Another Good One is Gone: Edwin Persons.

It’s getting to be an all too familiar occurrence–another of our aged World War II heroes has passed away. Edwin Persons, 87, died on Tuesday, December 27, 2011, in Tampa, Florida.

Edwin Persons - 502nd PIR, 101st Airborne

Persons served as a medic in World War II with Company B, 502nd Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. With his group he dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day’s eve, fought for Eindhoven during Operation Market Garden, held Bastogne at all costs during the Battle of the Bulge and assaulted Hitler’s hideout at Berchtesgaden.

We had spoken several times over the years, and I truly thank him for kindly sharing his story with me. I’ll never forget his account of dropping into the Normandy interior. “I landed in a swamp up to my chest just outside of Sainte Mere Eglise,” he shared with me. “You’d find one guy, then another, then another.  Somebody takes charge and you start working toward objectives.  But a lot of paratroopers never made it out of that swamp.  Quite a few got hung up in trees and shot right away.  The Germans loved that—target practice.  You’d come across a glider and the men were still sitting in their seats—dead.  They never had a chance.

“We started out wearing medics’ armbands, but soon discovered that they only made us bigger targets for snipers.  We got rid of those in a hurry.  …We carried weapons.  You had to!  We were more or less just infantrymen that took care of the wounded.

“It was just guerilla warfare for the first three days. …We were trained very well….  But the truth is we were trained to kill.  We were very good at it, and that’s just what we did.  …We did what we had to do.  But the sad thing is, it really hurt later on.

Edwin Persons: Another Good One is Gone.

“…After it was all over, I brought back several guns—souvenirs from the war, but I’ve since given them all away.  Didn’t want them around anymore.  I had an SS officer’s dress sword.  It had a black, ebony handle, inlaid silver, with gothic writing on the blade.  I’ve only ever seen one other and that’s in a museum in Bastogne.  I don’t know if it was a captain or a major, but I got mine the hard way around Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.  I’ve since given it to my grandson.  …So much of it, I don’t care to remember.”

Persons left behind a sister, Christine, and a daughter, Connie. A grateful community and nation mourn the loss. Thank you for your sacrifice, Edwin Persons.

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