The first serial, bound for DZ O near Sainte-Mre-glise, flew too far north but corrected its error and dropped near its DZ. Working predominantly on the upper deck, Ted had a bird's eye view of the action unfolding around him. Over the reluctance of the naval commanders, exit routes from the drop zones were changed to fly over Utah Beach, then northward in a 10 miles (16km) wide "safety corridor", then northwest above Cherbourg. This was our shield as long as it was up. John Steele got caught on the edge of the spire at Ste Mere Eglise. A further 10 Canadian paratroopers were wounded and 84 captured out of a total force of 543. They landed among troop areas of the German 91st Division and were unable to reach the DZ. Operation Market Garden and Operation Pegasus June 6, 1944 D-Day was underway. Despite many early failures in its employment, the Eureka-Rebecca system had been used with high accuracy in Italy in a night drop of the 82nd Airborne Division to reinforce the U.S. Fifth Army during the Salerno landings, codenamed Operation Avalanche, in September 1943. Some of the men who jumped from planes at lower altitudes were injured when they hit the ground because of their chutes not having enough time to slow their descent, while others who jumped from higher altitudes reported a terrifying descent of several minutes watching tracer fire streaking up towards them. The last glider serial of 50 Wacos, hauling service troops, 81mm mortars, and one company of the 401st, made a perfect group release and landed at LZ W with high accuracy and virtually no casualties. At the initial point the 82nd Airborne Division would continue straight to La Haye-du-Puits, and the 101st Airborne Division would make a small left turn and fly to Utah Beach. The Normandy Invasion consisted of 5,333 Allied ships and landing craft embarking nearly 175,000 men. History. With the 24 killed in the air D Day eve, 82d Airborne's parachute element suffered a total 544 killed those first twenty-four hours. I./FJR6 attempted to force its way through U.S. forces half its size along the Douve River but was cut off and captured almost to the man. "So many of them didn't make it because they were dropped too far from the land. 156,000 troops or paratroopers came ashore on D-Day: 73,000 from the U.S., 83,000 from Great Britain and Canada. Numerous factors played a part, most of which dealt with excessive scattering of the drops. In the week following, six resupply missions were flown on call by the 441st and 436th Troop carrier Groups, with 10 C-47's making parachute drop and 24 towing gliders. However one makeshift battalion of the 508th PIR seized a small hill near the Merderet and disrupted German counterattacks on Chef-du-Pont for three days, effectively accomplishing its mission. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 850,000 German troops awaiting the invasion, many were Eastern European conscripts; there were even some Koreans. Close to 2,500 American soldiers died on D-Day, the most of any Allied nation. Rachael Smith. More than 80 soldiers died in training accidents in 2017 alone, and a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina was killed just last month. If you mean "did not arrive where they were expected" (on their designated drop zone) then rather a high proportion. In December 1941, British and American war leaders met and agreed that the defeat of Nazi Germany was their first priority and that the best way to achieve this was by an invasion of France, using Britain as a launch-pad. They managed to set up a Eureka beacon just before the assault force arrived but were forced to use a hand held signal light which was not seen by some pilots. Answer (1 of 3): You need to define what "went missing" means. Four others had been in existence less than nine months and arrived in the United Kingdom one month after training began. "But the injuries - faces, stomachs, legs off - oh God. With the help of a Frenchman who led them into the town, the 3rd Battalion captured Sainte-Mre-glise by 0430 against "negligible opposition" from German artillerymen. These would be the first American and possibly the first Allied troops to land in the invasion. By the evening of June 7 the other two battalions were assembled near Sainte Marie du Mont. Saving Private Ryan actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61, AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Mother who killed her five children euthanised, Alex Murdaugh's legal troubles are far from over, Walkie Talkie architect Rafael Violy dies aged 78, US sues Exxon over nooses found at Louisiana plant, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus. Because of the requirement for absolute radio silence and a study that warned that the thousands of Allied aircraft flying on D-Day would break down the existing system, plans were formulated to mark aircraft including gliders with black-and-white stripes to facilitate aircraft recognition. "They did what they could for them, but they were too far gone - they were mostly dead before they got them in the sick bay. A German shell had just blasted apart his landing craft, killing the man next to him and peppering him with so much shrapnel that he initially believed he, too, was dying. This page was last edited on 17 October 2022, at 18:16. It made the most effective use of the Eureka beacons and holophane marking lights of any pathfinder team. D-Day, June 6, 1944, was part of the larger Operation Overlord and the first stages of the Battle of Normandy, France (also referred to as the Invasion of Normandy) during World War II. The casualties were staggeringly high on D-Daybut how high? The men encircled Sainte Mere Eglise and seized the village at 4.30am, making about 30 prisoners. That was unlikely to happen if you tried to do it. This brought the final total of IX Troop Carrier Command sorties during Operation Neptune to 2,166, with 533 of those being glider sorties. Allied paratroopers and glider-borne infantry were well trained and highly skilled, but for many this was their first experience of combat. So we commemorate the paradox of this victory. With 90 per cent of its men present, the 325th GIR became the division reserve at Chef-du-Pont. Then he heard his mother outside yelling, so he and his grandfather ran upstairs to follow her. [15], D-Day casualties for the airborne divisions were calculated in August 1944 as 1,240 for the 101st Airborne Division and 1,259 for the 82nd Airborne. VideoRussian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, Snow, Fire and Lights: Photos of the Week. Major General J. Lawton Collins, commanding the VII Corps, however, wanted the drops made west of the Merderet to seize a bridgehead. The glider battalions of the 101st's 327th Glider Infantry Regiment were delivered by sea and landed across Utah Beach with the 4th Infantry Division. Sometimes I think about it when I'm lying in bed awake. The 2nd Battalion landed almost intact on DZ D but in a day-long battle failed to take Saint-Cme-du-Mont and destroy the highway bridges over the Douve. All of these operations came in over Utah Beach but were nonetheless disrupted by small arms fire when they overflew German positions, and virtually none of the 101st's supplies reached the division. The mission is significant as the first Allied daylight glider operation, but was not significant to the success of the 101st Airborne.[11]. He left the navy in 1946 and returned to his job as an apprentice printer where he went on to "work at practically every paper on Fleet Street". In the American army, a battalion of some 400 to 500 men typically would have about thirty medics or aidmen; although sometimes attrition made that number much smaller. Dangerously low cloud cover forced some sticks to jump from only 300 feet. Facing this opposition, Eisenhower threatened to step down from his position. That day 75 years ago launched the major turning point in World War II. Ted says: "I well up every time I talk about it. I am aware, as we all are, that your wing suffered losses in carrying out its missions and that a very bad fog condition was encountered inside the west coast of the peninsula. The paratroopers were divided into sticks, a plane load of troops numbering 15-18 men. The first gliders, unaware that the LZ had been moved to Drop Zone O, came under heavy ground fire from German troops who occupied part of Landing Zone W. The C-47s released their gliders for the original LZ, where most delivered their loads intact despite heavy damage. It consisted of four serials, the first pair to arrive ten minutes after Keokuck, the second pair two hours later at sunset. Harris saw the plan as a waste of resources, while Churchill was concerned about collateral damage to Francean important ally. For the troop carrier aircraft this was in the form of three white and two black stripes, each two feet (60cm) wide, around the fuselage behind the exit doors and from front to back on the outer wings. I will never forget, Marie says, She was hugging a soldier! a lack of navigators on 60 percent of aircraft, forcing navigation by pilots when formations broke up. It was nonstop. a solid cloud bank at penetration altitude (1,500 feet (460m)), obscuring the entire western half of the 22 miles (35km) wide peninsula, thinning to broken clouds over the eastern half. In Normandy itself the Germans had deployed 80,000troops, but only one panzer division. Two pre-dawn glider landings, missions "Chicago" (101st) and "Detroit" (82nd), each by 52 CG-4 Waco gliders, landed anti-tank guns and support troops for each division. And what for? Just ten days before D-Day, a compromise was reached. The flights encountered winds that pushed them five minutes ahead of schedule, but the effect was uniform over the entire invasion force and had negligible effect on the timetables. The 502nd experienced heavy combat on the causeway on June 10. GRAIGNES, France The lost US paratrooper tapped on the door of the Rigault family's farmhouse in Normandy in the early hours of June 6, 1944, miles south of his intended drop zone and soaking. Terms & Conditions; Privacy Policy The 82nd Airborne continued its march towards La Haye-du-Puits, and made its final attack against Hill 122 (Mont Castre) on July 3 in a driving rainstorm. It was a lonely way to end the second world war. Jun 6, 2016. The 4th Infantry Division had landed and moved off Utah Beach, with the 8th Infantry surrounding a German battalion on the high ground south of Sainte-Mre-glise, and the 12th and 22nd Infantry moving into line northeast of the town. The missions took off while the parachute landings were in progress and followed them by two hours, landing at about 0400, 2 hours before dawn. So, for me, everybody wearing a uniform was a bad guy. It arrived at 20:53, seven minutes early, coming in over Utah Beach to limit exposure to ground fire, into a landing zone clearly marked with yellow panels and green smoke. The dispersal of the American airborne troops, and the nature of the hedgerow terrain, had the effect of confusing the Germans and fragmenting their response. Ted says: "Well, you see, once you've gone to sea you've always got to be ready for action, U-boats, anything. National Interest Newsletter. However, the bridge at Troarn remained a strategic issue, as it carried a major road. The paratroops trained at the school for two months with the troop carrier crews, but although every C-47 in IX TCC had a Rebecca interrogator installed, to keep from jamming the system with hundreds of signals, only flight leads were authorized to use it in the vicinity of the drop zones. The TCC command and staff officers were an excellent mix of combat veterans from those earlier assaults, and a few key officers were held over for continuity. D-Day was a historic World War II invasion, but the events of June 6, 1944 encompassed much more than a key military victory. In planning the D-Day attack, Allied military leaders knew that casualties might be staggeringly high, but it was a cost they were willing to pay in order to establish an infantry stronghold in France. It was a difficult job, made harder when he realised how badly injured the troops were. . Consequently so many Germans were nearby that the pathfinders could not set out their lights and were forced to rely solely on Eureka, which was a poor guide at short range. For Eisenhower, the switch in bombing seemed like a no-brainer. But there are some aspects from D-Day that may not be as well known. [14], Forty-two C-47s were destroyed in two days of operations, although in many cases the crews survived and were returned to Allied control. A group of 150 troops captured the main objective, the la Barquette lock, by 04:00. Canadian forces at Juno Beach sustained 946 casualties, of whom 335 were listed as killed. I know nurses would say to me 'silly sod', they see it every day, in a more clinical fashion. In coming to that conclusion he did not interview any aircrew nor qualify his opinion to that extent, nor did he acknowledge that British airborne operations on the same night succeeded despite also being widely scattered. The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The drop zones of the 101st were northeast of Carentan and lettered A, C, and D from north to south (Drop Zone B had been that of the 501st PIR before the changes of May 27). The 325th and 505th passed through the 90th Division, which had taken Pont l'Abb (originally an 82nd objective), and drove west on the left flank of VII Corps to capture Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte on June 16. American cemetery of the Normandy landings, located near Omaha beach. D-Day, on June 6 1944, was the world's largest seaborne assault and the beginning of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. The 82nd airborne still had not gained control of the bridge across the Merderet by June 9. [26], Ground combat involving U.S. airborne forces, Order of battle for the American airborne landings in Normandy, "An open letter to the airborne community", "Why Does the NYT Continue to Cite Historian S.L.A. It was also a lift of 10 serials organized in three waves, totaling 6,420 paratroopers carried by 369 C-47s. Despite this, controversy did not flare until the assertions reached the general public as a commercial best-seller in Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers, particularly in sincere accusations by icons such as Richard Winters. Even so, 2/3 of the 1st Battalion was dropped accurately on DZ C. The 2nd Battalion, much of which had dropped too far west, fought its way to the Haudienville causeway by mid-afternoon but found that the 4th Division had already seized the exit. French businessman Bernard Marie was 5 years old and living in Normandy on June 6, 1944. At about 9:30 p.m. local time on June 5, 20 American C-47s carrying more than 200 of the specially trained paratroopers lifted off from an airfield in Southern Britain. However the units were damaged in the drop and provided no assistance. Bradley insisted that 75 percent of the airborne assault be delivered by gliders for concentration of forces. FORT IRWIN, Calif. -- Four paratroopers died and more than 100 were injured, 20 seriously,in a massive training exercise Tuesday in the Southern California desert, the . Shortly after midnight, three US and British airborne divisions, more than 23,000 men, took off to secure the flanks of the beaches. Elmira was essential to the 82nd Airborne, however, delivering two battalions of glider artillery and 24 howitzers to support the 507th and 508th PIRs west of the Merderet. Timely assembly enabled the 505th to accomplish two of its missions on schedule. An Army investigation into a paratrooper's death last spring determined the soldier's improper exit from the plane caused his death. was as bloody as it had been in the trenches of the World War One. The 1st Battalion did not achieve its objectives of capturing bridges over the Merderet at la Fire and Chef-du-Pont, despite the assistance of several hundred troops from the 507th and 508th PIRs. The Germans, who had neglected to fortify Normandy, began constructing defenses and obstacles against airborne assault in the Cotentin, including specifically the planned drop zones of the 82nd Airborne Division. German sources vary between four thousand and nine thousand D-Day casualties on 6 Junea range of 125 percent. Paratroopers were to play a decisive part in World War Two. More than 325,000 troops, 50,000 vehicles, and 100,000 tonnes of equipment had managed to land in Normandy. emergency usage of Rebecca by numerous lost aircraft, jamming the system, drop runs by some C-47s that were above or below the designated 700 feet (210m) drop altitude, or in excess of the 110 miles per hour (180km/h) drop speed, and. The first serial, carrying all of the 2nd Battalion and most of the 2nd Battalion 401st GIR (the 325th's "third battalion"), landed by squadrons in four different fields on each side of LZ W, one of which came down through intense fire. The 101st Airborne Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the US Army's Center of Military History and the United States . Our database is searchable by subject and updated continuously. By the end of May 1944, the IX Troop Carrier Command had available 1,207 Douglas C-47 Skytrain troop carrier airplanes and was one-third overstrength, creating a strong reserve. By Jeff Somers / June 7, 2021 11:46 pm EST. 101st units maneuvered on June 8 to envelop Saint-Cme-du-Mont, pushing back FJR6, and consolidated its lines on June 9. World War II's Death Ride of the Paratroopers: Operation Market-Garden It is hard to imagine any nation today that would willingly drop 35,000 soldiers 60 miles behind enemy lines, in the hopes. A test exercise was flown by selected aircraft over the invasion fleet on June 1, but to maintain security, orders to paint stripes were not issued until June 3. SS-PGR 37 and III./FJR6 attacked the 101st positions southwest of Carentan. It's asking a lot isn't it? See answers (2) Copy. Chicago was an unqualified success, with 92 per cent landing within 2 miles (3.2km) of target. The team was unable to get either its amber halophane lights or its Eureka beacon working until the drop was well in progress. Established in 1942, the 101st Airborne Division parachuted into Normandy, France, near Utah Beach on D-Day (June 6, 1944). However the change in drop zones on May 27 and the increased size of German defenses made the risk to the planes from ground fire much greater, and the routes were modified so that the 101st Airborne Division would fly a more southerly ingress route along the Douve River (which would also provide a better visual landmark at night for the inexperienced troop carrier pilots). Only eight passengers were killed in the two missions, but one of those was the assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne, Brigadier General Don Pratt. Four had no combat experience but had trained together for more than a year in the United States. More than 6,330 boats carrying thousands of men readied themselves to launch the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. June 6, 1944better known as "D-Day"was the largest amphibious military operation in history. Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, the British 6th Airborne Division, the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, and other attached Allied units took part in the assault.. The . But just how many paratroopers did it take to support the Normandy landings, how many soldiers braved machine gun fire and artillery to secure those crucial beachheads, and how many German soldiers were they up against? Just one month after D-Day Ted met a woman named Lila while he was on leave and married her three weeks later in August 1944. Join historians and history buffs alike with our Unlimited Digital Access pass to every military history article ever published (over 3,000 articles) in Sovereigns military history magazines. The initial point for the 101st at Portbail, code-named "Muleshoe", was approximately 10 miles (16km) south of that of the 82d, "Peoria", near Flamanville. "And then they would be taken out to the boat. Waverly Woodson died in 2005 but his widow, Joann Woodson, who turned 90 on May 26, has made it her mission to see that her husband's heroism is acknowledged. The British and Canadians put 75,215 British and Canadian troops ashore. Many German units made a tenacious defense of their strong-points, but all were systematically defeated within the week. Others suffered from seasickness caused by the flat bottoms on the smaller boats "bouncing" across the waves. As more than 156,000 soldiers took part in the Normandy landings, chaplains also landed . Because it would be unsupported by naval and corps artillery, Ridgway, commanding the 82nd Airborne Division, also wanted a glider assault to deliver his organic artillery. ANS 2 - Over 19,000 American and British paratroops were . The 315th and 442d Groups, which had never dropped troops until May and were judged the command's "weak sisters", continued to train almost nightly, dropping paratroopers who had not completed their quota of jumps. Two company-sized pockets of the 507th held out behind the German center of resistance at Amfreville until relieved by the seizure of the causeway on June 9. Operating on British Double Summer Time, both arrived and landed before dark. The first flights, inbound to DZ A, were not surprised by the bad weather, but navigating errors and a lack of Eureka signal caused the 2nd Battalion 502nd PIR to come down on the wrong drop zone. 156,000allied troops landed in Normandy, across, 7,000ships and landing craft involved and 10,000 vehicles, 4,400from the combined allied forces died on the day. [Pictured: Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the order of the day, "Full victory, nothing else," to paratroopers in England prior to the Normandy invasion.] History on the Nets article on D-Day casualties provides the astonishing raw figures. "I'm a soft sod. They had one son, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren and were together until her death in 1991. All matriel requested by commanders in IX TCC, including armor plating, had been received with the exception of self-sealing fuel tanks, which Chief of the Army Air Forces General Henry H. Arnold had personally rejected because of limited supplies. He died in 1969 at the age of 57years. The planes assigned to DZ D along the Douve River failed to see their final turning point and flew well past the zone. In less than two months, by late August 1944, northern France had been liberated. Abigail Jenks, 20, died after jumping from a helicopter during an exercise on April 19. There, the "Screaming Eagles" division engaged in fierce fighting with German forces. The serials took off beginning at 22:30 on June 5, assembled into formations at wing and command assembly points, and flew south to the departure point, code-named "Flatbush". In the 82nd Airborne's area, a battalion of the 1058th Grenadier Regiment supported by tanks and other armored vehicles counterattacked Sainte-Mre-glise the same morning but were stopped by a reinforced company of M4 Sherman tanks from the 4th Division. The serials were scheduled over the drop zones at six-minute intervals. Video, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims, 'I survived, then sipped my first champagne'. [19], General Omar Bradley[20] blamed "pilot inexperience and anxiety" as well as weather for the failures of the paratroopers. Each parachute infantry regiment (PIR), a unit of approximately 1800 men organized into three battalions, was transported by three or four serials, formations containing 36, 45, or 54 C-47s, and separated from each other by specific time intervals. In fact, on D-Day, as many French civilians died as Allied soldiers. But on D-Day alone, as many as 4,400 troops died from the . Many paratroopers were dropped far off their marks and became vulnerable to German snipers. The biggest anxiety for the airborne commanders was in linking up with the widely scattered forces west of the Merderet. The next day it attacked the town, supported by the 327th GIR attacking from the east. Steele indeed landed on the church's steeple and pretended to be dead to avoid being shot . On June 6, the German 6th Parachute Regiment (FJR6), commanded by Oberst Friedrich August von der Heydte,[13] (FJR6) advanced two battalions, I./FJR6 to Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and II./FJR6 to Sainte-Mre-glise, but faced with the overwhelming numbers of the two U.S. divisions, withdrew. But many of the first troops to arrive at Normandy, in northern France, were accidentally dropped off by their landing boats in too-deep water, where they sank under the weight of their guns and equipment. The German 716 th Division counter-attacked, but the 6 th Airborne drove them off. Criticism from veterans of the 82nd Airborne was not only rare, its commanders Ridgway and Gavin both officially commended the troop carrier groups, as did Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort and even one prominent 101st veteran, Captain Frank Lillyman, commander of its pathfinders. Flak from German anti-aircraft guns resulted in planes either going under or over their prescribed altitudes. [21] Others critical included Max Hastings (Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy) and James Huston (Out of the Blue: U.S. Army Airborne Operations in World War II). More than 150,000 soldiers landed at Normandy on D-Day, and around 4,400 allied soldiers are believed to have died on D-Day, along with thousands of French civilians. For the next 30 hours, he removed bullets, dispensed blood plasma, cleaned wounds, reset broken bones and at one point amputated a foot. The pathfinder serials were organized in two waves, with those of the 101st Airborne Division arriving a half-hour before the first scheduled assault drop. The second serial hit LZ W with accuracy and few injuries. The C-47s carrying the 505th did not experience the difficulties that had plagued the 101st's drops. Two additional glider missions ("Galveston" and "Hackensack") were made just after daybreak on June 7, delivering the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment to the 82nd Airborne. Although Woodson did not live to see this week's 75th anniversary he died in 2005 he told The Associated Press in 1994 about how his landing craft hit a mine on the way to Omaha Beach. The first serial, assigned to DZ A, missed its zone and set up a mile away near St. Germain-de-Varreville. 16,714 deaths amongst the Allied air forces. Each drop zone (DZ) had a serial of three C-47 aircraft assigned to locate the DZ and drop pathfinder teams, who would mark it. Those poor people. The 300 men of the pathfinder companies were organized into teams of 14-18 paratroops each, whose main responsibility would be to deploy the ground beacon of the Rebecca/Eureka transponding radar system, and set out holophane marking lights. The ship came under occasional fire from German artillery and dive-bombers but managed to battle on unscathed as it continued to hit German positions. History on the Net gives the jaw-dropping raw numbers. We cannot forget the 6th of June.. Nearby, the 506th PIR conducted a reconnaissance-in-force with two understrength battalions to capture Saint-Cme-du-Mont but although supported by several tanks, was stopped near Angoville-au-Plain. The men left the Upottery airbase located in Devon, England early in the morning on June 6, 1944. [16], Casualties through June 30 were reported by VII Corps as 4,670 for the 101st (546 killed, 2217 wounded, and 1,907 missing), and 4,480 for the 82nd (457 killed, 1440 wounded, and 2583 missing).[17]. The hazards and results of mission Elmira resulted in a route change over the Douve River valley that avoided the heavy ground fire of the evening before, and changed the landing zone to LZ E, that of the 101st Airborne Division. The second wave of mission Elmira arrived at 22:55, and because no other pathfinder aids were operating, they headed for the Eureka beacon on LZ O. But without the money and manpower to install a continuous line of defense, the Nazis focused on established ports. The serials in each wave were to arrive at six-minute intervals. Approximately fifteen thousand French civilians died in the Normandy campaign, partly from Allied bombing and partly from combat actions of Allied and German ground forces. Close to 160,000 Allied troops crossed into Normandy on almost 5,000 landing craft and aircraft on D-Day. Here are some lesser-known stories about the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" jumped first on June 6, between 00:48 and 01:40 British Double Summer Time. Once over water, all lights except formation lights were turned off, and these were reduced to their lowest practical intensity. And the first 7, 8, 9, 10 guys went down like you were cutting down wheatThey were kids.. There they descended and flew southwest over the English Channel at 500 feet (150m) MSL to remain below German radar coverage. Read about our approach to external linking. The men of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion were packed tight with infantry troops. Shortly after midnight on 6 June, over 18,000 men of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division were dropped into Normandy. The 52nd TCW, carrying only two token paratroopers on each C-47, performed satisfactorily although the two lead planes of the 316th Troop Carrier Group (TCG) collided in mid-air, killing 14 including the group commander, Col. Burton R. Fleet.