Soon after, the men were sent to England where they awaited a call to action.
“It was 2:30 a.m. when they jumped us,” on D-Day, Snell said. “When we first jumped, you couldn't hardly see the sky for all the planes up above.”
Incessant anti-aircraft fire shook the planes and rattled the nerves of the paratroopers.
“It was like it hailed outside,” he said. “That's why you're glad to jump. When those planes go down, that's it. But when you jump, you still have a chance.”
The men from his company were scattered around the area. Many paratroopers were dropped far from their designated targets.
“I landed where I was supposed to,” he added. “Five miles from the beach.”
As soon as he hit the ground, Snell used his Army knife to cut a big piece out of his silk camouflage parachute.
After snagging his souvenir, “I got down in a ditch in a hedgerow,” he said.
“We jumped amongst the Germans,” he said. “It was really confusing for a while.”
In the pitch dark of night, you had no idea who you were hiding near, he said.
“You might wake up in the morning next to a German.”
The paratroopers were given “crickets” they clicked to communicate with one another once they were on the ground.
“If someone answered with two clicks, we knew it was a buddy and not to fire,” he said. “But then the German soldiers figured it out and they started answering with two clicks so we wouldn't fire and then they would shoot at us — but we figured that out, too.”
By the afternoon, paratroopers from the 506th and 501st regiments liberated the town of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont — the first town secured after the invasion.
A week after jumping into Normandy, Snell was shot in the upper right arm and was hospitalized.
After being patched up, he returned to his unit and made his second jump, into Zon, Holland, on Sept. 17, 1944.
“It was a lot better there,” he said. “They went in and strafed it before we jumped in.”
Traveling by motorcycle in Holland on Oct. 6, Snell was carrying a sealed message when he was blown off his bike by a blast from a German 88 mm shell and suffered a concussion
“When I was sent back after the second injury, I hardly recognized my unit,” there were so many new faces replacing those who had been killed, he said.
On Dec. 19, “We went by truck to Bastogne where we were surrounded in what was called ‘the hole of the doughnut,'” in the Battle of the Bulge, Snell said.
The 101st Airborne Division arrived just hours before the town was cut off and surrounded.
Bad weather grounded Allied air attacks and ammunition and food supplies were dwindling, but the men — outnumbered five-to-one — kept up the battle in the bitter cold, holding off the German attack.
“Our companies were together and we were holding the doughnut. We were scattered all around and they (Germans) passed us by.”
“We got out of it when (General George) Patton came and got us out,” he said.
On Jan. 16, 1945 — a month after the battle began — Snell suffered his third and final combat injury.
“That's when I got blown out of the foxhole,” he said.
“An 88 landed nearby, and I was taken again to a hospital, unconscious,” he said.
Snell was on an airplane, headed to the States when he heard the news that President Franklin Roosevelt had died.
After returning to the U.S. in April, Snell spent time recuperating at St. Nicholas Hospital in Tennessee.
The images of war still haunt Snell and are frequent visitors in his dreams.
“You're never the same,” he said. “It's the price you pay, I guess.”
“Until this day I still have that horrible nightmare, remembering the German I actually saw, sitting on the seat of an 88 gun with his head half blown off.”
“My experiences changed my life because when you come that close to death so many times, you appreciate life more,” he said.
