Two weeks before the largest amphibious invasion in military history was launched on D-Day, the U.S. military coordinated an exercise involving air drops over Tyler.

According to a May 20, 1944 report in the The Tyler Courier-Times, an afternoon newspaper no longer in publication, the maneuver would involve air-dropping 25 thousand pounds of equipment onto Pounds Army Airfield, which is now known as Tyler Pounds Regional Airport.

At the time, it was operated by the military and had been renamed a year earlier for Lt. Jack Pounds, the first native son of Tyler and first officer residing in Tyler to be killed in WWII, according to the city of Tyler.

A full-page newspaper ad directed Tyler residents to observe a “blackout order” from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. by turning off all lights in homes and businesses and avoiding driving on area roads.

National Guard troops from across East Texas blocked highways coming to Tyler as far away as Wills Point, the newspaper reported.

A later report on May 23, stated that “high ranking” Army officials from Washington, D.C. would be present to oversee the exercise that evening at the Tyler training base, which would be the last practice before paratroopers from the Bergstrom Air Corps station in Austin were sent overseas.

Exactly two weeks later on June 6, Bergstrom paratroopers and the crews of Waco CG-4gliders and Douglas C-47 tow planes would participate in the D-Day invasion.

In what was the largest use of airborne troops up until that point, more than 925 C-47 airplanes dropped more than 13 thousand paratroopers on the Cotentin Peninsula, according to the U.S. Army. Later in the day, four thousand men, weapons, and equipment were dropped in 500 gliders.

“The parachute troops were assigned what was probably the most difficult task of the initial operation – a night jump behind enemy lines five hours before the coastal landings.”

Since 2006, the Tyler Historic Aviation Memorial Museum has operated the old airline terminal and tower, which was build immediately following World War II.

With its extensive collection of historic artifacts and exhibits, as well as more than a dozen aircraft on static display, the museum educates the public about the development of aviation, in particular through the military.

Ivan Torres, an Vietnam War veteran of the U.S. Air Force, has volunteered at the HAMM for several years. He says it’s important to communicate the cost of war to future generations.

“We don’t want it to happen again. We want it to be used as a history, mistakes that have been corrected. Don’t let it happen again, because, actually nobody wins in a war because there’s too many people affected by it.”

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