Ben Rensin

*"Where's our drop zone, Nez?...And what is our target, Grunauer?...And why would the Nazi's put a radio-jamming tower on top of a church, Private Boyce?...Good Christ Almighty, Boyce. They put it on a church because the nazi's are rotten sons of bitches. And rotten sons of bitches will do anything they have to to destroy everything that is good in this world! That is why we have to be just as rotten as they are.  Am I clear? There are gonna be over 120,000 Allied soldiers fighting their way onto a French beach in the name of all that is good and pure in this world. Those men are gonna need air support! That support will not make it through Jerry's defenses if we do not get that tower down by 0600. So what do you have to do?...That's right. Your goddamn job."―*Resin making sure his squad is sharp for there own mission.

Ben Rensin is a supporting character in the live-action spin-off film Overlord. He is the father of American Revolutionist Grace Walker. Rensin was a World War I veteran who lied about his age where he joined the 369th Infantry Regiment and fought some of the roughest battles. Afterward, he became a Drill Sergeant before he joined the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. When Executive order 9981 was signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 555th were folded to the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division. He became one of the first colored soldiers lead white troopers to battle. On the eve of D-Day, Rensin and his men have been dropped into France, in order to take out a satellite tower in a Nazi-controlled church. But things don't go to plan and their plane is shot down en route.

## Biography

Rensin was born on April 13, 1903, in the capital of Mississippi to parents who were slaves. During his childhood living in the segregated Jim Crow South and at the age of 14, He ran from home and go to New York City to have a better. Unfortunately, by the time Rensin came to New York, the United States entered World War I, and many African Americans believed that entering the armed forces would help eliminate racial discrimination throughout the United States. In 1917, he decided to join the United States Army, however, due to his age, he lied about and was assigned to the 369th Infantry Regiment, 93rd Infantry Division, and took part in battles such as the Second Battle of the Marne and the Meuse–Argonne offensive.

After the Great War, Rensin moved back to Mississippi after getting a letter from his mother that his girlfriend is pregnant, so he moved back to see her and their unborn child. When returning to the South, Rensin, one of many black soldiers in the years after the war, were threatened with violence if they were caught wearing their uniform. Many others were even physically attacked, sometimes barely escaping with their lives, or even lynched by the hands of the KKK. As Rensin made it to his home town in Jackson, he got jumped by a small group of Klan and so close to death as he was hanging from a poplar tree. Luckily out of nowhere, Rensin found a pocket knife in his pocket and used it to cut himself free; as he manage get himself and was confused of not having any recollection of having a pocket knife or picking up one. He speculates that it was God who put that knife in his pocket and saved him.

Mouths after this incident, Resins' girlfriend gave birth to their daughter, Grace and continued to serve in the 93rd (Despite almost losing his life and the US government failing men like him for not protecting them from the discrimination, racism,, murders and hate crimes) where he rose up to the ranks of sergeant. As the United States entered World War II after the Japanese attacked of Pearl Harbor, the 93rd Infantry Division was still training; but Rensin on the other hand wanted to do something he never done before, so in December 1943, Rensin became one of the first black soldiers to be paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion as smokejumpers who take out or preventing wildfires in places like California from Japanese balloon bombs despite being in his 40s.

## Being an equal

Everything changed when in March 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9981, and every colored soldiers from segregated units are folded into white units. Rensin and some paratroopers of the 555th either heard the news or received letter from both the US government and US military that were folded in both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions from the preparation of the liberation of France.

As the black paratroopers are getting to blend with along with white paratroopers. Rensin, Privates Edward Boyce and Charlie Dawson met a cocky paratrooper Lyle Tibbet, Morton Chase an Army photographer, and Jacob Rosenfeld a Jewish paratrooper. During the first weeks of desegregation, Tibbet hated of three of the men because of the color of their skin and both constantly rip on them and bullied Boyce the most, Rosenfield on the other hand, he can understand what it feels like to be discriminated against daily and became friends with Boyce. Then one night inside of the Army barracks, a big mouse kept craping on Rensins pillow, so Rensin (Who was pointed as leader of Little Groups of Paratroopers) orders Boyce, Tibbet, and Rosenfield to go find the mouse and kill it. Boyce managed to catch the mouse in his jump boot and as he was about to kill the mouse, it reminded him is home in Louisiana and let the mouse go and set it loose in a field. The next day, this resulted in the mouse craping on Rensins pillow and making everybody run hills all night because of it.

## Being a leader

On June 5th, 1944, the Allied forces launched their forces to prepare for Operation Overlord also known as D-Day, Resin is in charge of a squad of 18 paratroopers are given a secret mission to take out a radio jamming tower located at the town center of the French village of CielBlanc. As the men prepare to jump behind enemy lines. Before flying to France, He met Lewis Ford, a paratrooper that who transferred to the 82nd Airborne, they showed to respect we one another about their experiences when it comes to war and being victims of being both physically and emotionally tortured by hate groups and assigned him as his second in command and their explosive expert for their mission. As the men talk to each other about what they are going to do when they get to Berlin before Rensin shows up without wearing his parachute gear (Believing it makes him superior and makes him feel entitled against some of the white paratroopers who talk behind his back and distrust him because of his skin color) with his Winchester 1897 shotgun, leaving everybody both confused and in shocked, even for Boyce and Dawson. He starts asking his men where the drop zone is and where's their target is, one by one answer his questions correctly, then Rensin put Boyce on the spot by asking him why the Nazi's have a radio on top of a church and Boyce fails to answer because they were never told anything that part, so Rensin replies that the Nazis are "rotten sons of bitches" and they will anything they have to destroy anything that is good in the world and so they have to be just as rotten as they are. Before heading back to the cockpit of the C-47, Rensin reminds paratroopers what is the mission and says there are gonna be a hundred and twenty Allied troopers fighting on their way to the beaches but they can't without air support if the radio tower isn't by 06:00 am and tells them to do there jobs and used the 101st paratroopers (Who have been trained for two years) Battlecry against them and heads back with a smirk on his face.

## All hell broke loose

*"It's just a little Kraut hello, ladies. Hold your seat and stay calm. We jump when the light tells us."*―Resin trying to calm the paratroopers down.

By midnight the C-47 started to rumble, the paratroopers heard deep thuds and the crackle of tracer fire and the plane was heaving back and forth tossing the soldiers around. Rensin comes out of the cockpit of the C-47 and tells the men that it is just a "Kraut Hello" and tells them to sit tight until the light tells them to jump. The Navigator of the plane tells Rensin that they are taking too much flak but with quick thinking, Rensin tells them to break formation so they won't get hit by flak knowing that the paratroopers while a couple clicks south of their target. The C-47 suddenly descends 100 feet flak erupting all around as it yokes hard to the left into the clouds. This formation saved the men as the flak destroyed a plane beside them. He took the time to remark to his white paratroopers who had doubted him since day one that he was going to show them a good time. Dawson, unable to hold his dinner, threw up on the floor of the fuselage before bullets from the AA guns piece the floor of the C-47 and tore some men up like butter. This horrifies the men including Rensin and Ford because before the operation, this small group of paratroopers was giving more information about General Wilhelm Strasse although some men heard that the man was so intelligent that he upgraded the German Army weapons vehicles to be inferior to the Allies.
This myth became a reality and everybody except Rensin and Ford started to panic, paratrooper Murphy was so scared that got out of his seat before he was pulverized and was dead before he hit the floor. Rensin continue to tell everyone to sit down and tells them this is why they were given this mission. The red jump light above the cargo door pops on and that is when Rensin orders the men to stand up and hook up. As Boyce and the men scramble to their feet and hook their chute lines to the anchor cable running along the ceiling of the fuselage. Boyce is fifth from the door (Rosenfeld is fourth, Dawson, sixth, and Tibbet, second). Rosenfeld turns his head to Boyce and tells him that he will see on the ground but he tells him that he will be right behind him. As the light flashes green, the plane catches fire and then a huge eruption blows the cockpit door away sending it to a paratrooper head decapitating him. The front of the C-47 is gone is nothing but a gutted, flaming mass of shredded steel, and half of the roof about the men is now a gaping hole. The anchor line renders useless. Some men fatally fall toward the back, burning themselves to death. In a desperate attempt to save what's left of his men, Rensin (Who is deep down horrified of what is experiencing) quickly tells everybody to manually deploy, Ford quickly unhooks from the jump line and helps Rensin push paratroopers, Grunauer, then Tibbet, some of the surviving paratroopers manage to jump out of the aircraft after the signal goes green, Rosenfeld stumbles. Boyce crouches to help, but Ford is already rolling Rosenfeld out the door. He grabs Boyce; he struggles to compose himself but he managed to shove Boyce out in the open air into the airborne war zone, falling fast. As for Rensin and Ford manages to jump out the aircraft before it explodes.

## Execution

*"Any of you Krauts got a cigarette?... You got to be shitting me. None of you? You got to be shitting me. None of you?.. Well, that's goddamn unfortuat..."*―Resin last words before be executed by an Waffen-SS patrol.

After escaping the shoot dawn C-47, stuck in this tree, 20 feet up, his left arm pinned at an odd angle by all his gear. He tries to shift his horribly disfigured, clearly broken arm. Rensin holds up his good hand to get his pocket (The same pocket knife that saved him so many years ago) and starts sawing his straps almost having himself free, but quickly stops, just as the German soldiers reach the orchard jabbing at the corpses with their bayonets making sure the American paratroopers are really dead. One of the German soldiers moves under Rensin gazes up at his twisted body. Rensin definitely looks dead. The soldier climbs up a few branches to stab his blade into Rensin's leg. He doesn't even flinch.

So the German soldiers climbs back down, as the last of Rensin's frayed straps tears, his body sinks, but the German didn't notice and keeps descending and merging toward the other Germans when Rensin's strap finally snaps. His body drops through the branches his the ground with a painful thud as the group of ten German soldiers spins towards Rensin, who knows this is it (Also knowing that he will never see Grace again.) rises to his knees half-smiles at the Germans, asking them if any of them have any cigarettes and the Germans laughed.

Boyce (Who too survived the gun down plane) drags himself onto the river and secures his M1911 before running to the woods. On his way to find other paratroopers, possibly finding Rosenfeld, instead finds and witness Rensin surrounded and taunted by German SS troops. Before attempting to attack and save him, Ford comes from behind Boyce to stop him. Both of the men witness the SS troops fire on Resin point blank, drilling his body with lead until he finally slumps over dead. Ford explains that Rensin before he hit the ground and that the mission must be carried out and walks to Rensin's lifeless body and starts digging through his pack pulling out detonators and explosive stuffing them into his own pack, while Boyce collects his dogtags and letter for daughter before the two continuing on with the mission.

## Personality

Rensin is describe as being built like a Texas diesel engine despite his age. He like Boyce have trauma due to his past life experience with racism in the United States, having witnessed people that he loved either lynched or murdered in cold blood by the hands of white supremacy and being constantly put down by racism, and also being victim of it and nearly lost his live because of it. When executive order 9981 was signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, he (Along with other black NCOs) took the chance to command white soldiers into battle. As the film Overlord progresses, it is shown as Rensin and Ford having nerves of steel for the only ones of the 18 paratrooper who aren't freaking out even a little as the commandos' plane is being shredded by flak fire. When the front of the C-47 is gone is nothing but a gutted, flaming mass of shredded steel, and half of the roof about the men is now a gaping hole. Rensin for the first time in his 41 years of being alive, is horrified of what is experiencing; didn't have time react to their transport plane being barely in a single piece, one engine ablaze and taking a nose-dive. And tries stay clear-headed, issuing orders and making sure all of his still alive men deploy out of the flaming inferno, even if he has to personally drag them out. This is *sharply* contrasted with Ford, who is there to do his mission first, second and last, friendly body count be damned. When Rensin is about to get executed, he doesn't fear death and gave a "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner as he being drilled with bullets.

## Legacy

Rensin is survived by his daughter and American Revolutionist Grace Walker who will later became leaders of the Kreisau Circle and helped liberated America from the Nazis, 17 years after events of Operation: Overlord.