28. The Heroic Siblings
When higher-ups in the US military heard of the tragic story of the Niland brothers, they determined that their parents would not suffer the death of their last son. So orders were swiftly sent out to find Frederick “Fritz” Niland of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, whose paratroopers had jumped into Normandy on the night before the amphibious landings took place. Fritz had fought almost nonstop for the first week or so of the Normandy Campaign. Nine days after D-Day, he stopped by the 82nd Airborne Division to see his brother Robert, only to find out that he had been killed on D-Day.
Robert Niland had landed with the 505th Parachute Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, near St. Mere-Eglise, on the night of June 5-6, 1944. After the town was captured in the early morning of June 6th, the paratroopers set up a defensive perimeter around it. When a strong German counterattack threatened to overrun their position, Robert and two comrades volunteered to stay behind and cover the rest of the unit’s retreat to St. Mere-Eglise. He was killed while he manned a machinegun in the face of a powerful German onslaught.