Night Drop

On June 6, 1944, D-Day began with pre-dawn night parachute drops by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions behind Utah Beach. The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) of the 82nd Airborne Division were given …

1944-06-06

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On June 6, 1944, D-Day began with pre-dawn night parachute drops by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions behind Utah Beach. The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) of the 82nd Airborne Division were given the task of seizing and holding the town of Sainte Mere-Eglise which straddled a vital road junction. Within two hours of landing and after gathering some of each battalion’s paratroopers, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, Lt. Col Edward Frause, headed for the town, about a mile distant. Waiting for him and his paratroopers were unknown elements of the 1057th Infantry Regiment of Germany's 91st Airlanding Division.

Sainte Mere-Eglise, France

Mission Boston was a parachute combat assault at night by Major General Matthew Ridgway's U.S. 82nd "All American" Airborne Division on June 6, 1944, part of the American airborne landings in Normandy during World War II. Boston was a component element of Operation Neptune, the assault portion of the Allied invasion of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord. 6,420 paratroopers jumped from nearly 370 C-47 Skytrain troop carrier aircraft into an intended objective area of roughly 10 square miles (26 km2) located on either side of the Merderet river on the Cotentin Peninsula of France, five hours ahead of the D-Day landings. The drops were scattered by bad weather and German anti-aircraft fire over an area three to four times as large as that planned. Two inexperienced units of the 82nd, the 507th and 508th Parachute Infantry Regiments (PIR), were given the mission of blocking approaches west of the Merderet River, but most of their paratroops missed their drop zones entirely. The veteran 505th PIR jumped accurately and captured its objective, the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, which proved essential to the success of the division.

Wikipedia: Mission Boston

German

American