John? Howard, the British major who was part of the British 6th Airborne Division, commanded his troops in the Battle of Pegasus. www.biquge.info In this battle, 150 British officers and soldiers under his command guarded two important bridges near Benuville, on the Orne River and on the Orne Canal.

It was a not-so-long period of midnight on August 25, the first group of JF French troops in the coalition forces, and the battle was going well. Howard slowly recounts:

"Two things that I will never forget about this day, the first was giving the order to six gliders to go. , I came to each glider and said goodbye to them.

When I got up to the skim on the glider, I felt the lymph in my throat swelling more and more, and it seemed that we were flying in the air, and I really don't know how many boys would still be alive when we were in the thick of the battle an hour later.

The other thing was landing, and as I had hoped, the glider I was on was the first to land, and I ordered the first platoon to move forward at once, because they were tasked with blowing up the bunkers.

We had analysed in advance that the bunker on the river beach next to the bridge must have contained a device to detonate the two bridges, and I ordered them to keep the bridges intact. ”

"When I jumped out of the scattered glider, the first thing I saw from 50 yards away was the bridgehead that we had been studying for months with aerial photographs.

The pilot made the glider land very close to there! There was no gunshot, it was quiet, the steel door of the pillbox was unlocked, and a couple of lads pulled out the lube hose and poured oil on the door shaft.

After that we slipped in, and in the bunker we caught only one German veteran who had not yet had time to put on his pants, and we landed at 12:16 p.m.

In 15 minutes, we signaled to HQ that we had the code names Ham and Jaime - we had taken control of the bridge, and our plan of action was like a dream.

There is no doubt that the accurate operation of D-Day was due to luck and the fighters of the elite divisions of the British army, and you can imagine that each of our missions was successfully completed, thanks to aerial photographs and intelligence from the French Resistance. ”

"We fought fiercely with more than 50 German troops near the Orne Canal Bridge, most of whom lived in requisitioned houses, and rushed out with sleepy eyes. The first platoon led by Lieutenant Braridge attacked the canal bridge, and he was about to rush to the bridge when he was shot in the neck and fell.

He was the first soldier to be killed by the coalition forces on D-Day, and the only one to die in that operation, and despite our considerable wounding, we finally took control of the canal bridge, and likewise we occupied another bridge across the great river. ”

"We assumed that the enemy would launch a counteroffensive to reclaim the canal, and we had to hold it, and we were fortunate that the first shot from our anti-tank guns destroyed a German tank, and it crackled and burned like fireworks.

So, I ordered my men to open heavy fire to give the enemy the illusion that we were strong, and I knew that it would take an hour for our paratrooper reinforcements to arrive at the earliest.

The Germans retreated, and our paratroopers reached the canal at 3 a.m., and after jumping off the bridge, they immediately went into battle and attacked the enemy. This is how we fought with the enemy that night. ”

Cinnabar? Darling, a corporal of the Canadian forces, landed at Juno Beach in the early morning of Day D after the vanguard of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division had captured the beachhead.

His Glengari Mountain Division was ordered to march 16 kilometres on bicycles to capture the Caen airfield, a task that bogged them down due to obstacles on the road. On July 8, Darin was shot three times in the abdomen. Darling recalled:

"I can tell you all that everyone in our landing craft 299 vomited. Such landing craft can transport only one platoon in a platoon of 33 people. After boarding the boat, the officer read Ike's message

。 Like everyone else, I took a family picture of my wife, Mamie, and my two-year-old son, Dade, who was born in England.

I prayed. A soldier prayed, and then I joked, and at the time, I wasn't scared, and I wasn't so optimistic that everyone was betting that they would come back alive. I just think it's providential. ”

"France revealed at 8 or 10 miles, first with a smoke of gunpowder, then with the light of a fire on the beach, the scene was:

Shells hissed past, houses burned, planes flew overhead, and Germans roared with 88-mm cannons. I felt the landing craft crash into the beach.

At this time, a soldier of the Navy jumped into the water and dragged a rope that guided us forward. Each of us pulled the bike out of the bike pile.

I remember the sea reaching my chin and carrying a 78-kilogram suit, not counting the bike and the helmet. Many of the lads were there screaming, screaming, yelling in horror.

At that time, the sound of artillery was deafening, and you had to shout loudly to have the guts. There were corpses floating in the water. On the beach, the bodies were lined up in three rows, and the hygienists bandaged and rescued the wounded in a fierce battle. I survived. ”

"We can't stay long on the beach and we're going to use the folding bikes we bring with us, which we've been using in the south of England for two years, but the gravel on the road makes it impossible for us to ride at all.

After three miles of riding, we were instructed to pile the carts together, and the local children might find them right away, and the night before, we dug a trench in the garden of a church.

There, our first soldier was killed by mortars, and the Germans fired their guns about 1,000 yards away, and we could see them, and they could see us, and then our mortars came and drove them away, and the French residents of the area could hardly see them, and probably took refuge in the cellars.

When we were about to buy some eggs from a farmer we had managed to find, he didn't understand our Quebec French. Finally, he replied in English, "What do you want?" It turned out that he had worked as a pilot at Air France and lived in New York for a few years before returning to live in the countryside after the French surrender.

……

[Thank you brothers for your support.] (To be continued.) )