Original 1944 Cast Still Jumping : Veterans: Forty former paratroopers, ages 68 to 83, re-enact their historic mission over France.

Thomas Rice, a retired San Diego high school teacher, gave the thumbs-up sign to his comrades Sunday and then stepped out of a plane 3,500 feet above France. As a brisk wind opened his parachute and snapped at the crease in his new pants, Rice looked down on the green fields of Normandy.

“I just kept thinking I didn’t want to land in that field with the three bulls in it,” the 73-year-old Rice said moments later, safely on the ground, his angular face smeared with mud. “But, thank goodness, I just got a little wet.”

Rice and 39 other World War II veterans, ranging in age from 68 to 83, parachuted near this village Sunday, re-enacting their daring invasion of German-held France 50 years ago. With a crowd of dignitaries and a fully equipped MASH unit waiting below, the men filled the sunny afternoon sky like multicolored confetti.

“We did it because, well, a lot of our friends were killed here 50 years ago,” said Rice, who had been a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne on D-day and suffered shrapnel wounds to a leg and arm. “And sometimes over the years we have felt some guilt about that. But today I feel like I can bury that guilt and not worry about it anymore.”

Added Robert Dunning, 73, from Atlanta: “It was a great feeling. Back in 1944, it was 2 a.m., we were under sniper fire and I missed the target by 20 miles. It was easier this time. Nobody was shooting at us.”

But winds did push several of the veteran paratroopers off course.

Rene Dussaq of Encino, at 83 the oldest of the veteran jumpers, landed miles away from the drop zone, and U.S. spotters in helicopters lost sight of him. He was eventually found by French firefighters, and two hours later Dussaq was having a drink in Sainte-Mere-Eglise.

“There was a little wind, but it was not too bad,” Dussaq said. “It was very pleasant. You could look around at the countryside. It was very beautiful.”

In the town square of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, a crowd of more than 8,000 turned up to greet the jumpers and other returning U.S. veterans. The grinning jumpers, wearing replicas of the uniforms they wore in 1944, signed autographs, shouted “ bonjour “ to well-wishers and accepted kisses from women in the crowd.

Despite widespread fears for their safety, not the least from their own families, only two of the aging paratroopers were injured in the jump. One twisted his ankle, and a second, Earl Draper, 70, of Inverness, Fla., was hospitalized with minor back injuries.

Draper’s main chute opened, but the lines became snarled. As the crowd watched in fearful silence, he deployed an emergency reserve chute, which is harder to control, and landed a few dozen feet from the MASH unit. He was taken by helicopter to a local hospital, where an Army spokesman said he was “doing fine.”

“Mr. Draper did just the right thing,” said U.S. Army Col. Richard M. Bridges, himself a paratrooper. “My hat’s off to him. He did a terribly courageous thing. But I’m proud of them all. I just hope I can do that when I’m their age.”

The veterans’ jump was followed by a spectacular jump by 700 U.S. and French paratroopers, who alighted without incident on the pastures amid yellow buttercups.

The show was part of a daylong celebration at Sainte-Mere-Eglise, which was the first French town liberated on D-day, freed by U.S. paratroopers even before Allied troops landed at the nearby Utah and Omaha beaches. The town has hosted U.S. veterans and their families every year since the war, and for years the mayor’s wife wrote to families of U.S. servicemen and tended the graves of those who died here.

On Sunday, the community was bedecked with U.S. and other Allied nations’ flags. One sign in the crowd read, “We Never Forget You Guys.”

Among those on hand to welcome the veterans was Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.), the House Ways and Means Committee chairman and D-day veteran who is President Clinton’s representative to the festivities.

“We came to see them because of the memories,” said Jean-Charles LePouder, 38, who brought his wife and two children from a nearby town. “This is really an important part of our history.”

A full day of activities, attended by Clinton and other national leaders, is scheduled for today in Normandy.

Clinton will first address veterans at Pointe de Hoc, the cliff taken by U.S. Army Rangers in 1944. Later, he will talk to several thousand veterans at the American Cemetery on the cliff above Omaha Beach.

The U.S. paratrooper assault around this village in the early hours of June 6, 1944, was part of an important first attack designed to make it impossible for the Germans to reinforce their troops stationed on cliffs above the beaches. On that day, U.S. planes carrying the paratroopers came under heavy ground fire and were going twice the normal jump speed when the soldiers emerged to fill the night sky.

Many of the American jumpers were blown off target that day, but the scattered landings helped confuse the Germans.

Some American soldiers drowned in fields that had been flooded by the Germans, and others were killed by snipers. Of those who jumped in 1944, one in five died in the descent or in the fighting that followed.

One paratrooper’s chute caught on the 12th-Century church steeple in the center of town, and he pretended to be dead until help arrived. His exploits are honored by a mock paratrooper, complete with chute, that still hangs from the church steeple.

The decision by the aging veterans to jump was greeted with some concern by the French government and the U.S. Army, as well as local residents.

“They don’t need to jump to be heroes to us,” said Henri-Jean Renaud, the son of the former mayor and now a pharmacist in town.

But the officials relented when each of the former paratroopers completed three practice jumps in San Diego. For the jump Sunday, they used modern parachutes, which are easier than military chutes to guide. And they also jumped from a much greater height--3,500 feet compared to the 500 feet that is standard during combat assaults. The higher altitude provides a greater safety margin, creating more time to deal with parachute problems.

“Crazy? Do I look crazy?” asked Warran Wilt, 71, from Abbeyville, Kan. “No. We just had to do this. The people we left here deserved this.”

Barbara Williams, whose 71-year-old husband, Bob, was among the jumpers, said she was “scared to death when I saw that one man have trouble with his chute.” But she was pleased when it was over.

“It was a relief just to get out of that plane, I’ll tell you,” paratrooper Dunning said. “It was freezing up there. But when we jumped, it was heaven. I was smiling. But then I thought, I just don’t want to fall in the mud.”

* TimesLink: 808-8463

TimesLink features historic D-day recordings of British Gen. Bernard Montgomery addressing his troops before battle, Allies’ Communique 1 announcing the landing in occupied territory, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s message to the people of France and President Franklin D. Roosevelt reciting his D-day prayer. To hear these recordings, call TimesLink and press * and the four-digit code.

Gen. Montgomery: *1410

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Gen. Eisenhower: *1430

Roosevelt’s prayer: *1440