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The Bridge at La Fiere

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Title
The Bridge at La Fiere
Description
Five hours before the D-Day landings began, a massive force of 6000 paratroopers jumped from 400 Skytrain troop carrier aircraft into an intended objective area of 10 square miles, either side of the Merderet River. Tasked with taking a Bridge …
Subject
Publisher
Date
1944-06-06
Scenario#
N16
Scenario Description
Five hours before the D-Day landings began, a massive force of 6000 paratroopers jumped from 400 Skytrain troop carrier aircraft into an intended objective area of 10 square miles, either side of the Merderet River. Tasked with taking a Bridge that would prove critical for breaking out of the Normandy beachheade, the 1st Batalllon of the 505th Parachute Regiment engaged German troope guarding the bridge under the cover of darkness. The resulting battle has been called “the bloodiest small unit action of World War II."
Location
Ferme Manoir la Fière, France
Battle Name
Battle Narrative
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.
Narrative Source
Wikipedia: Mission Boston
Combatants
American
German
Collection:

Geolocation