Coronado native drew international headlines late in life by doing tandem jumps to honor service members who didn't come home from the war
Tom Rice, a World War II paratrooper who jumped into Normandy on D-Day and in his later years marked anniversaries of that pivotal battle by jumping again, died Thursday at his home in Coronado. He was 101.
“I came home and they didn’t,” he once told the Union-Tribune. “I don’t want anybody to forget them.” In the early morning hours of D-Day, June 6, 1944, he was among some 18,000 paratroopers who flew from England to German-occupied France at the leading edge of the largest air, sea and land invasion in history.
He linked up with 50 other paratroopers and glider pilots, signaling to each other with clickers and passwords. At one point, they surprised and captured hundreds of Germans.Near the end of D-Day, he and two other soldiers guarding a canal gate killed a German soldier in a firefight. They made a crude cross out of tree limbs and buried him in a garden. Rice could tell by a patch on the German’s uniform that he was a paratrooper, too. He took the patch.
Over the years, Rice became a regular presence at veterans and military events here and elsewhere, especially as the number of World War II vets dwindled. He was featured in a documentary film about the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Hilltop High named its library after him in 2019.
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