SSgt. Robert B. David (October 9, 1919 – August 15, 1944)
509th Parachute Battalion
by Morgan Sylvia
Early Life
Robert Bixby David was born October 9, 1919, in Jacksonville, FL.1 His parents, John R. Bixby and Willie Irene Slappey, married in Duval County, FL, in December 1917.2 They had two children, Robert and his younger sister, Raybon (1921).3 Willie Irene’s father and brother both lived with the Bixbys as well. According to the 1920 census, John Bixby worked as an electrician and Willie Irene took care of her two young children.4 By 1930, however, Willie Irene and John divorced. John Bixby moved into his sister and brother-in-law’s house in Duval County, FL. Irene moved her two children to Palm Beach, FL and married Pennsylvania native James E. David, who worked in the advertising industry there.5 Irene and her new husband decided to change both children’s last names, so Robert and Raybon became Davids, and kept Bixby as their middle names, as seen in this 1940 US census record.6
Between 1930 and 1935, James David, Willie Irene, and her children moved from Palm Beach to Atlantic Beach, FL, where James David owned and operated a gas filling station with the help of his wife. Willie Irene worked as an assistant for the filling station alongside their lodger, Edward Youmans.7 It seems clear that in the middle of the Great Depression, the whole family had to pull together, and they needed the extra income that Edward brought in to make ends meet. Both Robert and Raybon graduated with high school diplomas.8 After Robert completed high school, he worked as a truck driver transporting oil and gas for the family business until he joined the US Army in 1941.9
Military Service
On October 16, 1940, more than a year before the US entered the war, twenty-one year old Robert registered for the draft in Duval County, FL.10 In July 1941, he entered the US Army at Camp Blanding in Jacksonville, FL, and, after volunteering to become a paratrooper, transferred to Fort Benning, GA, for training.11 President Roosevelt assigned Fort Benning to develop airborne forces, consequently creating the first tactical parachute battalion.12 This battalion was part of a new military tactic being tested at Fort Benning to move troops into battle via parachute. New technology enabled troops to now move by air, alongside traditional land and sea operations.13 In World War II, a paratrooper was one of the most dangerous and challenging roles in the armed forces. Volunteers like Robert had to pass a rigorous screening process before entering the intense paratrooper training program.14 At Fort Benning, Robert most likely began training with the 504th Parachute Battalion. The 504th Parachute Battalion reorganized into the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment in February 1942 and moved from Georgia to Fort Bragg, NC, a month later.15
In June 1942, the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment sailed to Chilton Foliat, England.16 Robert and the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment continued training about seventy miles west of London with the British 1st Parachute Brigade. There, the 503rd reorganized again as the 2nd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment.17 The 509th Regiment came to be known as the “Geronimos.” This was because test platoon men watched a movie about Apache Chief Geronimo on the night before their first mass jump and when they jumped, they screamed “Geronimo!” which became a tradition for the 509ers and future paratroopers.18
On November 7, 1942, Robert and his regiment planned to fly to Oran, a major coastal city in north-western Algeria to assist troops with Operation Torch, the Allied name for the campaign to take North Africa from the Axis powers. As a result of miscommunication and bad weather, a number of the planes carrying the battalion landed in Gibraltar, French Morocco, Spanish Morocco, and different parts of Algeria. In some cases, those who landed in Algeria were arrested by the civil police.19 Because of this, the 509th Parachute Regiment did not participate in the battle for Oran as a whole. Some of the battalion, nevertheless, helped the Allied troops seize the Tafarquay Airport in Oran the next day on November 8, making it the first American combat airborne operation. Once the 509th reassembled, they flew over six hundred miles east toward the Tunisian border where they made their second combat jump in the small town of Youks les Bains, which had another strategic airstrip.20
Once the Allied forces took North Africa, they launched a campaign to invade Italy. From July to August 1943, they successfully took the island of Sicily, which pushed the Italian government to surrender on September 8, 1943.21 The German troops in Italy, however, continued to fight and so on September 14, Robert and 600 soldiers from the 509th Parachute Infantry landed near Avellino, Italy. Hoping to prevent German reinforcements from reaching Salerno, the troops began Operation Giant III, destroying important roads in the region. An extremely risky operation, the troops spent almost three weeks behind enemy lines. Many paratroopers landed out of range, forcing them to hide among the hills, while those who managed to drop near the landing zone destroyed infrastructure used by Axis powers.22
After some rest, the US Army commanders attached Robert and the Geronimos to the 1st Ranger Battalion and they returned to combat in the mountains near Venafro, Italy.23 On November 11, they attacked pockets of enemy resistance at Mount Santa Croce, a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea about ten miles south of Genoa in northern Italy, when fragments of an explosive ordinance struck Robert in the back. He was admitted to the hospital for a lumbar contusion and released in late November.24 For his first injury in combat, Robert earned a Purple Heart.25
Just one month after being discharged from the hospital, his commanders deployed Robert to participate in the amphibious attack at the Anzio Beachhead in January 1944. He once again packed his parachute and prepared for his next attack. The Geronimos, attached to the 45th Infantry Division, landed on yellow beach at Anzio Beachhead with a goal of seizing the German controlled port city only forty miles southeast of Rome.26 The Germans, who held strong defensive positions in the hills over the beach, were ruthless with their counter attacks, killing or injuring many Allied troops, including Robert.27 He suffered a groin injury from artillery shell fragments and spent a month in the hospital, until February 1944, for which he received the first Oak Leaf Cluster on his Purple Heart.28 Robert had not yet rejoined his comrades when, on February 8, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion captured ten prisoners, killed twenty-five enemy soldiers, and occupied Nettuno, the Italian beach village just behind Anzio.29
Robert had some time to recover from his dreadful winter injuries while the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion prepared for their next operation. The military command attached the Geronimos to the 1st Airborne Task Force, a temporary unit formed for Operation Dragoon. After defeating most of the German forces in Italy, the Allied leaders turned their attention to the liberation of France, which took place in two stages. In June, their forces landed at the beaches of Normandy in northern France, and on August 15 another force landed along France’s southern coast in Operation Dragoon. As part of the operation, the 509th, with the 1st Airborne Task Force, were supposed to execute amphibious airlanding in LeMuy, a small town in the hills off the coast of the French Mediterranean, to prevent enemy movement into the area. As a result of dense fog and navigational errors, half of the Geronimos landed off course, along with about sixty percent of paratroopers in this operation.30 On the dawn of the first day of this operation, Robert David and sixteen other parachutists from the 509th jumped early and landed in the water of the gulf of St. Tropez. None of them survived.31
Robert was one of ninety-two American and British paratroopers who died between August 15 and 19, 1944, in Operation Dragoon.32 While the Army must have informed Robert’s family that he was missing in action, it did not declare him dead for at least one year, as his family included him as “serving in the US Army” when reporting for the 1945 Florida Census.33 The 509ers continued fighting, assisting Allied troops in the seizure of much of southern France, including the cities of Toulon and Marseille. The occupation of these two port cities provided the Allies with critical supply infrastructure, including much needed oil for trucks and tanks, for the battles ahead. After landing in mid-August, the 509th captured more than 50,000 German soldiers in two short weeks, an indication of how quickly the Allies moved into German occupied France.34
Legacy
Staff Sergeant Robert David was never found. We commemorate him on the Tablets of the Missing Soldier in Draguignan, France, at the Rhone American Cemetery.35 Originally created as a temporary cemetery in August 1944, the US Army permanently established the Rhone Cemetery after France granted the US free use of the land, as it has for all US cemeteries from both World War I and World War II on French soil.36 After the war, the citizens of St. Tropez erected a monument, seen here, to the seventeen parachutists who were lost at sea and never recovered.37
At the time of his death, Robert David reached the position of Staff Sergeant and earned a Purple Heart with two Oak Clusters and a Bronze Star.38 The Bronze Star is a US Army decoration awarded for heroic service in a combat zone. We do not know when in his service Robert David received this award, but it was likely for his actions at Anzio or on the beaches of southern France. As a regiment, the 509th received a Presidential Unit Citation for their courageous actions at the Anzio Beachhead, and the French Croix de Guerre for their “outstanding heroism” during the landings of Operation Dragoon.39 Robert David persevered through two injuries and fought for his country, for the Allies, and for the liberation of North Africa, Italy, and France, until his last day. He left behind his mother, father, stepfather, and sister.40
In 2014, the 509th Parachute Infantry Association conducted commemoration activities in Southern France for the Seventieth Anniversary of Operation Dragoon. The WWII Airborne Demonstration Team performed airborne operations in aircrafts utilized in the European Theatre during the war.41 In doing so they honored Robert David and his comrades. While Robert David’s life ended prematurely at the age of twenty-five, his legacy and the legacy of the original 509ers live on in history. We learn about them as the brave and strong men who yelled Geronimo to help bring down the German war machine.
1 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 15, February 2021), entry for Robert Bixby David, serial number 1863.
2 “Florida Marriages, 1837-1974,” database, Familysearch.org (http://www.familysearch.org: accessed March 2, 2021) entry for John Bixby and Willie Irene Slappey, Duval County, Florida.
3 “1940 United States Census,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 3, 2021), entry for Robert Bixby David, Duval County, Florida.
4 “1920 United States Census,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: assessed April 15, 2021), entry for John R. Bixby, Duval County, Florida.
5 “1930 United States Census,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 1, 2021), entry for Robert Bixby David, Duval County, Florida and for James David, Palm Beach, Florida.
6 “1940 United States Census.”
7 “1940 United States Census;” “1935 Florida State Population Census,” database, Familysearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-66Y9-68P?i=23&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AMNVS-N78: accessed March 23, 2021), entry for Robert David, Duval County, Florida.
8 “1945 Florida State Population Census,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 1, 2021), entry for Robert Bixby David, Duval County, Florida.
9 “Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 – 1946 (Enlistment Records),” database, The National Archives, access to Archival Database (https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=3&cat=all&q=Robert+B.+David&mtch=3&bc=&rpp=10&pg=1&tf=F&rid=4500346&rlst=465230,4500346,6421194), entry for Robert B David, service number 34054782.
10 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards.” In September 1940, the US initiated its first ever peacetime draft, which began a full year before it entered the war after the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941.
11 “Electronic Army Serial Number.” A warrant officer is a category of rank below a regular or commissioned officer, but above a private.
12 “Fort Bragg History,” US Army Fort Bragg, accessed February 28, 2021, https://home.army.mil/bragg/index.php/about/fort-bragg-history.
13 Wright, John M., “A Brief History of Fort Benning”, Infantry Magazine, 1968, accessed February 28, 2021, https://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/magazine/issues/2018/Jul-Sep/PDF/12)BenningHistory_txt.pdf.
14 Clark Archer, “Standing Alone,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey: A History of the 517th Parachute Combat Team (Hudson, FL: 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team Association, 1985), https://517prct.org/documents/odyssey/odyssey_history.htm.
15 “509th Infantry Regiment,” The Army Historical Foundation, accessed March 20, 2021, https://armyhistory.org/509th-infantry-regiment/.
16 For more on the US Air Force’s activities in England, see the American Air Museum in Britain, http://www.americanairmuseum.com/.
17 “509th Infantry Regiment.”
18 William B. Breuer, Geronimo! (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 6.
19 Charles R. Anderson, “Algeria-French Morocco,” (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1993), 23, accessed March 2, 2021, https://history.army.mil/brochures/algeria/algeria.htm.
20 “509th Infantry Regiment.”
21 Andrew J. Birtle, “Sicily 1943,” U.S. Army Center of Military History, accessed July 13, 2021, https://history.army.mil/brochures/72-16/72-16.htm.
22 J. Rickard, “Operation Giant III, 14-15 September 1943,” History of War, accessed March 10, 2021, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/operation_giant_III.html.
23 “509th Infantry Regiment.”
24 U.S. Army, From the Volturno To the Winter Line (Military Intelligence Division, US War Dept., 1945), 102, accessed March 1, 2021, https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/volturno/volturno-fm.htm#cont; “U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 22, 2021) entry for Robert B David, service number 34054782, November 1943.
25 “Robert B. David,” American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed March 1, 2021, https://www.abmc.gov/decedent-search/david%3Drobert-0.
26 Milan Vego, “The Allied Landing At Anzio-Nettuno, 22 January–4 March 1944: Operation Shingle,” Naval War College Review 67, no. 4 (2014): 94-2, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26397798.
27 “509th Infantry Regiment.”
28 “U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 21, 2021) entry for Robert B David, service number 34054782, January 1944. After a soldier receives his first Purple Heart, every subsequent Purple Heart is represented by an Oak Leaf Cluster on the original Purple Heart.
29 Roy Lamson Jr. and Stetson Conn, Anzio Beachhead (Washington DC: Department of Army, Historical Division, 1948).
30 Stewart, Anton, Costello, et. al., CSI BattleBook: Operation Anvil/Dragoon (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 1995), 40, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a151685.pdf.
31 “U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed February 15, 2021) entry for Robert B David, service number 34054782, August 1944; “SSgt. Robert B. David,” Find a Grave, accessed August 10, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56510608/robert-b-david.
32 “First Airborne Task Force- The Forgotten Paratroopers,” First Airborne Task Force, accessed March 19, 2021, https://1stabtf.com/en/operation-dragoon-rugby-force/
33 “1945 Florida State Population Census.”
34 Cameron Zinsou, “The Strategic and Operational Debate Over Operation Anvil: The Allied Invasion of Southern France in August 1944,” (M.A. Diss., University of North Texas, 2013), 108.
35 “Robert B David,” American Battle Monuments Commission.
36 “Rhone American Cemetery and Memorial,” American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed March 12, 2021, https://www.abmc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/Rhone%20American%20Cemetery%20and%20Memorial%20%282019%20brochure%29.pdf
37 “SSgt. Robert B. David,” Find a Grave; “Monuments of the 509th Parachute Infantry,” 509thgeronimo.org, accessed August 10, 2021, https://www.509thgeronimo.org/monuments/fmonuments.html.
38 “Robert B David, American Battle Monuments Commission.”
39 “509th Infantry Regiment;” “Muy en Provence,” 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, accessed June 29, 2021, https://509thpia.org/unitawards/unitcroixdeguerre.html.
40 “1945 Florida State Population Census.”
41 “We Have Our Orders,” 509th Parachute Infantry Association Newsletter, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2014, accessed March 1, 2021, https://509th.org/resources/SiteNewsletters/2014.01_Volume_2_Issue_2.pdf.