The Screaming Eagles Living History Group and the First Allied Airborne Association

On the 10th of October 2010, a group of men and women about 70 strong gathered at a country house called Littlecote House near Hungerford on the Berkshire/Wiltshire borders.

They had a specific aim in mind, and that was to walk or march for 13 miles across the Wiltshire hills across country from Littlecote House to Aldbourne and back as a sponsored march to raise money for the Help for Heroes Charity and the Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

Fair enough you might think; a nice stroll in the country. However, these people are all World War 2 living history re-enactors depicting American forces in the European Theatre of Operations between 1943 to 1945.



More specifically, they are the Screaming Eagles Living History Group and the First Allied Airborne Association.

Of course, this meant that all of the men marching had to wear full combat equipment consisting of webbing, a musette backpack, a rifle or machine gun, and a steel helmet. Most of the marchers were therefore carrying over 25 lbs of equipment for the march as well then, some more.

Needless to say. this made the 13 miles more challenging, plus the fact that it was up hills and down hills. Littlecote House and Aldbourne village was the English base of the 101st Airborne paratroops during World War 2.



The Screaming Eagles represent the men that were in "Easy Company" of the 101st Airborne, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army during World War 2. They were made famous by their daring exploits during D-Day, Operation Market Garden, depicted in the film "A Bridge too Far", the German counterattack known as "The Battle of the Bulge" in the Ardennes and the taking of Hitler's Eagles Nest in Berchtesgaden, southern Germany.

After the success of the film "Saving Private Ryan", Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks made the HBO series "Band of Brothers", which some of you may have watched. I highly recommend it.





Everyone completed the march which started at 9.00 am and finished at 4:00 pm. There were many sore feet, and it did get warm in the afternoon so a bit of dehydration, but no one died!!!! Which is good. I completed the march in the end, and so did my 16 year old son Ben who is in the group as well.

Although we don't currently know the actual final total we will raise for the march it should be around £5,000. I hope you enjoy the pictures, these are taken by Martin Struik and Jenny Hutchinson of CandAImages. They are fantastic photographers and if you wish to see more images taken by them this is their website address :

www.candaimages.com



If you are interested in joining the 101st Airborne Living History Group "The Screaming Eagles" the website address is as follows. The 101st Captain's name is Dave Allaway:

www.screamingeagleslhg.co.uk

The First Allied Airborne link is:

www.faaa.me.uk

Thanks are due to all my colleagues at PrecisionPoint Software who were all very generous in their sponsorship and the staff at Clarendon who have been very supportive and also sponsored us. It was a challenging day but a very good cause and one I won't forget for a long time.

Niall Kynoch
Private
506th PIR
101st Airborne Division
U.S. Army

Currahee!!!