Ed Haider
Ed Haider grew up during the depression on St. Paul’s east side.  His first love during those early years was baseball and hoped to play in the major leagues, however WW2 intervened.  Ed enlisted in the Army at age 20 and joined Airborne in April of 1942.  After rigorous training he was assigned to the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) of the 82nd Airborne Division led by General Mathew Ridgeway.

On July 9th 1943 Ed, as a member of “X “Battalion of the 505 PIR bailed out of a C-47 moments before it crashed into a mountain in German held Sicily.  Under fire  and stunned by the loss of his  “stick” Ed gathered his wits and crawled away from the machine guns raking the area.  The beginning of his nightmare experience was underway.
Ed Haider’s Book “Blood In Our Boots” is a first hand account, both serious and humorous, of daily life as a POW as well as an account of his forced march across Germany in Feb 1945, ahead of the advancing Russian Army.