On Sept. 21, 1944, Pfc. Harold Roy Shelden of Douglas, Wyoming, and other members of the 82nd Airborne Division accomplished the impossible.

Their assignment was part of an audacious plan during World War II to seize bridges across the Waal River deep in Nazi-held territory so Allies could drive across the Netherlands into industrial Germany and hopefully end the war sooner than later.

It was Sept. 17, 1944, when Shelden and others in his battalion dropped out the sky. Three days later, the paratroopers sent teams in little British-supplied canvas boats to the north side of the Waal River, some using rifle butts as oars. Others stayed on the banks to prepare to assault the bridge from the Allied side. It would be a pincher attack.

Nazi resistance was fierce and members of Shelden’s company, which led the advance across the river, were sitting ducks. Yet before the day was over, the two bridges that were the Allies’ objectives were in their hands.

The next day Shelden was dead.