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Honor A Veteran
Mitchell
Sullivan
Staff
Sergeant
82nd
Airborne Division
United
States Army, World War II
Hometown:
Kansas City, Missouri
Mitchell Sullivan was making a good living selling
insurance when news of the Japanese Attack on the American fleet at Pearl
Harbor was announced. He told his family that he had to do his duty, and
enlisted within a week of the attack.
After months of training, Mitchell was assigned to a stateside slot at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He chaffed at not being allowed to fight, and
made friends with a company clerk with the 82nd Airborne
Division, which was training at Fort Bragg. He managed to get transferred,
earned his jump wings, and in early 1943 he finally boarded ship for North
Africa. He took part in Operation Husky, in which the 82nd
parachuted into Sicily.
Promoted to Staff Sergeant, Mitchell saw combat with the 82nd
Airborne until they were recalled to England to train for D-Day. But a
week before the massive invasion, Sergeant Sullivan broke his leg in a
training jump. It was determined that the damage to his leg would not
allow him to jump again, and he was assigned to an administrative position
until the war ended.
Back home in Kansas, Mitchell took advantage of the GI Bill to go to
college, and then returned to the insurance industry, from which he
retired in 1990. He moved to Florida two years later, and is active in
veterans’ affairs and his church.
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