Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Aviation Specials - D-Day 6 June 1944

THE PRINCIPAL objective of the Allied forces on D-D ay was to land six Divisions on a fifty-mile stretch of the Normandy coast. From the landing beaches the troops would push inland to occupy a large beachhead encompassing the city of Caen. One of the important factors for the success of this operation was the capture of the bridges that carry the coast road over the Caen Canal and the River Orne, which would enable the rapid expansion of the beachhead and help secure its eastern flank. As the bridges are more than three miles inland they could not be seized by the troops landing on the beaches. The bridges would have to be taken by aerial assault - by the men of the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry who would be landed close to the bridges by glider. It was essential that the bridges were captured intact before the defenders had time to detonate the demolition charges that would inevitably have been laid by the Germans. Speed and surprise were therefore absolutely vital. So the assault upon the bridges would have to be conducted at night before the beach landings began. It would be the first ground action of the liberation of Europe.

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