Donald Everett Bignall was born October 4, 1917 in Los Angeles, California to Joseph Donald and Lillian M Elliott Bignall. He had one younger brother, Daniel, who was born in 1919. Donald and Daniel were raised in Richmond, Contra Costa, California. Their father, Joseph, passed away in 1933. Donald graduated from high school and married Anita Harriett.

At the time he completed his WW2 draft card, Donald was employed as a station fireman with Standard Oil in Richmond where he and Anita were living. He enlisted in the US Army on September 29, 1942 in San Francisco and joined the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The 506th began their training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia in mid-1942 before moving on to Fort Benning in November for advanced airborne training. From Georgia, they moved to Camp Mackall, Tennessee for extensive tactical training including many night jumps.

In June 1943, the 506th was officially attached to the 101st and moved west to participate in the Tennessee maneuvers, then to Fort Bragg until the end of August when they moved on to Camp Shanks, New York to prepare to be transported overseas. They arrived in Liverpool, England on September 15 and started training for the Normandy invasion which would be their first combat invasion.

At 0100 hours on June 6, 1944, the 506th took off for their first combat jump. Because of bad weather and low cloud cover, many planes missed dropping their men in the planned drop zones. The men were scattered over a wide area and spent much of the day trying to regroup and battled their way to seize the high ground overlooking the beaches and give the seaborne forces a better chance of safe landings.

Corporal Donald Everett Bignall gave his life in the service of his country on D-Day. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. We honor his service and sacrifice. We will remember his story.

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

Donald E Bignall