TO THE LAST DETAIL

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 226, 21 June 1944, Page 5

TO THE LAST DETAIL

Planning Of Airborne Landing In France EVERY HEDGEROW KNOWN (Received Jtme 20, 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 19. “Every detail of the great airborne operation which won the Allies the first important footholds in Normandy was worked out in a quiet Wiltshire cottage, where the planning staff toiled night and clay for more than three months,” said a captain of the British Sixth Airborne Division at a Press conference. “We worked out the whole operation from the R.A.F.’s magnificent photographs and maps, with the result that every man landing in France knew which hedgerow he would be going up. He had seen it all already.”

The captaiu explained that they were to land on the left flank of the seaborne invasion up the Orne River and take one bridge over the Orne itself and another bridge over a canal. They also had to silence a heavy coastal battery of four guns in terrific concrete emplacements which had withstood air bombing day and night for four months. Their third task was to blow up bridges across the river Dives to prevent the Germans bringing up reinforcements. . In small fields near the. bridges, the Allied general decided to land a force of 180 glider-borne troops. The general said : “Crash into the bridges to stop yourselves.” The battery was probably the greatest problem. The general decided to drop a battalion of parachutists right alongside. To create, a diversion and enable them to break into the emplacements, he arranged that three gliders should be crash-landed on r.op of the battery. -The general ordered': “.Stream out and create Hell.”

Strategy Succeeds.

“It worked pretty fine all the way through,” said the captain. “Everything the general ordered was accomplished before daybreak. Five gliders landed near the bridges over the canal and over the Orne. They took the last-named easily, but had to fight hard for the canal bridge. The gliders did not land quite where they wished at the battery, but an earlier/ R.A.F. bombing, though it had not seriously damaged the emplacements, had created havoc within the surrounding wired area and mines. The parachutists, after stiff opposition and some casualties, fought through bomb-craters and demolished the guns.” The captain said that, the landingground chosen for the majority of the gliders was a high point covered with poles and deep trenches. The general was of the opinion that nobody but a fool would choose such a landing-place and that therefore the Germans would not expect it. He was right. Lots of the gliders managed to land in small strips clearer] by parachutists. Others were spiked and some, including the general’s, finished with their tails in the air.