Private First Class John Derrick "Cowboy" Halls was a member of the mortar platoon of the Second Battalion Headquaters company. Halls was played by Andrew Scott. He was mistakingly named as John D. Hall and a member of Able company in the miniseries.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Halls was born on March 24, 1922 in Mancos Montezuma County Colorado, USA.
World War II[]
Halls enlisted in the Army in 1942 at Pueblo, Colorado. After training, Halls qualified as a paratrooper at Fort Benning, and headed to England in 1943, to await further orders.
He then jumped into Normandy on June 6, 1944. He landed around the town of Ste. Mere-Eglise. He met up with 1st Lt. Richard D. Winters of Easy Company, and identifies himself as being from Able Company, and was a radioman, except he lost his radio during the jump. After meeting up with other men from E Company, and two others from the 82nd Airborne Division, Halls and the rest of his group came to the town of Ste. Marie-du-Monte.
Lt. Winters of Easy Company was assigned to lead an attack on Brecourt Manor. During the attack, Halls and Loraine from Service Company joined in the attack. Halls supplied the men with TNT to take out the guns, during the engagement Halls was killed by a land mine.
Burial[]
Halls died on June 6, 1944 in Departement du Calvados Basse-Normandie, France. He was buried in Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. [1]
Notes[]
John D. Hall, whom the series depicts as having been killed in action in the Brecourt action, may have been a member of the basketball team, but he was not a member of Able Company, as the dialogue indicates. He actually belonged to Service Company, as did Gerald Loraine. John D. Halls, same middle initial as John D. Hall, but note the 's' on his last name, was a member of the 81mm mortar platoon, of Headquarters Co., 2nd battalion, 506th PIR, and according to John Barickman of the same platoon, it was HALLS who was killed in the Brecourt fight, not HALL.
This is likely to be correct, because John D. Hall died in the plane crash of Stick #32 near Picauville, France, and all aboard were killed in that crash. Lt. Kenneth Beatty, the executive officer of of Charlie Company 506th was jumpmaster and most of the troopers aboard were Charlie Company men. In 2004, as some Brits were preparing to put-up a marker in memory of those victims at the Uppottery airfield site in the U.K., the name T-5 John D. HALL, of Service Company, appeared on the loading manifest.
Since HALL could not have made the jump at all, and since he could only be killed in action once, he was certainly NOT the trooper killed in action at the Brecourt fight.[2]