Michael Allen is much too young to have known his great uncle, Theodore Coley, who was killed during the D-Day invasion of German-held Normandy in World War II. However, his family still has links to Coley’s service before that fateful day 80 years ago on June 6, 1944.
“The family didn’t talk about him much, they said his mother had a nervous breakdown (after he died),” said Allen. “But we have artifacts like letters he sent home that are on microfilm, and a chest with his uniforms in it. When you open it, you can just smell history.”
Private Coley enlisted in the Army five weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. He was assigned to Company G, 551st Infantry Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, according to honorstates.org.
Allen, of Calhoun, said Coley trained at Fort Bragg, N.C., with the 82nd Airborne, and also served in the Panama Canal before being deployed to Europe. He was certainly not the only casualty in his unit on D-Day.
“They parachuted in a few hours before the actual invasion started, and his whole platoon got wiped out,” he said. “He was shot 58 times by a machine gun; he was a sitting duck when he parachuted in.”
Allen added that Coley’s mother, Daisy Annie Miller Sorrels, was from Cedartown, where Theodore was born, and his father, Jessie Coley, was from Alabama. Jennifer Anderson, a historical researcher in Gilmer County, noted Coley was living in Whitfield County when he enlisted according to documents she located.
“Theodore was buried in St. Mere Eglise No. 1 (a World War II cemetery in France) on June 18, 1944,” she said, “and then reburied in Ellijay City Cemetery.”
That second burial took place on May 23, 1948, with the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization in charge, according to FindAGrave.com. Anderson notes that she follows the Facebook page of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and found this post when searching for St. Mere Eglise:
“The largest combined military operation in history, D-Day, was to be spearheaded by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. Visibility was hampered by poor weather conditions as the C-47s crossed (the English) Channel during the first hours of June 6, 1944. When the troop carriers finally did make landfall on the Cherbourg Peninsula, they came under heavy German flak scattering many of the troop carrier flights.
“It was 0300 hours (3 a.m.) on June 6 when the 505th was given the green light to jump. Some Pathfinders were able to signal their drop zones. However, many of the troop carriers missed their drop zones and the All-Americans of the 505th began landing across a large swath of the countryside around Normandy.
“Nevertheless, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment was one of the first airborne units to hit the ground, and despite the subsequent confusion surrounding the landing, were able to use it to their advantage mustering enough troops under the command of the 2nd Battalion Commander, Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort, to liberate the first town in France — St. Mere-Eglise.
“The paratroopers jumped prior to the actual start of the invasion on ‘H-Hour.’ Because of the tradition of being the first into the fight, the 505th Regimental motto is ‘H-MINUS.’ For their performance in the invasions, the 505th was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the unit equivalent of the Medal of Honor awarded to individual soldiers. In the words of author Clay Blair, the paratroopers emerged from Normandy with the reputation of being a pack of jackals; the toughest, most resourceful and bloodthirsty in Europe.”
The late Nolan Brookshire, a retired master sergeant with the U.S. Air Force, wrote the following on Find A Grave about Theodore Coley: “I am from Gilmer County, Georgia, as is this hero who died while saving us from a life of abuse and slavery by Nazi Germany. His name is on one of more (than) 1,000 crosses I passed yesterday in Ellijay posted on the roadside each (Memorial) Day. God Bless Him.”
Private Theodore Coley was awarded a Purple Heart, Parachutist Badge, World War II Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal, Army Presidential Unit Citation, Army Good Conduct Medal and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, according to Honor States.