Sampson conducting burial in a makeshift cemetery in Normandy
With the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, Sampson assisted in the D-Day landings. He was on the first flight and landed in the Douve River, diving several times to retrieve his Mass kit. The 501st helped to gain an Allied toehold at Carentan on the coast of France. Sampson stayed with the wounded who could not be moved at a large farmhouse, which had been used as the unit's command post until it moved farther away from enemy lines.[1]
The area became taken over by units of the 6. Fallschirmjäger. He was taken prisoner by two soldiers, who did not believe his non-combatant status as they had never seen a paratrooper chaplain before.[4] Sampson was put up against a hedgerow to be shot; Sampson recalled that he was so frightened that instead of reciting an Act of Contrition, the usual prayer for the forgiveness of sins, he kept repeating to himself the Catholic blessing before meals.[4][5]: 63 [note 1] Rescued at the last minute by a German noncommissioned officer who was Catholic, Sampson was escorted to a nearby German intelligence post, where he was interrogated, found harmless and then released.[1] He returned to the medic station at Basse-Addeville (Saint-Côme-du-Mont) and helped treat both German and American wounded soldiers.[3]
After briefly returning to England, Sampson jumped into Holland on 17 September 1944. During the jump, he accidentally hit another parachutist, and both fell in the moat of Heeswijk Castle. Both climbed out, but Sampson had to return into the water to retrieve his equipment.[6] Participating in the Battle of the Bulge, he ended up being captured by German forces in Belgium, near Bastogne.[1] He spent six months in a German prison near Berlin until the liberation of the camp in April 1945.[3][7] Sampson insisted on being in the enlisted area of the camp rather than the more comfortable area for imprisoned officers.[8] He received the Bronze Star for his work among the prisoners. As the camp was being bombed by Allied forces, Sampson tended to the wounded and dying.[9]
Sampson was briefly in Japan after the end of the war.[10]: 28
Post–World War II
In October 1945, Sampson returned to the United States and briefly served again at Dowling Catholic High School in Des Moines. He returned to active duty in July 1946, as a regimental chaplain with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.[1] He was regimental chaplain with the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment from 1947 to 1951. In 1950, he para dropped into Korea, near Sunchon. His time in Korea was spent trying to save American prisoners of war. After that deployment, he served as an instructor at the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Fort Slocum, New York, until 1954. For some time he was assigned to Fort Monroe in Virginia. He was named a monsignor with the rank domestic prelate on 6 January 1963.[8] In 1961, Sampson was promoted to full colonel. He served as Seventh Army Chaplain from 1962 to 1965 and then as the USCONARC Staff Chaplain in 1965.[1][3] He also briefly served Cardinal Francis Spellman, at the time Apostolic Vicar for the Military Services, as a vicar delegate for Europe in July 1962.[8]
Chief of Chaplains
Sampson visits soldiers wounded in Vietnam at a military hospital in Japan in 1971.
In 1966, Sampson was appointed as the Deputy Chief of Chaplains of the United States Army and promoted to the rank of brigadier general. On 28 July 1967, he was nominated by Lyndon B. Johnson for the office of Chief of Chaplains. The Senate confirmed the nomination on 18 August 1967; as such, Sampson was promoted to major general.[11] In the midst of the Vietnam War, the appointment of a decorated war hero as the Chief of Chaplains was seen as a way to rehabilitate the image of the military; however, he faced a great uphill battle.[10]: 127–128 During the Vietnam War, he made annual Christmas visits to the troops.[1] He noted the issues with drugs and alcohol that the soldiers struggled with and saw it as a spiritual issue that chaplains were responsible for caring for.[12]: 3 Prior to his retirement, he approved a five-year plan for the chaplaincy, focusing on ministry, training, and administration.[12]: 28
Sampson retired as Chief of Chaplains on 31 July 1971.[10]: 128
Sampson died of cancer at age 83 on 28 January 1996. He is buried at St Catherine Cemetery in Luverne, Minnesota.[3][1]
Legacy
Sampson amassed over 100 jumps as a paratrooper.[7] He wrote two books about his experiences, The Paratrooper Padre in 1948 and Look Out Below! in 1958.[8]
Two years after Sampson's death, the film Saving Private Ryan was released. The film was loosely based on the story of a soldier named Fritz Niland.[13] During the course of the D-Day attacks, Fritz learned his brothers William and Roland had died on 6 and 7 June, and a third brother, Edward, had gone missing over Burma in the Pacific Theater. After learning this, Sampson insisted to Fritz that arrangements be made for his return to the United States, and filed the paperwork to do so.[5]: 78–79 Edward was later found in a prisoner-of-war camp and returned home after the war.[14][1]
^The Catholic Prayer before Meals: "Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive through Thy bounty through Christ Our Lord, Amen."[5]: 63
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