Beneath The Castle Walls

Lt Col. Timmes’ night patrols paid off. Lieutenant John Marr and Private Norman Carter stumbled upon the secret ford, and crossed to rendezvous with General Ridgeway at the Division CP. The General’s staff called on the 1st Battalion of the …

1944-06-08

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Lt Col. Timmes’ night patrols paid off. Lieutenant John Marr and Private Norman Carter stumbled upon the secret ford, and crossed to rendezvous with General Ridgeway at the Division CP. The General’s staff called on the 1st Battalion of the newly arrived 325 Glider Infantry Regiment to effect a midnight crossing, in hopes of breaking the German stranglehold on the Merderet bridgehead. Under cover of the night, Lt Marr guided the glider men across the secret ford, then moved ahead to ensure that the way to the orchard had been cleared of friendly mines. While he was gone, long range fire from the Gray Castle surprised the men of the 325. Not realizing that the German position was effectively countered by the American presence in the orchard, Major Sanford sent Charley Company to ‘neutralize’ the threat, while the rest of Sanford’s force moved off south against Cauquigny Marr eventually caught up with the Charley Company, and helped them to extricate themselves from the nightmare of a surprise counter attack. Then, with Marr in the lead and Germans following close behind, Charley Company set out in search of the rest of the battalion.

North Of Amfreville, 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