Fr. Francis Sampson, the Paratrooper Padre of D-Day

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2024

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Fr. Francis Sampson was the “paratrooper padre.” He parachuted into Normandy, behind enemy lines, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, along with more than 13,000 other Allied paratroopers. He also was directly involved in the episode that inspired Steven Spielberg’s epic war drama Saving Private Ryan. He hadn’t planned on being a paratrooper when he joined the Army chaplain corps and the Archdiocese for Military Services, but his naiveté about what he had signed up for was a good thing for his men. He was dedicated to their well-being, spiritually and physically. On D-Day, he stayed behind at an aid station in a French village when the rest of the paratroopers he was with moved along to rendezvous with the larger unit. The aid station had 14 men who couldn’t be moved. When the Germans came he was put up against a wall and nearly shot, but a German sergeant recognized he was a priest and his life was spared. Once the Americans retook the village, he and the survivors were evacuated. Eventually he was captured and spent the last few months as a prisoner of war in Germany. After World War II ended, he served in Korea, and then stateside as a chaplain, and eventually the chief of all Army chaplains, before retiring in 1971.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.
0:11.0	If you like this podcast and would like to support our work, please visit American Catholic History.org
0:17.5	slash support. I'm Noelle Heister Crow. And I'm Tom Crow.
0:21.7	Today we're talking about Father Francis Sampson, an army chaplain who parachuted into
0:28.0	Normandy in the wee hours of D-Day.
0:31.1	He was also the man behind the events that inspires Stephen Spielberg's war epic, saving
0:36.0	private Ryan.
0:37.2	But what he did in that episode was not the most epic part of his story.
0:41.1	Right. The story in the film was significantly embellished, even if the underlying point was the
0:46.1	same. But like you say, his work on that case was not even close to the most awe-inspiring
0:51.9	part of his service. No, his work with the wounded and dying in the days after D-Day are far more harrowing.
0:57.4	He was even nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor for those actions.
1:00.4	He didn't get the Blue Max, however, because of an unwritten rule about non-combatants being
1:05.5	ineligible for the military's highest honor.
1:08.6	All of this came after he literally didn't know what he was getting himself
1:12.8	into when he signed up for paratrooper school. When he did realize what it meant, it was too late to back out.
1:18.6	Well, it was too late for him to back out. Someone else may have, but he was the sort who, once he set
1:24.2	his hand to the till, did not look back. And it was that dedication to duty to doing
1:28.8	the right thing that was in front of you that would be so important for his boys following D-Day.
1:34.3	But not just D-Day. He was a beloved chaplain throughout World War II,
1:37.9	jumping during Operation Market Garden and then being in the Battle of the Bulge,
1:41.6	and then as a prisoner of war for the last few months of the war.
	...

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