Vincent J. Speranza
the triple legend!

Towards the end of 1944, the 101st Airborne were pinned down in the town of Bastogne in Belgium.

The Germans had them surround and were in control of most of the town, including the field hospital. Whilst visiting a friend in the new makeshift hospital venue, a local church, the young Vincent was encouraged to try and bring some beer to cheer up some of the patients.

He found the location of a bar that had a working tap and decided to the best way to bring enough back was to fill up his helmet.

Obviously, his buddy was delighted and he ended up going on several of these beer runs for more of the wounded - eventually, the medics put a stop to these antics.

Even after many years of peacetime locals kept this town legend alive as it is a nice little story to tell visitors but they considered it to be an urban myth.

However sixty-five years after the war Vincent returned to the town and decided to visit the very same bar he had found under extremely different circumstances, here he regaled to his family this far fetched story - they were probably sceptical of how much truth there was in it.

Overhearing some of the locals ordered beers for the group, this particular drink has a picture of a GI carrying beer in a helmet cup, it is called Airborne Beer and it is served in a helmet ceramic cup in honour of that very veteran paratrooper who was drinking there that day with his family.

There is more on this here along with a great video where he tells the tale himself. Personally, I think this is a pretty great story - to know that he fought (and survived) the war, was part of a local legend and even had a beer named after him.

However, he was still not done yet. Whether this visit to the places he had been so many years previously inspired him or not Vincent decided he had another ambition, he wanted to jump out of a plane yet again!

Back home in America, enquiries were made but due to his age, no one wanted to be responsible for letting a man in his eighties, who needed a hearing aid and a cane to walk, jump out of a plane.

Eventually, he found The All Veteran Parachute Team, who supported his dream and soon helped him get his wish, the full story with photos is here I urge you to read it.

If you have been interested in this triple legend, his own book is available on Amazon in Paperback or Kindle Edition.

Thanks to @hamishchamp for use of the picture originally in this tweet