21 Facts About Darrell Powers

Darrell Cecil "Shifty" Powers was a non-commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II.

Darrell Powers's father was an excellent rifle and pistol shot and taught him how to shoot when he was young.

Darrell Powers spent a great deal of time in the outdoors, hunting game.

Darrell Powers got to the point where he could throw a coin in the air and hit it with a rifle.

Darrell Powers graduated from high school and took a machinist course in a vocational school in Norfolk.

Darrell Powers was shocked to see that the residents there were prepared to defend themselves against the Germans with only garden implements.

Darrell Powers thought it would have been a massacre if the Germans had indeed invaded Aldbourne.

Darrell Powers participated in the Allied military operation Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.

Darrell Powers fought in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

On 29 December 1944, when Easy Company was staying in the woods, Darrell Powers noticed a tree that was not there just the day before and reported it to First Sergeant Carwood Lipton.

Darrell Powers was one of the very few who was never wounded in combat.

Darrell Powers joined and won the lottery that was organized to allow one man from each company to return home early on a furlough.

Darrell Powers spent many months recuperating in hospitals overseas while his comrades in arms arrived home long before he did.

Honorably discharged from the Army in the postwar demobilization, Darrell Powers became a machinist.

Darrell Powers was married to his wife Dorothy for 60 years at the time of his death.

Darrell Powers moved to California, got a machinist job there and stayed there for three years with his family.

Darrell Powers was laid off when the company he worked for lost a government contract, so he returned home.

Darrell Powers worked as a machinist for the Clinchfield Coal Corporation for more than twenty years.

Darrell Powers died of lung cancer on 17 June 2009, in Dickenson County, Virginia.

Darrell Powers is buried at Temple Hill Memorial Park, Castlewood, Russell County, Virginia.

Darrell Powers was a character, played by Peter Youngblood Hills, in the HBO Band of Brothers TV miniseries.