Meanwhile, the assault force under Priday landed nearly on top of its objective, the Orne River bridge – although Priday’s glider mistakenly landed at another crossing several miles away. The men from Priday’s remaining two gliders, now under the command of Lieutenant Tappenden, quickly overpowered the small German guard force and seized the bridge intact.

Subscribe Today

• Subscribe to Armchair General Magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!
 

A half-hour later, parachutists from the 7th Parachute Battalion, 6th Airborne Division, arrived to help defend the bridges. As Howard’s “longest day” progressed, the glider troops and parachutists fought off several German counterattacks but managed to hold the bridges. Finally at 1 p.m. Lord Lovat’s commandos arrived after landing at Sword Beach.

Hundreds of individual combat actions were fought at Normandy on D-Day to ensure the success of Operation Overlord. However, none was more important than the risky yet successful glider assault conducted by Howard and his men.

READER SOLUTIONS
Our judges based their choices for winning Reader Solutions and those receiving honorable mention on submissions that chose Course of Action Two: Land at Both Bridges, or whose explanations demonstrated a solid grasp of the key points for a glider assault. (See “After Action Report.”) COA Two capitalized on speed and surprise, giving the enemy little or no time to raise the alarm, occupy prepared defensive positions, destroy the bridges with explosive charges, or shift forces from one objective to the other. This plan also placed the assault groups a reasonable distance from one another, with no enemy force in between them, should Howard have needed to shift troops from one group to the other.

Course of Action One: Land at Orne River Bridge, while having the advantage of keeping all of Howard’s men together, ran the risk of one or both bridges being blown up once the enemy became aware of the glider force’s presence. Certainly, the deliberate attack on the Caen Canal bridge that was called for by this plan would have alerted the defenders, giving them time either to occupy defensive positions and possibly defeat Howard’s assault or to detonate preplaced demolition charges.

Course of Action Three: Land on the Flanks organized the assault force into two groups as in COA Two, but it widely separated the groups with the enemy between them. Moreover, since COA Three called for the three gliders under Howard to land near the German guard unit, he and his men would have had to fight through the enemy’s main defense to arrive at the Caen Canal bridge – which the Germans likely would have blown up long before the glider troops even reached it.

AFTER ACTION REPORT
Key Points for the D-Day Glider Assault

Planning

• Enforce strict pre-operation security to maintain secrecy of D-Day invasion’s timing and location.
• Coordinate with beach invasion force to facilitate planned linkup.
• Conduct realistic rehearsals so everyone understands his role and mission.
• Cross-train personnel to account for inevitable casualties from “controlled crash” glider landings.
• Coordinate assaults on multiple objectives to reduce or eliminate the enemy’s advance warning.

Execution

• Fly routes that avoid enemy observation and anti-aircraft fire.
• Maintain glider assault force integrity; land each attacking force intact.
• Land as close as possible to the objective.
• Capitalize on surprise, speed and violent execution to overcome firepower disadvantage.
• Establish all-around defense to hold the objective until the arrival of relief forces.

Help Armchair General by bookmarking to