Brigadier General Don Forrester Pratt

Early Years

Don F Pratt was born on 12 July 1892 in Brookfield, Missouri to Arthur Lee (b. 4 March 1865 d. 16 July 1954) and Mary Lee (Davis) (b.10 January 1867 d. 16 September 1946) Pratt. Arthur L. Pratt was an elected probate judge for Linn county Missouri. It is noted that while living in Brookfield the Pratt’s lived only four miles from the birthplace of General John “Black Jack” Pershing. Don Pratt attended schools in Brookfield until 1902 when after his father having been elected judge, the family moved to Linneus where Pratt finished high school. Don Pratt had one older brother, Fabian, who was born on 24 December 1888. Fabian Pratt practiced medicine in Kansas City and enlisted in the Army in 1917 and served until his death on 18 December 1944. Colonel Fabian Pratt died of a heart attack while being stationed in San Francisco, California.

Pratt attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison where he was a member of several student clubs, including the Dixie Club, which included students from southern states; Phi Delta Theta fraternity; and the Friars Club.

Pratt’s [Draft] registration Card dated 5 June 1917 reflects that he was living in Brookfield, Missouri presumably after graduation from the University of Wisconsin. There he was studying for the Regular Army exam to be held in July as designated by the War Department. The Card also reflects the he was married. His wife’s name was Martha M. and according to the 1940 Census she had been born in Ohio. No record of her maiden name could be found.

Chronology of Military Service

This information has been extracted from The Chillicothe Constitution newspaper dated 29 August 1942 [the article announced his promotion to Brigadier General] [other searches reveled promotions to his more junior ranks]and from information on display at the Pratt Museum in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Entered the Army on 9 August 1917 by examination with the fourth provisional Leavenworth class

Served in San Diego and Camp Kearney, California from 1917 to 1919

Ordered to Alaska for two years, 1919-1920 for service at Fort Seward and Fort Saint Michael, near Nome

Transferred to the 3rd

Infantry at Fort Snelling, Minnesota where he remained for three years, 1921-1924, as the commanding officer of Companies E and M and later as the Regimental Adjutant

Graduated from the Company Officer Class at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1925

Ordered to the University of Minnesota for duty with the Reserve Officers Training Corps and remained there until 1930. Some reference is made to his having attended the University of Minnesota as well as the University of Wisconsin. It is believed that was a reference to his assignment in Minnesota and perhaps he enrolled in classes while there.

Assigned to the 2-year Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from1930-1932

Commanded Company E and served as the15th Infantry adjutant in Tientsin, China from 1932 to 1936[searches resulted in passenger list for Captain Pratt and Martha M Pratt]

Attended the War College in Washington D C graduating with the 1937 class

Served as a military tactics instructor at the infantry school in Fort Benning Georgia from 1937 to 1941.

Transferred to Fort Blanding, Florida where he was the Chief of Staff of the 43rd

Infantry Division from 1941 to 1942. The division soon moved to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. [The 43rd

Infantry Division saw combat in the Pacific Theater under General MacArthur.]

Joined the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Claiborne, Louisiana, and transferred to the newly activated 101st

Airborne Division where he was the deputy commander. He was named the assistant division commander on 15 September 1943 under Major General William C Lee.

Served with the 101st

Airborne Division from 1942 until his death on 6 June 1944.

101st

** Airborne Division**

August 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. Its first commander, Major General William C. Lee, observed that “the 101st” …has no history, but has a Rendezvous with Destiny.” Time and time again, the 101st has kept that rendezvous and in so doing, acquired a proud history.

The 101st moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for training and successfully demonstrated its readiness during the Tennessee maneuvers of 1943. Embarking from Camp Shanks, New York in September, the 101st continued training in England until D-day, 6 June 1944, when its pathfinders became the first Americans to set foot in occupied France.

Following them, the Screaming Eagles parachuted into Normandy and cleared the way for the 1st and 4th Infantry Divisions at Omaha and Utah beaches. After 33 days of continuous fighting, including a bitter battle for the town of Carentan, the 101st returned to England to prepare for future airborne operations.

** Upon the activation of the 101st Airborne Division on 16 August 1942 at Camp Clairborne, Louisiana, Major General William C. Lee observed that "The 101st… has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny." Time and time again, the 101st has kept that rendezvous and in so doing, has acquired a proud history.

**

**The 101st Airborne Division traces its lineage to World War I with the formation of the 101st Division on 23 July 1918, which was demobilized 11 December 1918 as a result of the armistice. In 1921, the 101st Infantry Division reconstituted and reorganized as a reserve unit with headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On 15 August 1942, the division disbanded as a reserve unit and activated in the United States Army as the 101st Airborne Division.

**

**Following the suggestion of Major William C. Lee, the War Department formed the first parachute unit, a test platoon, at Fort Benning, Georgia, on 25 June 1940. This platoon, consisting of volunteers from the 29th Infantry Regiment, made Its first jump on 16 August 1940. The success of the unit led to the establishment of several parachute battalions and regiments during the following two years.

**

**In 1942, Major Lee, by now Brigadier General, endorsed the concept of airborne divisions after studying the British Army use of parachute troops during the early years of World War II. The commander of Army Ground Forces, Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, concurred with Lee's recommendation and ordered the formation of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. Initial personnel and equipment for both divisions came from the 82nd Motorized Infantry Division, which deactivated at the same time. Brigadier general Lee assumed command of the 101st Airborne Division on 19 August 1942.

**

**Originally, the 101st had one parachute regiment (the 502nd Parachute Infantry), two glider regiments (the 327th and the 401st Glider Infantry), and three artillery battalions (the 377th Parachute Field Artillery, the 321st Glider Field Artillery, and the 907th Glider Field Artillery). Additional support units were the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, the 101st Signal Company, the 326th Airborne Medical Company, and the 426th Airborne Quartermaster Company.

**

**Organizing and training the new division was a challenge. In October 1942, the 101st began rigorous training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Throughout the fall and winter, General Lee helped to establish a whole new tactic of warfare - the use of airborne troops in battle.

**

**In June of 1943, the 101st received a second parachute infantry regiment, the 506th, from Camp Toccoa, Georgia. The 506th had trained in the shadow of Currahee Mountain and had adopted the name "Currahee" as its motto. That summer the Division proved itself during the Second Army Maneuvers and in September deployed to England.

**

**ENGLAND

5 September 1943

**

**The 101st Airborne Division boarded ships in New York harbor and arrived in England ten days later. They spent ten months in the counties of Berkshire and Wiltshire, training six days a week. Units worked on close combat, night operations, street fighting, combat field exercises, chemical warfare, the use of German weapons, and a number of other military subjects, all in addition to demanding physical training, which included hikes of twenty-five miles. In October, the Division began its own jump school to train over 400 new personnel and key members of non-jump units of the 101st.

**

**In January, 1944, the newly nicknamed Eagle Division received a third parachute infantry regiment, the 501st. In March, the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment detached one battalion to be a part of the 82nd Airborne Division. Major General Lee suffered a heart attack in February and returned to the United States. Major General Maxwell D. Taylor became the new commander.

**

**Meanwhile, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force planned an invasion of Northern France, code named Operation OVERLORD. The mission of the 101st was to jump in before the waterborne invasion forces landed on an area designated as UTAH Beach. The paratroopers would secure exits from the beachhead and prevent these areas from receiving German reinforcements.

**

**In preparation for its mission, the 101st participated in three Army-wide exercises: BEAVER, TIGER, and EAGLE. In May, elements of the Division began leaving their training areas for the airfields and marshaling areas. They would not assemble again until they met on the drop zones of France.

**

**FRANCE

6 June 1944

**

**At fifteen minutes after midnight on 6 June 1944, Captain Frank L. Lillyman led his team of 101st Pathfinders out of the door of a C-47 transport and landed in occupied France. Behind the Pathfinders came six thousand paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in C-47's of the IX Troop Carrier Command. D-Day began. Running into heavy German flak as they approached the drop zones, many of the troop transports took evasive action and scattered the jumpers over a wide area. By nightfall only twenty five hundred men could assemble in their units.

**

**Struggling to carry out the mission of the 101st to clear and secure the exits from Utah Beach for the arrival of the 4th Infantry Division, small groups of soldiers valiantly did the best they could. Major General Taylor could assemble only a little over a hundred men, most of them officers, before he set out to secure one of the causeways leading to Utah Beach. Referring to his brass-heavy group, Taylor remarked, "Never were so few led by so many."

**

**On the night of 6 June, the Assistant Division Commander, Brigadier General Don F. Pratt, led the fifty-two glider assaults during the invasion. Although all of the pilots managed to land within a two-mile area, only six of them were in the designated zone. Intelligence reports had not mentioned that most fields were bordered with hedgerows, four-foot earthen fences covered with a tangle of hedges, bushes, and trees. Because of the darkness and the hazard caused by these hedgerows, five soldiers were killed in the landings. One of them was Brigadier General Pratt.

**

**Glidermen played an important role during the Normandy operations. As counterparts of the airborne infantrymen, they delivered personnel, equipment, vehicles, and weapons to the Division. The first daylight glider operation occurred on the morning of 7 June. Using a heavier cargo glider, the pilots delivered 157 personnel, 40 vehicles, 6 guns, and 19 tons of equipment, which was crucial to the success the Division had in carrying out its objectives.

**

**After the seizure of the causeways, the 101st proceeded toward a new objective, the capture of the town of Carentan, which was the junction point for the two American forces from UTAH and OMAHA Beaches and a key to the success of the invasion. For five days the 101st waged a bitter fight to dislodge the German 6th Parachute Regiment from the town and to hold R until the arrival of American armor units from the beachhead. During the attack on Carentan, Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Cole, Commander of 3rd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, wiped out a strategically important pocket of enemy resistance. For this action, Lieutenant Colonel Cole became the first member of the 101st to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

**

**After thirty-three days of continuous fighting, the 101st Airborne was relieved and returned to England to train for its next mission. Elements of the Division received the Distinguished Unit Citation and the Division Commander was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

June 6 D-Day

Much has been written about the crash which resulted in General Pratt’s death some of which dispute some of the reported facts. The most details were found in a report compiled by Major Leon B Spencer, UAAFR Retired and found on the following site: www.americanairmuseum.com/media/35970.

Additional sites include www.2gp.org/pdf/FLAGShip-FF2_Short.pdf and www.worldwarmagazine.com/waw/wp-contents/uploads/2013/10/ww33-TOC.pdf pages 34-36 “KIA US Generals”. The first source has a pictorial history of the Fighting Falcons, one of which is the glider in which General Pratt was a passenger.

With all of the 101st

Airborne’s paratroopers on the ground, dead or alive, the Divisions 52 gliders making the initial assault were winging through the moonlight toward landing zone E, two miles west of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Piloting the glider9(named for the Fighting Falcon) was Lieutenant Mike Murphy, with Co-Pilot Lieutenant John M Butler of Delaware and Lt John May the General’s aide-de-camp. Pratt was not airborne qualified and had been designated to Command the Division’s tail. He was elated when it was decided to allow him to go to combat in a glider.

At 4:am, Murphy spotted a landing zone, which had been marked with light patterns by the pathfinders. Murphy had a text book landing, locking the brakes and then the glider skidded across the wet pasture for more than 700 feet, then smashed with an enormous impact into tall popular trees. General Pratt had been sitting in his jeep and the impact snapped his neck and he died. Murphy survived and as well as did the aide; however, Lt Butler was killed in the crash.

Additional weight by with armament, a change in the center of gravity and the wet pasture contributed to the disaster. Some reports indicate General Pratt’s body was wrapped in a parachute and buried near the crash site. Pratt was reburied at Blosville, France. In 1948 the body were returned to the United States for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

The 101st Airborne Museum at Fort Campbell, Kentucky bears General Pratt’s name. Museum exhibits include his awards and decorations and a personal letter written by General Eisenhower to Mrs. Pratt after the loss of the General.

He was inducted as a University of Wisconsin-Madison Army ROTC Distinguished Alumnus.

A monument near the crash site honors him at Blasville France.

Among his awards are the Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, WW I Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, French legion of Merit and French Croix de Guerre

https://screamingeagle.org/division-

https://www.lzsally.com/archives/history_o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101st_

https://www.arlingtoncemete

Fine A Grave Gen Donald Forrester Pratt (1892-1944) - Find A Grave Memorial

This story is part of the Stories Behind The Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthe stars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

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Brigadier General Don F Pratt