Chapter 539 Airborne Operations

The 2nd Battalion landed in the area of the 502nd Regiment by mistake, and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Strayer, had gathered 200 men, but because the radio was lost and could not communicate with the regimental headquarters, he still rushed to Hodenville in the afternoon as scheduled and captured the No. 2 passage. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The task of the 3rd Battalion was to seize or blow up the two bridges near Leport, because the terrain in the airborne area was flat, the Germans expected that the Allies would definitely be airborne here, and carried out an anti-airborne deployment.

Fortunately, most of the planes deviated from the course due to misnavigation, and the paratroopers dropped by the airdrop landed outside the airborne field, and escaped this catastrophe by luck, but lost command and could not assemble, only the battalion's operational staff officer, Captain Schettle, gathered 54 people, crossed the swamp, captured two bridges in one fell swoop, and prepared to blow up the bridge as soon as German reinforcements were found.

At 1:20 a.m. on 25 August, 152 follow-up echelons of the 101st Division, as well as anti-tank guns and other heavy equipment, took off in 52 gliders and landed in the predetermined area at about 4 o'clock. In the afternoon of the same day, the second batch of 157 follow-up echelons and supplies came to reinforce by 32 gliders, but the gliders suffered great losses due to the anti-aircraft landing stakes set up by the Germans in the landing area.

By dusk on August 25, the 101st Division had parachuted 6,800 men, 182 killed, 557 wounded, and 501 missing.

The assault echelon of the British 6th Airborne Division consisted of the 3rd and 5th Brigades, a total of 4,300 people, commanded by the division commander, Major General Gale, and took 237 transport planes, planning to land northeast of Gangcheng, seize the bridges and ferries on the Orne River and the Caen Canal, and destroy the German artillery positions in Morville.

The 3rd Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Hill and commanded the 8th and 9th British Paratrooper Battalions and the 1st Canadian Paratrooper Battalion, was tasked with destroying the artillery positions at Morville and capturing five bridges over the Dover River. The task of the 9th battalion of the British army was to destroy the artillery positions of the German troops.

Because this artillery position is set up in a fortification with strong protection, it is difficult to destroy it by aircraft bombing and warship shelling, and the four 150mm guns of this artillery position pose a great threat to the landing force at the "Sword" beachhead, so it must be solved by the airborne troops before landing.

The commander of the 9th Battalion, considering that it would be difficult to attack with airborne troops alone, requested that a glider airborne assault team be sent to cooperate with the operation at the same time.

The battalion was subjected to heavy fire from German anti-aircraft artillery when it was airborne, and the pilots deviated from the predetermined course in order to avoid artillery fire, and landed far away from the target, and the battalion commander gathered 150 people to run from 3,000 meters away, because the 9th battalion lost its signal device when it was airborne, and could not mark the landing site, and then the glider that flew in did not find the ground signal, so it had to land elsewhere.

In this way, the battalion commander had to lead 150 airborne troops into the battle alone, they blew up the barbed wire, rushed into the artillery position, engaged the Germans in a white-knuckle fight, and after fierce fighting, occupied the artillery position at the cost of more than half of the casualties.

The 8th Battalion of the British Army and the 1st Battalion of the Canadian Army were unable to distinguish between the Orne River and the Dover River in the dark at night because the transport pilots could not distinguish between the Orne River and the Dover River, so they airdropped the paratroopers near the Orne River, but the paratroopers quickly assembled after landing and rushed to the Dover River, while the Germans did not find that there were Allied troops airborne nearby, and their vigilance was lax, and the paratroopers took advantage of the situation to seize 5 bridges over the Dover River in one fell swoop and complete the task of the brigade.

The 5th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Boeit, planned to seize the bridge over the Orne River and open a landing field to support the landing of the 6th Airborne Brigade, a follow-up echelon of the division. The commander of the Gale division was very concerned about the German success in capturing Eben in Belgium at the beginning of the war. Impressed by the airborne assault taken by the Emar Fortress, it was decided to carry out a glider-landing assault on the Orne River Bridge in the same way.

He drew 180 elite soldiers from the whole division to form a commando team, led by John ? Major Howard served as the captain and landed near the bridge for the main attack, while the 7th Parachute Battalion landed airborne to provide support.

Due to repeated drills before the war, coupled with the excellent skills of the carefully selected glider pilots, the glider carrying the commando team landed only a few dozen meters away from the bridge, and the commando team only took 30 seconds from getting off the plane to launching the attack, and the German army was caught off guard, and the commando team only captured the bridge at a slight cost of 2 dead and 14 wounded.

The 7th Battalion, which landed 900 meters east of the Orne River, immediately assembled and rushed to the bridge, where it joined the assault team and together built fortifications and held the bridge.

The first follow-up echelon of the 6th Division, 493 men and equipment, landed at dawn on 6 June on 98 gliders, but due to strong winds on the ground at the time of landing, the tow lines of 20 gliders were blown off by the wind and could not land.

The second batch of 256 gliders landed in the intended area, bringing reinforcements and supplies to the 6th Division. The third batch of 50 gliders was resupplied at midnight, and the airdrop was fired by German anti-aircraft guns, so that the planes were airdropped while evading artillery fire, and the paratroopers on the ground received only 20% of the supplies, most of which were lost.

Later, four small-scale airdrops were carried out, which were very successful. The 6th Division landed a total of 4,800 airborne personnel, suffered about 550 casualties, lost about 350 people, collected about 1,800 people, completed the scheduled mission of the division, and joined the vanguard of the British 2nd Army at dusk on the 6th.

In the airborne operation of the Allied landings in Normandy, a total of more than 35,000 people were airborne, including 17,600 parachutes, 504 artillery pieces, 110 light tanks, and more than 1,000 tons of supplies. More than 2,400 sorties of transport aircraft and 1,130 sorties of gliders were used. During the battle, the airborne troops suffered about 8,200 casualties, accounting for 23% of the total number of airborne troops, which was significantly lower than pre-war estimates.

42 transport aircraft were shot down and 510 were damaged. The U.S. 82nd Division occupied the crossings on the St. Manigris and Mettler rivers, the U.S. 101st Division controlled the four access roads behind the beach and the crossings on the Dover River, and the British 6th Division captured the bridge over the Orne River, all of which soon joined up with the naval landing force and continued to fight as infantry divisions

The Allied forces estimated that the airborne area of the division would be 36 square kilometers, but in fact the airborne area of the 82nd and 101st Divisions was as high as 100 square kilometers.

The airborne landing of the Allied forces also reflected many problems: First, the reconnaissance before the war was not thorough enough, which brought considerable difficulties to the operation; for example, the failure to grasp the configuration of the German anti-aircraft firepower caused the transport planes to be subjected to heavy antiaircraft artillery fire when they were airborne, and they were forced to increase the speed and altitude of their flights, and even deviated from the course when evading artillery fire, resulting in the extremely scattered landing of the paratroopers;

In addition, Opland was not identified as an anti-airborne zone for the German army, resulting in heavy casualties among the paratroopers parachuted in the area. Second, the departure of the guide group was too late, coupled with the harsh weather and the resistance of the German army, there was not enough time to set up equipment to carry out the work, which affected the airborne landing of the follow-up troops to a certain extent.

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