In 2014, to celebrate the 70th D-Day anniversary in Normandy, France, then 93-year-old veteran paratrooper Jim Martin once again did a parachute jump over Normandy, making a tandem jump from another D-Day veteran, a C-47 Dakota.
Jim Martin served as a paratrooper in the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, which was vital in achieving the liberation of France and played an important part in liberating the rest of Europe from the Nazi Germans.
Jim “Pee Wee” Martin is one of the few “Toccoa Originals” of the famous WWII era 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles” who remain with us. Jim continues to meet the public and carry forward the legacy of his experiences and lessons learned on D-Day in Normandy, during “Operation Market Garden” in Holland, in the snow outside Bastogne during the “Battle of the Bulge” and under Hitler’s “Eagles Nest” in Berchtesgaden.
He does this as a representative of those he served with during The Second World War, and in the hope that this history and those lessons will not be forgotten.
He is very open about his current status as a celebrity, he once said: “Well, to begin with I’m here because my only claim to fame is I outlived almost everybody that was with me. So there’s nobody around right now to refute what I’m saying.”