SGT Bob Bearden
1/507th Parachute Infantry Regiment
82nd Airborne Division
Bob Bearden visiting his fallen comrades during the 60th D-Day Celebration.
He is a long time friend of my family and a devout Christian. Several of his sons are lunatic motorcyclists (like me) and one even was a professional road racer for 10 years. The same gene that made a man seek the Airborne was manifested in his offspring via two wheel risk and excitement. I knew his sons first from Fort Hood where one owns a Yamaha dealership and I have ridden with others.
On the drop zone outside of St Mere Eglise during the D-Day celebration, I was shocked to see the sons and knew that their father must not be far away. I had the honor and privilege of attending the 1/507 reunion dinner as well as escort the Bearden family through the cemetery at Omaha Beach. The names and units are computerized and we soon had a print out describing the location of Bob's friends who were killed.
Bob and I pose in front of the Cemetery. Let me say that escorting the family was the highlight of the 60th Celebration for me personally. When we would reach a grave, Bob would kneel down and we were all in tears. He would then stand and tell us something about the individual. Within 30 seconds, a crowd would gather to listen to the wrinkled hero speak. As you can see, he was wearing a jump suit and everybody knew he was the real McCoy. Many French would simply tell him "Thank you."
The grave of SGT Chester Gunka. This was Bob's best friend and he was in the same plane as him on the night of the jump. They never linked up on the ground and Bob was numbed by the news that he had been killed a week after the fact. Bob said that this was the best man you could ever know and he misses him terribly.
PVT Mc Clain had a reputation as a scoundrel in the company. He was an expert poker player and often won everyone's money only to loan it back to them at 10% interest. Bob said the barracks was once evacuated for fear that the water heater was making a terrible noise and about to explode. When the maintenance crew arrived, they found a snoring PVT Mc Clain asleep under the water heater. When it came time to do his duty, PVT Mc Clain jumped into Normandy with the rest of his company with all debt forgiven. He was killed 2 days later and laid to rest at the Omaha Cemetery.
According to Bob, 1SG George Pettus was the toughest man in the regiment. Not only was he muscle bound, he was mean as hell. In one instance, the NCOs all ganged up on the 1SG do to a disagreement about the training regiment and punishments for the lower enlisted men. The lower NCOs only got their way once the 1SG beat the hell out of half of them and it took the other half to take him out. A few days after the jump, a German prisoner was taken carrying the 1SG's modified Thompson Submachine gun. All who saw it knew it could only mean one thing; 1SG was KIA. Bob knows for a fact that it must have taken a platoon of Germans to take down the 1SG.
