Lt. Col. Gerhard L. Bolland was a proud Norwegian American from the farming town of Madison, Minnesota. He started his military career in 1926 in the Minnesota National Guard and was eventually accepted into West Point. An excellent soldier who excelled both physically and intellectually, Bolland graduated from West Point with a B.S. degree and a curricula heavy in military engineering subjects and became a qualified parachutist on July 4, 1942 after training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Versatile and unconventional, Bolland’s energy and drive would serve him well both as a paratrooper and later as an officer in the Special Operations Branch of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services).
Attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel on May 17, 1943, Bolland served as the Regiment Executive Officer of the 507th Parachute Infantry from May 28, 1944 to Nov. 24 of that year. He would jump behind enemy lines on D-Day from the 82nd Airborne Division’s lead aircraft along with Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin, known as “The Jumping General,” and fought in Normandy continuously for 33 days. Bolland later felt called to serve in the Scandinavian Section of the OSS’s Special Operations Branch, as he had strong feelings about his ancestral land of
