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Fictional Figures and the Real Historic People Behind Them

Khalid Elhassan October 25, 2021 35 min

General Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division, a few hours before their jump into Normandy. Amazon

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 501^st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101^st 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 82^nd 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 505^th Parachute Infantry Division, 82^nd 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 6^th, 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.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.