A World War II veteran who parachuted into France with Allied troops on D-Day and was believed to be the last remaining member of the “Toccoa Originals” immortalized in the HBO mini-series “Band of Brothers” died on Sept. 11.
Jim “Pee Wee” Martin was 101, a fitting number as he joined the 101st Airborne in 1942 when the division was formed.
It was D-Day, just after midnight on June 6, 1944, when Martin made his first combat jump. Floating to the ground from a plane in Nazi-occupied France facing heavy fire from the Nazis below, he landed at the drop zone behind Utah Beach.
Martin was part of the 101st Airborne Division’s 506th Parachute Infantry, which is also known as the “Screaming Eagles.” After his division landed in Normandy, they fought their way through France, parachuted in Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, participated in the Battle of the Bulge, liberated a concentration camp, and helped seize The Eagle’s Nest, which was Adolf Hitler’s Bavarian home….