The AAF in the Invasion of Southern France by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2014-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

PREOPERATION TRAINING

By the middle of July, nearly all the airborne units to be employed in the operation had been assembled in the Rome area. An intensive final training program had been instituted by the First Airborne Task Force in conjunction with the Airborne Training Center. Of the airborne units to be used, only one parachute battalion and a British parachute brigade had received any recent combined airborne training with the troop carriers. The regimental combat team had just come out of the line with the Fifth Army, as had the parachute field artillery battalion. Other units had but recently arrived overseas and had been given a course in ground and refresher training at the Airborne Training Center.

Particularly urgent was the task of training the newly organized glider-borne troops. A combined glider school was established and instruction in loading and lashing for these troops was started. Upon completion of the course, they were given orientation flights and finally one skeletonized, practice operational landing on a simulated LZ.

The Pathfinder Unit of the Provisional Troop Carrier Air Division conducted joint training with the three airborne pathfinder platoons and tested the radar and radio aids to be used in the operation. This training was divided into three phases, the first being concerned with the technical training with Eureka sets, M/F beacons, lights, and panels. Tests were made to locate any deficiencies in either the training or the apparatus. The second phase was devoted to practice by the crews in using the equipment under all possible conditions. The third phase emphasized actual drops with full equipment in which every attempt was made toward the utmost realism. Small groups of follow-up parachute troops were dropped on the prepared drop zones to test the accuracy of pathfinder aids.

Difficulty in repacking the parachutes in time for the operation precluded the staging of realistic, large-scale final exercises. However, practice drops were made with two or three men representing a full "stick" of paratroops, with the remaining elements placed in the DZ's to practice assembly. There was just time to squeeze in a combined training exercise with the Navy, in which all vessels carrying waterborne navigational aids were placed in their proper relative positions. A token force of three aircraft per serial was flown by all serial leaders over these aids, observing exact time schedules, routes, and altitudes. Two serials of 36 aircraft each were flown over this same route during daylight to acquaint the naval forces with troop-carrier formations. Further practice runs were made by the troop carriers in conjunction with two fighter groups in order to work out the details of the fighter cover plan and the air-sea rescue plan.

Because the task force was composed of units which had not previously worked together, training of combat teams was further accented for successful operations after landing. Training of each combat team was conducted on terrain carefully selected to duplicate as nearly as possible the combat team's sector in the target area. From the regular replacement depots and the Airborne

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