A brief history of the career and accomplishments of Master Sgt Charles J. Staub, US Air Force.

Charlie Staub was born on 25 March 1920 in Detroit, Michigan.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps on 29 August 1941. After the completion of basic training, he was assigned to Chanute Army Airfield, Illinois to attend meteorology school and complete training as a weather observer.

In March of 1944 Staub was assigned to the 21st Weather Squadron and departed for England. The squadron’s specified mission was to join the invasion forces of Normandy, and Staub made the decision to volunteer as a paratrooper.

Sergeant Staub graduated from the 101st Airborne Division parachute jumping school at Chilton-Foliat, England on 13 May and was assigned to the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

On the night of June 5th at 2230 local time, Staub’s regiment departed England enroute for Normandy. The next day, June 6th, 1944, “D-Day,” Sergeant Staub was the first American weatherman to jump into France.

Around 0500 local, Sergeant Staub, and a team of soldiers he had linked up with assaulted a German gun position, during the exchange of fire he received gunshot wounds to his right hand, left arm, and left leg. He was then knocked unconscious when a grenade shattered his rifle and the shrapnel hit him in the face. He was transported to an aid station, where he was then buried in the basement for several days by German artillery fire. This resulted in his being listed as “missing in action” for a period of 5 days until he was rescued.

Sergeant Staub underwent surgeries on the beaches of Normandy to stabilize him for a return to England, more surgeries in England, and then he was returned to the USA, to spend the next year hospitalized before being discharged from the army.

In 1949 Sergeant Staub rejoined the military, reenlisting in the US Air Force, continuing his service as a meteorologist.

At the time of the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, Staub was assigned to the 20th Weather Squadron, in Japan. His detachment was quickly sent to Korea, and he spent the opening period of the conflict establishing and maintaining remote weather stations, at times behind enemy lines.

Following the Korean war, Sergeant Staub served until 1966 when he was medically retired from the US Air Force due to complications from his wartime service.

(Source: Doug Jones, USAF Weather Veteran)



FIRST IN FRANCE - S/Sgt Charles J. Staub, US Army Air Forces Weather Paratrooper

Jumping in to combat with the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, USAAF Staff Sergeant Charlie Staub's "Rendezvous With Destiny" was to be the first weatherman to reach France during the Normandy Invasion!

Airborne - All The Way!!!

RESPECT

GBA

* * * * *

Staff Sergeant Charlie Staub

WWII Weather Paratrooper

The first weatherman to reach France was Staff Sergeant Charles J. Staub. 

Attached to the 502^nd Regiment of the 101^st Airborne Division, he parachuted into Normandy at 0100 hours on June 6, or at H minus 5 hours. 

The planes had come in low to avoid flak, and the men jumped at 600 feet into a sky full of tracers. In an atmosphere of grey haze, Staub floated down to the ground, where he could make out the tiny fields outlined by the now famous hedgerows. In the square toward which he was heading, he could see objects moving about. They turned out to be cattle. Landing flat on his back against a hedgerow, he hurriedly released his harness, dug a hole for his parachute, and lay quietly, trying to orient himself. Soon he heard someone moving nearby. He adjusted his carbine and waited. There was no more movement, so he clicked his “cricket,” a small sounding device, and waited. 

A reply came, indicating that his companion was from his own outfit. Staub approached, discovered it was an officer, and the two started out in search of the rest of their party. They had been instructed to use only grenades and knives at night, unless of course the carbine was necessary for protection. As the two walked on they began picking up other paratroopers, members of the 506^th Regiment. They had completely separated from their own regiment, but kept on their way in hope either of finding it or of running into some sort of activity. Somewhat farther along, the men of the 506^th turned down a side road where they were to meet their own outfit. Staub and the officer continued on. As they approached a farmhouse they were greeted by shots fired by snipers. The officer went inside to investigate, while Staub covered him from a vantage point against a hedgerow.

He had scarcely reached his position when he was fired on. He jumped into a ditch between the road and the hedgerow. About forty yards ahead, standing by a dead tree, were two Germans. He fired on them, revealing his position, and discovered that there were snipers on all sides of him. One shot came, severing a finger on his right hand. Another, a wooden bullet, shattered the flesh on his left arm from the wrist to the elbow. A third bullet took two toes from his left foot. Then with a full clip in his carbine, lying prone and getting ready to fire, he was struck either by an exploding grenade or a bullet against the clip, for when he revived fifteen minutes lates his jaw was shattered and bleeding and his carbine lay scattered and broken at his side. 

Presumably the enemy thought he was dead, for when he regained consciousness they were gone. By this time it was around six in the morning and back on the beaches activity was just beginning. He got up and staggered toward the farmhouse. There he found another soldier who helped him to a place two miles beyond, where other wounded men were being treated. No aid stations had yet been set up. 

Staub was feeling no pain from his wounds, but he was weak from loss of blood. He was given a shot of morphine, and a stretcher was made for him out of parachute silk, and six other paratroopers, themselves wounded, carried him back five miles to where the command post was located, stopping frequently to rest because of their own wounds.

There was no food or water in the place - - the enemy had blown up the well and taken all available food - - so after a brief dressing of his wounds he was taken back to the beach hospital where blood plasma was given him. After four or five days he was returned to England to an army hospital. What became of the officer after he stepped into the doorway of the Norman farmhouse Staub never discovered.

That Staff Sergeant Staub was left scarred and crippled is one of those ugly misfortunes of war that statistics impersonally record. That he was not able to perform his duties as a weatherman on the operation to which he was assigned, makes his mission no less significant in the total picture of the part played in the invasion by the 21^st Weather Squadron.   

(Details compiled from AFHRA and AFW sources)

The story of WWII Weather Paratrooper

Charlie Staub

In his own words

December 17, 1946

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I was born March 25, 1920, in Detroit, Michigan.

I had two years of college, one at the University of Detroit and the other at the Detroit Institute of Technology.

I enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force on August 29, 1941. Following basic training, I was sent to Chanute Field, Illinois, to attend Meteorology School. Upon completion of my course, I was assigned to Dothan Army Air Field, Dothan, Alabama. After serving at that base for three months, I received orders to report to Bolling Field, Washington, D.C. Upon arriving, I was assigned to a task force and departed for Greenland, on April 10, 1942.

Reaching my destination, I was ordered to take charge of the installation and maintenance of weather stations on the west coast of Greenland. The area I covered was from the southern tip of Greenland to approximately 1,000 miles above the Arctic Circle. I remained in the Arctic until August 23, 1943, at which time I returned to Chanute Field, Illinois, for further meteorological training.

This course consisted of training in the operation and maintenance of Radio-Sonde machines. Upon completion of this course, I was assigned to a unit consisting entirely of meteorologists and we departed on March 10, 1944, for England.

Reaching my destination, I was assigned to the 21st Weather Squadron, which was attached to the 9^th Air Force. This organization was set up for the purpose of speed and efficiency in weather operations. The men from this unit were to be assigned to all branches of the Army for the purpose of relaying weather Information to higher headquarters when these various units were in combat.

After due consideration of the fact that I undoubtedly would partake in the initial invasion of Normandy, France, I volunteered to enter the Paratroops. On May 6, 1944, I became a member of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, which belonged to the 101st Airborne Division, After one week of very intensive training, I made five parachute jumps and qualified as a full-fledged paratrooper.

On the night of June 5, at 10:30 P.M., I left England with our regiment, flew across the English Channel, and jumped into Normandy at 1:00 A.M. on June 6, 1944.

Our division, together with the 82nd Airborne Division, and a few units of British Paratroopers, were the first outfits to initiate the invasion of Normandy.

At 5:00 A.,M. on June 6., 1944, one hour before the initial assault on the beaches of Normandy, I walked into a nest of snipers, and, in the exchange of fire, I was shot through my right hand, my left forearm, my left foot and with the explosion of my gun, which was apparently hit by a bullet from the enemy, I was hit in the face, and became unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness, I found myself entirely alone lying in a ditch next to a little trail. Getting up, I walked about half a mile before I met another paratrooper, who directed me to a group of men about two miles away. Reaching these men, they bandaged me up 1st first-aid kits and I lapsed into unconsciousness. This was about 7:00 A.M. of that day.

I regained consciousness about five o'clock in the afternoon, whereupon I learned that these men had constructed a stretcher from a parachute, and they proceeded to carry me about five miles to a very small town. Upon reaching the outskirts of this town, two first-aid men met us and carried me into what apparently was the City Hall. Our Army had set up in this building a first-aid station and when I arrived there were about 75 wounded boys in the building. They laid me down in one of the rooms on the stretcher and after a period of about ten minutes the German Artillery proceeded to shell this town. The first shells I heard hit the top of the building we were in. Not wishing to die at this time, I got up off my stretcher and staggered out into the hallway, whereupon I fell down. With some assistance from another man, I finally reached the basement.

The next five days are somewhat of a blur in my mind. I recall that I became conscious on two occasions; the first time I asked for water and was informed that there was none available; the second time I regained consciousness I became aware of the fact that one of the two first-aid men we had with us was changing the dressings on my right hand and what I saw at that time was indeed nauseating, for, you see, my right hand had turned black and was beginning to rot away. The next thing I remember I was being carried out of this village on a jeep which was equipped to carry four stretchers.

I was taken to a hospital set up in tents on the beach and upon arriving I was laid out on the ground and fed plasma which hung from the stock of a rifle. After receiving 3500 cc's of plasma, I was taken into the operating tent, which was equipped with the finest material that medical science had to offer. I remember three doctors discussing the type of anaesthetic they should give me. Because of the nature of the injury to my lower jaw, they were somewhat skeptical about a general anaesthetic. What happened then I do not know, for when I regained consciousness I was with about 300 wounded boys on an LST on my way to England.

Apparently, back in France at that hospital on the beach I had had some difficulty on the operating table because I was now using a tracheotomy tube to breathe, and I assure you it was most uncomfortable. The next thing I remember I opened my eyes and I was lying on an operating table in a Field Hospital set up in tents on the beach in England. As I looked up, I gazed into the face of an American nurse and I thought, "Brother, you're home."

After undergoing examination at this hospital, I was assigned to a General Hospital in England where I remained for three months, at the end of which time I returned to the States by air, and was taken to Wakeman General Hospital at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. I remained in this hospital for a period of one year. While I was a patient at that hospital I received the Purple Heart and the Presidential Unit Citation.

On July 21, 1945, I married a young lady whom I met during my stay in that hospital. Finally, on September 6, 1945, after spending fifteen months in the hospital and undergoing fourteen operations, I was released from the hospital and discharged from the Army.