This presentation of In Their Own Words is brought to you by the Honor Project and is dedicated to the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. 1994 was the 50th anniversary.

Throughout that year, we sat down with dozens of veterans of the Normandy invasion to hear their stories and to put these heroes of our nation on record.

Owen B. Hill was a member of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He liked to be called

OB, and he was a sergeant in the headquarters company of the First Battalion. The 508th was one of four

regiments of the 82nd Airborne Division.

I had a memorable conversation with OB.

He openly discussed his training and combat experiences,

and he eloquently expressed his thoughts on the nature of war

and what it did to him and his fellow paratroopers.

I'm O.B. Hill, from the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment during World War II. We were attached

to the 82nd Airborne through all the operations in Europe.

During that period, what was your rank during the D-Day discussion?

I was a sergeant at that time, a battalion message center chief.

First of all, we're going to talk about what your arrival to England and getting ready for this invasion.

When did you get in to camp in England? How did you get there?

We landed, when we first went overseas from New York, we landed in Ireland,

and we were at Port Rush and Port Stewart Island for about 45 days.

Then we went to England through Scotland and rode the train

down to Nottingham, England, and arrived there at the day of the night, midnight, and everything

blacked out, of course. And we were loaded into trucks and buses and taken to Walleton

Park, which was a very, very nice section of Nottingham.

When was this? What time of year?

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