Planning for D-Day
The mission to capture the Orne bridges was given its own top secret code name: Operation Deadstick – very appropriate, since in aviation, a “deadstick” landing is one that is made without engine power. Deadstick would require some extraordinary feats of military daring. For starters, there were the targets themselves. The village of Bénouville stands on the west side of the canal. The road crossed the canal on a steel drawbridge, built in 1934. Technically it was a “Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge,” with a massive counterweight above the roadway. It would be immortalized as “Pegasus Bridge,” after the flying horse emblem of the British Airborne forces.
The village of Bénouville stands on the west side of the canal. The road crossed the canal on a steel drawbridge, built in 1934. Technically it was a “Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge,” with a massive counterweight above the roadway. It would be immortalized as “Pegasus Bridge,” after the flying horse emblem of the British Airborne forces.
Defending the bridges were elements of the 736th Regiment of the German 716th Infantry Division. This was a “static” (non-mobile) unit made up largely of Polish, French, and Russian prisoners, old men, and boys. But the position was strongly fortified, with barbed wire, a concrete machine-gun pillbox, and a 50 mm anti-tank gun. In reserve near Caen was the powerful 125th Panzergrenadier Regiment of the 21st Panzer Division, one of Rommel’s favorite units from his days commanding the “Afrika Korps.”
Horsa gliders near the Caen Canal bridge at Bénouville, June 8, 1944. Part of the 6th Airborne Division’s coup de main force that carried men of “D” and “B” Companies, 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who captured the bridges over the Orne River and Caen Canal in the early hours of D-Day. In the foreground is glider No. 93, which carried Lt. David Wood’s platoon, and behind it, glider No. 91, which carried the force command, Maj. John Howard, and Lt. Den Brotheridge’s platoon. Imperial War Museum photo
Of the 156,000 British, American, Canadian, and Free French who would set foot in Normandy on D-Day, the men of D Company would be among the very first, landing just 16 minutes after midnight. They were reinforced by a detachment of Royal Engineers, tasked with disarming any demolition charges attached to the bridges. Although the bridges had been wired and prepared for destruction, after the battle the explosives were found neatly stacked and securely locked in a nearby hut.
Of the 156,000 British, American, Canadian, and Free French who would set foot in Normandy on D-Day, the men of D Company would be among the very first, landing just 16 minutes after midnight.
Everything depended on surprise. The gliders would have to land as close as possible to the objective, and the German defenders would have to be neutralized before they could get organized and react. German doctrine called for immediate counterattack against airborne troops, because they were most vulnerable in the minutes after landing.