THREE RIVERS AREA — Nelson Gatewood was one of the young paratroopers who sat on the C-47, a two-engine military transport aircraft, awaiting his turn to jump from the open door. The troops completed two weeks of training at Fort Benning, Ga. The third week was Jump Week, and the troops had to have five successful airborne operations to qualify for their basic parachutist wings and be assigned to an airborne unit.

“Parachute training is very rigid training,” Gatewood said. “There were dignitaries there who wanted to see a night jump, so we did a sixth jump.”

Gatewood explained how at night, the highways look like water, and the water looks like a highway. The landings for each are different, and the soldier must unhook himself from the chute before hitting the water.

“There were times when someone thought they were landing in water, but they were landing on cement,” Gatewood said.

In the spring of 1944, the southern Ohio farm boy who now lives in Hardy was assigned to the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team (PRCT) and found himself on his way to New Guinea.

“You have a job to do, and we felt that we were welltrained,” Gatewood said about preparing for deployment. “We didn’t concern ourselves whether we were going to get killed.”

Korean War veteran Leonard Holden of Hardy believes the thought process and priorities change as people get older.

“Eighteen- to 20-year-olds - you don’t think about those things (being killed) as much as when we are older,” Holden said.

The 503rd PRCT was on its way to Mindoro Island inthe central Philippines when Gatewood said a Japanese kamikaze emerged from the clouds and flew into the center of one of the cruisers.

“It killed quite a few, but the ship stayed with us until dusk, and it went back for repairs,” Gatewood said.

Dec. 15, 1944, the team was at Mindoro Island.

The intense training paid off when the men endured a five-day 110-mile hike as well as jumping onto a small drop zone that was only 500 yards long. Six men at a time jumped out of a plane traveling 120 mph.

“A lot of generals said it couldn’t be done because there was not enough room, but we did it,” Gatewood said. “Some guys would land before or after (the drop zone). A lot got shot by the Japanese.”

The men weren’t being let out of the planes alone. Crates of disassembled howitzers were also dropped. The team was responsible for collecting the crates and re-assembling the guns. Out of the four guns dropped, only one was lost.

“Everybody knew their jobs,” Gatewood said. “They wanted to make me a gunner, and I put my fingers in my ears, and there was a a change in elevation and I didn’t hear it and got chewed out. They moved me to wire and communications.”

At Christmastime around Mindoro Island, the 503rdhad to stay in 3-foot-deep foxholes when Japanese forces began shelling them.

“The Air Force got planes up and took care of the ship,” Gatewood said. “They quit shelling us and took off.”

World War II’s famous parachute team also conducted several maneuvers on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines. Located near the entrance of the Philippines’ Manila Bay, Corregidor is often called “the Rock” because of its rocky terrain.

Feb. 16, 1945, was the team’s most famous operation when it landed on the island. In what is said to be its most intense combat action, the 503rd jumped to help liberate the Corregidor from occupying Japanese forces.

“We jumped on the ground before the Japanese realized we were there,” Gatewood said. “I jumped, my chute opened, and I landed in a bomb crater.”

From the weight of the ammunition in his jumpsuit pocket, it ripped when he landed hard in the crater.

“I felt like I had a broken rib and a little blood on my forehead,” Nelson said. “I stayed down. I heard hand grenades and Tommy guns.”

The next day, things got worse for Gatewood. As he was pulling a howitzer around totake out a Japanese soldier in a pillbox, the Japanese soldier opened up on them with a machine gun.

“I felt like I’d been hit with the side of a hand,” Gatewood said about when he was hit in the leg with machine gunfire.

Luckily, Gatewood said, his bone hadn’t been hit, so he could still walk.

“I went to a hospital ship, they sent a stretcher down for me, they told me I couldn’t get out of bed for five days, but I did anyway,” Gatewood said with a laugh. “My kids ask if it hurt,and I say, ‘no, I was tough in those days.’”

After a few months to recover, Gatewood was ready for redeployment in mid-May.

“When I got back to the outfit, we went to Negros (an island of the Philippines). We had our bags packed and terrain studies and were scheduled to jump right into the middle of Japan when the war ended,” Gatewood said. “We would have been the first ones in and probably would have been slaughtered. I am here because of the atomic bomb.”

Gatewood’s 20-month tour ended in May 1946.

The unit received a Presidential Unit Citation and the nickname of “the Rock Regiment” for the successful capture.

After returning stateside, Gatewood spent 40 years working for Ohio Bell Telephone Company. While at the fair in Dayton, Gatewood visited a representative from Cherokee Village, Arkansas.

“I bought a chance to win a television set, and they sent me a vacation trip to Cherokee Village, and we came down and decided we liked it,” Gatewood said. “In 1977, we built a house; in 1982, I retired; in 1984, we moved down.”

Currently, Gatewood is on the American Veterans Memorial committee and was instrumental in the construction ofthe memorial in Ash Flat.

- jbrosius@ arkansasonline.commatter of fact

Birthdate: Dec. 28, 1923

Occupation: Retired telephone facility engineer

Family includes: Wife, Phyllis, two daughters, one

son, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren

Hobbies: Clowning, gardening, traveling the United

States, volunteering (mostly for veterans)

My name comes from: Scottish ancestry

Most people don’t know I’m: A clown and make

balloon animals

I cannot live without: My wife

Three Rivers, Pages 131 on 11/08/2009