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Posted on 01/28/2004 12:00:23 AM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.
Where the Freeper Foxhole introduces a different veteran each Wednesday. The "ordinary" Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine who participated in the events in our Country's history. We hope to present events as seen through their eyes. To give you a glimpse into the life of those who sacrificed for all of us - Our Veterans.
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From 1942 onwards the Allied Forces realised that an attack would have to be made on mainland Europe in order to stop the Nazi advance. Over the course of the next two years, victories were achieved in North Africa and Southern Italy but France; with its expansive coastline and locality to Britain was always going to be the main battleground that would establish the outcome of the Second World War. In Spring 1943, General Frederick Morgan, the man entrusted to plan the Allied invasion, made his choice as to where the invasion would take place. This would have been an extremely difficult decision as the factors affecting the location were almost infinite. It needed to be easily accessible from the sea but difficult for the Germans to access by land.  Morgan realised that transporting thousands of men, arms and supplies across the channel would be a major logistical problem and that the shorter the water crossing the better. As the geography of the English Channel shows, this would lead him to believe that the nearer he could get to Calais, the greater the chance of success. However, he also was aware that the further east he planned the invasion the stronger would be the German opposition. He would need to find a stretch of northern French coastline, which was not more than a hundred miles from Britain and was poorly defended. General Morgan was not overwhelmed with options.  The Orne River Bridge The deciding factor in choosing the exact location of the invasion was the formation, two years earlier, of the British Airborne Forces. If troops could be glider-landed or parachuted inland, then they could prevent German reinforcements from arriving at the invasion beaches where the main body of troops would disembark. With this extra string to the Allied Forces' bow, a site was chosen with Airborne soldiers in mind. The invasion beaches were to be on the Normandy coastline, just west of the mouth of the Orne river. By landing here, the invasion army would have the protection of the Orne and the adjacent Caen Canal on their west flank. General Morgan knew that, once the Germans realised that this was the real invasion, it would not take them long to launch a counteroffensive. Using Intelligence reports Morgan would know the size of the German forces in the Caen area and could thus start formulating the number of troops needed for the invasion. At this time, there were two airborne divisions, 1st and 6th (they were numbered this way to confuse German intelligence). 1st Airborne were fighting in Southern Italy and so 6th Airborne Division, commanded by General Richard "Windy" Gale were the force chosen to lead the airborne assault. The chief role of 6th Airborne would be to capture and hold the bridges over the Orne and Caen Canal. These two bridges were a kilometre apart between the towns of Bénouville and Ranville. They were the only crossing points between Caen and the coast. If these bridges could be taken and held, then the Germans would find it hard to counterattack in large enough numbers to push the invasion army back into the sea.  Early 6th Airborne Patch By January 1944 a plan had been formulated at COSSAC, (Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander) for a full scale invasion of France via the Normandy beaches for June that year. This plan was still highly top secret (the word Bigot was used, meaning top top secret). However, at this stage General Gale was let in on the plan, his briefing was to capture intact the bridges over the Caen Canal and River Orne, to blow the bridges over the River Dives and to destroy the Merville Battery. The latter two operations would pose few logistical problems for Gale. Paratroopers would be used to destroy the Merville Battery and bridges at Dives, however the problem of taking the other two bridges intact would prove the cause of many sleepless nights for Gale. Paratroopers could not be expected to land at night, near the coast, in high winds and then regroup in order to fight such a vital battle. Gale remembered the German attacks at Fort Eben Emael in Belgium (1940) and in particular the Corinth Canal in Greece (1941) where the German airborne had been used not as paratroopers but glider troopers. A plan was constructed where six gliders, three per bridge, would be landed on the farm land adjacent to the bridges and the bridges would be taken in a "coup de main" attack.  Reconnaisance photo showing the two bridges With the plan now consolidated, Gale's attentions now turned to discovering which company in his division was the strongest. In April 1944, 6th Airborne carried out several exercises, designed by Gale to determine which unit would be the most suited to the operation. The central feature of this series of operations was a three-day exercise named Operation Deadstick. Although the soldiers did not know it at the time they were carrying out an almost exact replica of what they would be doing in Normandy two months later. The operation was an unequivocal success and one company in particular impressed General Gale. D Company, 2nd Battalion The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, under the leadership of Major John Howard achieved the aim of capturing two bridges intact after a glider landing. Gale nicknamed D Company "the Bridge Prangers" and so a group of men had been found who would lead the invasion. After the success of Deadstick, Howard was let in on the plan. He recalls the feelings of pride and honour at leading the invasion force, "I was so excited, but the problem was that I couldn't tell anyone not even Brian Priday my second-in-command." However Priday and the others soon began to catch on as the exercises took on a rather similar nature from this point on and D Company were given special privileges. Howard had only to ask for transport and trucks would be laid on to take them anywhere in Britain. Moreover, after Howard had put his company through a gruelling exercise (sometimes up to five days long), D Company would be allowed the next day off to recover, a practice unheard of in the British Army. Howard said, "that a soldier likes nothing better than to lie in bed when others are on duty."  Major John Howard This sympathy towards the soldiers in his company goes some of the way to explaining why Howard's D Company were chosen ahead of the others. Howard had been a regular soldier and had risen through the ranks, he understood the mentality of the soldier. By giving them days off after very tough exercises he maintained the level of morale that would be needed in the coming months. His soldiers had sat in Britain for two years while the war went on over the sea. Boredom was a big problem among soldiers in Britain and keeping morale high was essential. Howard's masterstroke in keeping his troops active, happy and fit was his own passion for sport. D Company would engage in a great amount of sport, every morning would see the company undertake a five-mile cross-country run before breakfast.The day would be spent on exercise, a route march would follow, then after dinner all the troops would have to either do another cross-country run or play football until bed time. The men had no free time to sit around and get bored. Howard also insisted that every single man do all this sport, even his platoon officers and he, himself took part. This invoked a feeling of unity in the company. Everybody felt tired and everybody got blisters, thus the team spirit and morale within D Company was superb as well as the all round fitness. It was these qualities which convinced Gale to pick them as the Coup de Main force on D Day.  At the end of April, D Company was enlarged from four platoons to six (one for each glider) and in addition were assigned a troop of thirty Royal Engineers ( five per glider). They were now ready for their final training before the real thing. All the exercises held over the next month bore a resemblance, capturing two bridges intact was always the scenario and so the men began to realise the importance of what they were doing. The final exercise in mid-May was held just outside Exeter on two bridges with roughly a kilometre in between. Howard had arranged this personally and had scoured Britain for a place as similar to Normandy as possible. D Company practised taking these bridges by day and by night for four straight days until they had mastered the art. In late May, Howard moved D Company to RAF Station Tarrant Rushton where he would brief his men about what they were to do. The invasion was scheduled for just two weeks away and so Howard let his men in on the fact that they would be the elite force at the spearhead of the Allied Invasion of Europe. The men were elated, having sat back in Britain for so long they were finally going to get their chance and not only that, they were going to lead the force. Lieutenant Tod Sweeney said, "We were really proud and excited to be chosen to make the first foothold in Europe. It was like being selected for the national rugger team, or walking out to open the innings for England at Lords." This new information doubled the already strong sense of camaraderie in the company. They had done as much training as they possibly could and were arguably one of the fittest companies in the British Army, however they would not even get their chance to start the invasion if the glider pilots could not land in the right place.  Horsa Glider It was therefore necessary for the glider pilots to know every second of their descent in to Normandy baring in mind that this operation would be taking place in the early hours of the morning under the cover of darkness. The problem was, though, for obvious reasons the pilots could not fly practice missions in France. A brilliant scheme was devised to allow the pilots to experience what it would be like to fly the mission; a scale model was made and using a cine camera, a film was made of a pilots' eye view. A model of a glider cockpit was then made and so the pilots could feel what it would be like to fly the mission. In addition to this virtual training, the pilots selected to fly on D Day flew forty three training fights together in the months leading up to the big day. These flights took place by day or by night and in every weather condition that nature threw at them, sometimes the pilots even flew blindfolded. They needed to know exactly when to turn and at what height, they could not rely on geographical signs. Their only instruments were a compass, altimeter and a stopwatch. Their aim was to land within thirty metres of the bridge and try and pierce the barbed wire with the glider's nose. Everybody knew that it was going to be hard and that is why the training was relentless.
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This is a great publicity shot from the set of "The Longest Day". Major Howard was not totally pleased with the production, due to some of the liberties taken with the true story. One of his major points is that the movie shows his men removing explosives from the bridge's superstructure. This is Hollywood, in the real world the Germans had not wired the bridges yet, as they were worried that partisans would steal the explosives.
Richard Todd, who would portay Major Howard in the film, served with the 6th Airborne, 7th Para Battalion, the unit sent to reinforce the OBLI on the bridge.
The marker of Lieutenant Den Brotheridge, platoon commander of First Platoon, Company D, Ox and Bucks, the first Allied soldier to lose his life on D-Day.
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you also put up with my southron nationalist rants TOO!
free dixie,sw
5th June 1944 :
The daylight dawned. A shower or two came down during the morning. Nothing was certain. This was not good for our nerves . Throughout Great-Britain, a million or more men were awaiting to go into action. We , in our small encampment, knew that our small party was to be the very first allied troops to land in France. Our nerves were being stretched to the limit by this constant waiting. Around midday, a signal arrived for Major Howard. The company were assembled. The major said “It’s for tonight”. A padre arrived, we had a short but solemn service. Major Howard gave the order to have lunch, check all our weapons and gear down to the last detail. Then when all this was completed try to match a few hours of sleep. Under the circumstances of stress and strain, this was a very tall order indeed. However I did manage to fall into a deep sleep. We were awakened in the early evening, had a final meal and kit check. The order to don our gear came, we climbed into the troop carrying vehicles and were driven off as dark began to fall. It was just a short run to Tarrant Rushton Airfield. As we passed the admin area, crowds of RAF men and women were cheering us. So much for security, everyone knows what we are about to do. It did very little for my morale. We drove direct to our six Horsa gliders and sat down on the grass beside them. The time was about 22h00.
We gathered from one of the RAF ground crew that we were due to take off at 23h00.The weather was dry. From time to time, there was a gust of wind but nothing to worry about. Around 22h20, an RAF chap appeared on the scene with a dixie of very strong tea that was well loud with rum, to this very day I suspect that the tea was also well treated with an amphetamine type of drug, that tea certainly calmed my nerves in rapid time. At around 22h30 our two glider pilots appeared. Both were staff-sergeants, Oliver Boland and Phil Hobles by name. Shortly after the order came to board the Horsa glider, I was seated on the front side of the Horsa in the fourth seat from the door. Some ten minutes before take off, Major Howard appeared in the doorway of the glider and he made a short improvised speech thanking us for our past efforts and wishing us well on the mission we were about to embark upon. His voice rang out with a final “Good luck to you all”.Just before 23h00 we heard the first Halifax-Horsa combination roar along the runway. They were airborne at 22h59m20s. The other five Horsas followed at one minute intervals. I was in n° 2 Horsa.
Horsa glider N°91 carried 24 platoon commanded by Lt David Wood, mainly young men going into action for the first time. Tonight would be a testing time. But I had trained with those men over the last two years and had no doubts as to their ability.
Inside the glider the men sat in a strained silence. For all in 24 it was their first night flight, apart of course from the two pilots who done much night flying in training for this operation.
After ten minutes or so, voices raised in song which did much to uplift our spirits. After take off, the Halifax-Horsa combination flew at 4500 feet because of low cloud. The pre-flight-altitude had planned to be 10 000. The first leg of the flight was Worthy Down close to Winchester, then a change of course to Bognor Regis on the South Coast. It was a fairly smooth flight with the troops singing most of the time. At a shout of “enemy coast ahead”, the silence became total. We had been flying for 1 h 15. The glider released its tow rope at a point on the Normandy coast midway between the Rivers Orne and Dives.
The silence was broken by the sound of air rushing across the huge wings of the Horsa glider as it rushed towards its landing. A sudden shout from one of the glider pilots “Brace for impact” : we linked our hands and raised our feet and no doubt said a silent prayer. The horsa hit the ground and bushes and then stopped, but the passengers were propelled through either the side of the Horsa or the open front exit. We very swiftly formed up at the nose of the Horsa and at a word of command from Lt Wood began to trot towards the bridge some one hundred or so yards to our front. A we nested the eastern end of the bridge a flare lit up the area. Some thirty or so yards from the bridge lay the wreck of an Horsa, its two pilots trapped in its cockpit. By the light of the flare we could see our troops running across the canal bridge, firing as they ran. Lt Wood located Major Howard who ordered our platoon to clear the enemy from the pillbox and trenches on the North Eastern bank of the canal.
We very swiftly complied with this order, helped by some of the enemy who ran away and hid the bushes. In perhaps six or seven minutes, we routed the enemy. Lt Wood was on his way to Major Howard to report all cleared when he, the platoon sergeant and radio operator were hit by a burst of automatic fire. Corporal Godbold reported to John Howard who in turn gave him command of the platoon and in turn gave the 38 type radio set to me. We had captured our bridge, the third glider had landed a few moments after our Horsa, one man had drowned in a pond, several men were injured including Lt Smith who had injured his wrist. One of the glider pilots had been hit by enemy fire. The remainder of the platoon were sent over to reinforce 25 platoon on the west bank. Lt Dan Brotheridge 25 platoon commander had received a burst of fire in his neck and was dying. The injured Lt Smith took over command of 25 and 14 platoons who were now holding the western end of the bridge in the region close to the café Gondree.
In the meantime word arrived that two gliders had landed and captured the River Orne bridge. 22 platoon Horsa was missing, fate unknown at that time.
At 00h45 we heard the drone of many aircraft approaching and within minutes the 5th Parachute Brigade began its drop. The 7th Parachute Battalion were to rush to our aid with all speed, but a scattered drop caused many problems and also a strong wind blew many away from their DZ.
At around 01h00 the sound of tanks was heard in Le Port area. As the first one began to edge onto the road leading to the bridge Sgt “Wagger” Thornton managed to hit it with a missile from his PIAT a rather primitive anti-tank weapon. It exploded like a firework display blocking the road. Sometime around 03h00 a large number of 7th Para arrived to reinforce our depleted force. But we had captured and held our two bridges in an attack that is now history.
HARRY NOBBY CLARK
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