PFC Durward L. Burton
Today we honor and remember PFC Durward L. Burton of the 101st Airborne Division.
Private First Class (PFC) Durward L. Burton of Dog Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 101st Airborne Division, was born in Keya Paha County, Nebraska, to Levi G. and Martha E. (Brandt) Burton on May 17, 1919. He had two younger sisters, Bethel L. and Ruth Ann Burton.
His father had served in combat in World War I, and was permanently crippled by wounds received in action.
Durward Burton was a graduate of Plainview High School. He moved with his family to Alliance, Box Butte County, Nebraska, in 1937, and worked as a farm laborer on several farms in the area. He also worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps at a camp in Bridgeport in 1939.Â
Durward enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 1940 at Grand Island and trained at Fort Ord, California, in 1941. He was also stationed at Camp White in Jackson County, Oregon, for a few months of training. He was originally assigned to the medical corps and achieved the rank of corporal.
In April 1943, Durward was assigned to the paratroops, which led to a demotion to the rank of private as he was not a medic anymore. He received his paratrooper training at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg, Georgia, and sailed to England from New York Harbor on September 4, 1943.
On D-Day, PFC Burton was dropped into Normandy with Dog Company. In a 1999 interview for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center, Corporal Hans A. Sannes, a Wisconsin native of Dog Company, remembered what happened to PFC Durward Burton on D-Day morning. Sannes had met with him not long after they had landed on French soil. After teaming up with some others they started to go across a field when they were fired at by the Germans. PFC Burton was killed in that field by enemy fire on D-Day Morning.
Another Screaming Eagle had soared to the ultimate height. 🦅
After his initial burial at the temporary cemetery of Blosville, PVT Durward L. Burton’s body traveled back home almost four years after his untimely passing, and arrived aboard the U.S. Army Transport John L. McCarley at New York Harbor on April 3, 1948. He was re-buried on Saturday, April 24, 1948. He rests eternally at Alliance Cemetery, Alliance, Box Butte County, Nebraska.
May he rest in peace.
Happy Birthday in Heaven, Durward. Lest we forget. 🇺🇸
Sources
The Alliance Times-Herald, Nebraska; Tuesday, July 25, 1944.
The Alliance Times-Herald; Alliance, Nebraska; Tuesday, April 6, 1948.
The Daily Island Independent, Grand Island, Nebraska, Friday, June 23, 1944.
Sannes, Hans, Transcript of an Oral History Interview, Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center, 1999.