551st Parachute Infantry Association

2 weeks ago

When the legend becomes fact, some may be inclined to print the legend. However, in rare cases, the facts bolster the legend, as is the case with “The Red Cross Man”, or "the donut guy” for the First Airborne Task Force during Operation Dragoon. David Thomas de Varona jumped with the 551st PIB on 15 August 1944 with a donut machine, as well as a duffle bag full of donuts, as a field director with the Red Cross. In an interview with Gregory Orfalea, archived with Georgetown University, Dave confirmed the machine and bag of donuts details adding that they likely fell into the Krauts' hands as he never seen them again after boarding a C-47 bound for southern France. De Varona is pictured standing second from the left in the group picture with LTC Joerg’s 551st Parachute Infantry staff in the French Maritime Alps in St. Martin-Vésubie circa November of '44.

On 7 December, 1941 Dave de Varona was playing as a left tackle for the San Diego Bombers in front of 3,500 fans, the first professional football team in San Diego, CA, against the Los Angeles Bulldogs, in which the Bombers lost 28-42. Another team Dave played football against was the Hollywood Bears, that included a talented player from UCLA, Kenny Washington, as well as a future Major League baseball star, Jackie Robinson. During the game on 7 December Dave shared that a squadron of P-38s flew over the stadium and the fans began to panic, and started to leave Balboa Stadium early…news of Pearl Harbor had started to spread as aircraft was scrambled. Prior to his professional football days Dave attended UC Berkely, graduating in ’39, of course he played football at Cal and they even won the 1937 Rose Bowl. Dave was also a member of the crew team, rowing No. 3, and won at Poughkeepsie in ’39 setting the four-mile record. One of his teammates on the rowing team was Gregory Peck. WWII ended de Varona’s dreams of rowing in the Olympics.

Dave de Varona attempted to join the Marines, as well as the Army, after the U.S. entered the war but his eyesight prevented him from being accepted into the service. A marine general mentioned the Red Cross to him as a possibility to contribute for Dave and he was soon with the Army, 4th ID, in Alaska, as they were building the Alcon Highway. He was the first civilian to drive a car across the 1,387 mile route connecting the contiguous U.S. to Alaska via Canada while serving as a field director for the Red Cross. In 1943 he went ashore with the Army during the Battle of Attu, part of the Aleution Islands off the coast of Alaska in the American and Pacific Theater…the only cold weather land battle American forces fought against the Japanese. His last stop in the U.S. was with an Army unit in the Shenandoah Valley at Luray, Va. Dave’s next assignment was Red Cross Field Director for the First Airborne Task Force (FATF).

Dave arrived in Naples on 1 August, 1944 and promptly made his way to Rome to meet up with General Frederick, who informed de Varona that he would be going in with the gliders. To which Dave replied that he was an exhibition jumper, which seemed to sway Frederick. Dave was then assigned to the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion for the jump and met up with them about four days before the invasion. Later in the interview Orfalea asked Dave if he ever actually jumped as an exhibition jumper before, to which Dave responded that he had never actually jumped before. However, he knew he didn’t want to land in a glider, as he added that he received a glider pilots license when he was 13. His instructor was Hawley Bowlus, a gentleman who helped design military gliders for the U.S. Army Air Corps, such as the XCG-7, XCG-8 and the troop transport glider EXG-16. Bowlus was an expert glider pilot and trained many early American glider pilots, to include Charles and Anne Morrow Lindberg.

Dave jumped with A company of the 551st PIB on 15 August 1944 and landed on an embankment leading to a road near their drop zone. Just after his landing another paratrooper came up to him and handed him some jump wings letting him know he deserved them. Dave de Varona’s first ever parachute drop was into combat in broad daylight, the first battalion-sized daylight combat drop in U.S. Army history. He was with the 551st for their initial assault on Draguignan and even got into a small arms firefight on the streets before making his way back to FATF HQ, but joined up with the 551st again at Cannes. Dave recalled standing next to a 551st PIB Soldier on Hill 105 when he was KIA. He also entered Nice with the 551st as he bounced around between all the units of the Task Force as a conduit back home in case of emergencies for the troops with access to the same communications as the Task Force back to the States. He also provided whatever aid, comfort, smokes, morale boost, etc. that he could until heading north for the Bulge. When the First Airborne Task Force was de-activated he was assigned to the 517th Regimental Combat Team, but continued to watch out for his buddies of the 551st, 509th, 550th, etc. when he came across them in Belgium, giving them scarves, etc. It’s fair to say that no one collected more miles in the Alps and southern France during Operation Dragoon and the Champaign Campaign as did Dave de Varona looking after all airborne personnel of the First Airborne Task Force.

Following WWII Dave returned to the Bay area selling insurance while building up, running/managing, and coaching at sports facilities for kids, to include his own. He married his wife, Martha Louise Smith, in 1942 and they raised four children. Although Dave never made the Olympics his oldest daughter, Donna de Varona Pinto, grabbed two Olympic gold medals for swimming in high school, along with world records in the 400m and 440 yard individual medley. She also held the American long-course medley records for 400 yards, 200 meters and 200 yards. Dave and Martha’s youngest daughter, Joanna Kerns, was a Junior Olympics national champion in gymnastics in 1973. She may sound familiar, as she transitioned from gymnastics to acting. She played Maggie Seavor, the mother on the popular ABC sitcom Growing Pains, from 1985 to 1992. Their oldest son, Kurt Ray de Varona, became a professional golfer/instructor and their youngest, David, played football at Oregon.

When asked by Orfalea about the different airborne units under his care he made little to no distinctions, “They didn’t know their a@@ from a hot rock one way or the other and cared less, they were a group that had guts…furthermore, right now, if they had the same cause and they were young enough, they would do it again. I think that’s your airborne Soldier, at least of that era.”

To Dave de Varona…SALUTE!!

- eb

Personal and service info mainly came from an archived interview at Georgetown University by Gregory Orfalea, and Find A Grave page for Dave de Varona.
www.findagrave.com/memorial/226337623/david_thomas-de_varona
Info regarding details for Hawley Bowlus:
www.soaringmuseum.org/files/8p7_BOWLUS.pdf
archive.org/details/28754USArmyCargoGliderJuly44#:~:text=In%201930%20he%20and%20Lindbergh,Churchi...
Info regarding swimming records for Donna de Varona:
vault.si.com/vault/1962/04/16/still-on-top-at-14
Details on San Diego Bombers football team:
www.profootballarchives.com/1941pcflsd.html

American Red Cross ... See More from 551See Less from 551

551st Parachute Infantry Association

1 month ago

Happy Veterans Day weekend to all of those who answered the call of our Nation, and an extra shout out to the last surviving veteran of the 551st PIB, Ernest Scango (B Company)!

"So here’s to our comrades, buried far and near!
And here’s to our Colonel, who loved us all so dear!
And here’s to you, Buddy – and you – and you!
And here’s to all of us, when it’s over and it’s through!"
- Dan Morgan (Last stanza of 'The GOYA's' - LCOMH)

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation." -- George Washington.

History of Veterans Day;

"World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…""

www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp ... See More from 551See Less from 551