World War II From Original Sources [00] By Air to Battle: The Official History of the British Paratroops in World War II by Bob Carruthers

Author:Bob Carruthers [Carruthers, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: World War 2, Airborne, Battles, Formations
ISBN: 9781781580202
Amazon: B0070WP0D8
Publisher: Coda Books
Published: 2012-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

10. JUMPING OVER THE WEST WALL

Sunset had faded from the sky when Air Vice-Marshal Hollinghurst took off in the first aircraft carrying the pathfinders. The invasion of Europe had begun and the airborne troops were in its van. The first men of them to land were Captains Tate and Midwood and Lieutenant de Lautour. They touched French soil between ten and twenty minutes past midnight, the foremost of the 22nd Independent Parachute Company. Their task, which they duly, if with some difficulty, accomplished, was to mark with lights the landing and dropping zones.

The 3rd and 5th Parachute Brigades, comprising the parachute element of the 6th Airborne Division, landed together and fought side by side. How they did so is best described by recounting the exploits of each brigade in turn. It was the duty of the 5th Parachute Brigade, under the command of Brigadier J. H. N. Poett, to land in the area north of Ranville and there to accomplish three tasks. They were first to seize the crossings over the river Orne and the Caen Canal near the villages of Benouville and Ranville. For this purpose six gliders carrying a special coup de main party were to be used. They were also to secure and hold the area surrounding these two villages and the village of Le Bas Ranville. Finally they were to clear and protect landing zones near Ranville and Benouville on which the gliders carrying the rest of the Division, on the evening of the first day, would touch down.

The part of Normandy in which these operations were to be carried out consists of high ground interspersed with valleys through which flow the rivers Orne and Dives. Separating them is a belt of ground well provided with woods, of which the largest is the Bois de Bavent. The pasture in the valleys is lush, and the rivers are bordered by reeds and thick, long grass.

There are a considerable number of open spaces in the form of fields devoted to pasture or tillage. The country depicted in the landscapes of Sisley and Monet, though belonging to a different part of France, closely resembles that in which the parachute and glider borne troops were to land.

The first and all-important task, the seizure of the two bridges, was to be accomplished by a force of six platoons of the 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, helped by a detachment of the Royal Engineers. Three of them were ordered to land within fifty yards of the east end of the swing bridge across the Caen Canal, and three within the same distance of the western end of the bridge across the River Orne. The bridges were to be seized immediately, and half an hour later the attackers would be reinforced by the 7th Parachute Battalion, who were to land near Ranville, 1,000 yards from the bridge over the Orne, To make certain that the parachute troops dropped in the right place, it was decided that pathfinders should land a short time before them, and set out navigational and other aids for the use of the parachutists.

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