Minister’s Message: The Parachuting Padre

Minister’s Message: The Parachuting Padre

In the early hours of June 6, 1944, Allied troops descended into Normandy on D-Day. One of the men jumping from the planes was not carrying a rifle. Father Francis Sampson, nicknamed the “Parachuting Padre,” entered the chaos as a chaplain. Military chaplains traditionally serve unarmed as under the rules of war, they are considered noncombatants. Sampson parachuted into the battle carrying nothing but his calling to minister to frightened and w…