Pegasus Bridge Read online

  There is always or nearly always a slip between the cup and the lip: orders are vague: there is uncertainty: has the moment arrived or should one wait? Who is the individual actually responsible both for working the switch and for ordering the bridges to be blown? These questions are age-old and on the doubts that might exist in some German mind or minds at the critical moment I based the plan. But a moment or two was all that I knew we would get. The assault on the bridges must, therefore, come like a bolt from the blue.

  Howard's orders of May 2 informed him that his initial relief would come from the 5th Para Brigade, which would drop northeast of Ranville at 0050 hours and then 'move forthwith to take up a defensive position round the two bridges'. Simultaneously, 3rd Para Brigade would drop on the high wooded ground south of Le Mesnil forest. At 0600, the British 3rd Infantry Division would begin its landings west of Ouistreham 'with objective Caen'. Attached to the 3rd Division were Lord Lovat's Commandos, who would move forward as rapidly as possible to establish a land link between the beaches and the paratroopers and glider-borne troops in and around the bridges. The brigade of Commandos could be expected any time after 1100 hours.

  To carry out his assignment, Howard was given his own D Company, plus two platoons from B Company, a detachment of thirty sappers, one wing of the Glider Pilots Regiment, and six Horsa gliders. Poett's May 2 orders also gave Howard the general outline of how he should proceed: 'The capture of the bridges will be a coup de main operation depending largely on surprise, speed and dash for success. Provided the bulk of your force lands safely, you should have little difficulty in overcoming the known opposition on the bridges. Your difficulties will arise in holding off an enemy counter-attack on the bridges, until you are relieved.' The counter-attack should be expected any time after 0100 hours, or within an hour of landing, and the most likely line of approach for the counter -attacking force would be from the west.

  Howard was ordered to organise his defensive position immediately after taking the bridges, because 'it is vital that the crossing places be held, and to do this you will secure a close bridgehead on the west bank, in addition to guarding the bridges. The immediate defence of the bridges and of the west bank of the canal must be held at all costs.' Poett's orders envisaged more than a passive defence, however. 'You will harass and delay the deployment of the enemy counter-attack forces ... by offensive patrols', the orders read. 'Patrols will remain mobile and offensive. Up to one third of your effective force may be used in this role. The remaining two thirds will be used for static defence and immediate counter-attack.'

  Poett was also explicit in the orders as to the role of the sappers. Their sole tasks, in order of priority, were to neutralise the demolition mechanisms, remove charges from demolition chambers, and establish ferries. He also promised that one company of the 7th Para Battalion of the 5th Para Brigade would be despatched 'with the utmost possible speed', and would reach Howard's position by 0230 hours. Once there, they would come under Howard's command until arrival of the officer commanding the 7th Para Battalion.

  Poett concluded his orders, 'The training of your force will be regarded as a first priority matter.' He encouraged Howard to demand special stores and training facilities, and promised every possible help.

  When Howard finished reading the orders, Poett told him that he did not intend to interfere with D Company's preparation for the coup de main. Howard would have the twin responsibilities of designing an effective training programme, and of making the detailed plan for the seizure of the bridges.

  Howard could scarcely keep his feelings to himself. He was concerned about the various challenges he faced, of course, and could imagine any number of things going wrong. But he was also exhilarated, as he had never been before in his life; and he was tremendously proud that D Company had been chosen to lead the way on D-Day.

  Poett next briefed Howard on operation Overlord. Howard was amazed by the size and scope of the invading force, and impressed by the critical nature of his bridges to success on the left flank. He noted that the American paratroopers, two divisions strong, were landing on the far right flank of the invasion in the Cherbourg peninsula. By the end of the briefing, Howard says, 'I knew absolutely everything about the invasion of Europe. Where it was to be, who was taking part, how it was to be done, everything except the date.'

  Poett gave Howard a green pass, which allowed him to enter Broadmoor at will. But Poett would not allow him to take away his orders, the reconnaissance photographs, maps, or even notes. Nor was he allowed to tell his second-in -command, Friday, about D Company's mission, much less any of the rest of the officers. The need to keep his secret was a great strain for him.

  Back at Bulford, Howard concentrated the training. Out on Salisbury Plain, he used tape to lay out a river and a canal, with two bridges over them, all at the exact distances of his real targets. Day and night, his platoons practised capturing them: sometimes one platoon, sometimes three, sometimes all six. All the exercising was controlled by radio. Howard felt that above all his plan had to be flexible. The gliders were to take off at one-minute intervals line astern, but there was absolutely no guarantee which order they would land in, or even where they would land. If only one glider hit the target, that platoon had to be prepared to do the job of all six platoons. Simultaneously, Howard worked on the men not to use their voices before the fighting began. Then, reminding them of the cost of silence in operation MUSH, Howard told them that as soon as the first shot went off, they should all start shouting their radio call signs as loudly as they could. No. 1 glider was Able, no. 2 was Baker, no. 3 was Charlie, and so on. Howard wanted the men to shout out their identifications over and over, both to identify each other and to give the Germans the feeling that the enemy was there in great numbers.

  From these exercises over the taped-up bridges and roads, Howard decided that General Gale's plan for landing inside (between) the bridges rather than outside them, was correct. The LZs on the inside were awfully small, to be sure, and so situated that one group of gliders, at the canal bridge, would have to land facing north, towards the coast, the other group facing south, towards Caen, which required splitting the glider formations at take-off. These disadvantages were outweighed by two major advantages. First, the inside landing sites were smack against the bridges, instead of some distance away. Second, by having all his platoons inside, Howard could call on them to support one another.

  Broadmoor, meanwhile, was collecting and putting together intelligence on the bridges and surrounding villages, and making it available to Howard. Thanks to Georges Gondree, Madame Vion, the Resistance in Caen, and the photo reconnaissance of the RAF, there was a rather fabulous amount available. Divisional intelligence was able to tell Howard who were the collaborators in Benouville, who were Resistance. He knew, as the Germans did not, that Georges Gondree spoke English and his wife German. He was given a complete topographical report on the area. He knew that Benouville contained 589 residents, that M. Thomas was the mayor, that the voltage was 110/200 3 phase AC - even that Madame Vion was considered something of an autocrat. He was warned that from the roof of the Chateau de Benouville, a three-storey maternity hospital, the Germans would have a commanding field of fire over the valley of the Orne for a considerable distance. And many in the village, Howard found out, looked sideways when Therese Gondree walked past. They were suspicious of her German accent, and did not approve of the fact that she lived right next to the garrison and sold beer to the Germans.

  Howard also learned from his intelligence summary that the fighting value of the garrison at the bridge had been assessed at '40 per cent static and 15 per cent in a counter-attack role. Equipment consists of an unknown proportion of French, British and Polish weapons.' The last sentence read, 'This intelligence summary will be destroyed by fire immediately after reading.'

  Even though Howard could not take the air reconnaissance photographs out ofBroadmoor, he could go there to study them any time he wished. The RAF people had se
t up a stereograph system for him to provide a three-dimensional view. He could even see down into the enemy trenches along the eastern side of the canal. Poett went over the photographs with Howard. He kept telling him that he had to capture those bridges in a few minutes, before they could be blown. The role, even the survival, of the 6th Airborne Division depended on keeping those bridges intact.

  How good, and how up to date, was Howard's intelligence? As good as it could possibly be. Of all the attributes the British forces demonstrated during the Second World War, none equalled their ability to gather, evaluate, and disseminate intelligence. At this vital task, they were unquestionably the best in the world. The British government invested heavily in intelligence in all its various forms, and received a handsome return. John Howard was one of the beneficiaries. Here are three examples of what he got:

  In early May, Rommel visited the bridges. He ordered an anti-tank gun emplacement built, and a pillbox ringed by barbed wire to protect it. He also ordered more slit trenches dug. Work began immediately, and within two days Howard was told by the RAF that Jerry was installing some suspicious emplacements. Within a week, word came via Gondree through Madame Vion to Caen to SOE to Broadmoor to Howard that the gun emplacement had a 50mm anti-tank gun in it, with some camouflaging over it, and that the pillbox was finished.

  In mid-May, 21st Panzer Division moved from Brittany to Normandy, and on May 23 to the Caen area, with von Luck's regiment taking up positions just east of Caen. On May 24, Howard knew about the movement of the division. On May 25, Hickman's Independent Parachute Regiment moved into the area. Howard knew about it the next day.

  The intelligence people had produced a model of the area, twelve foot square. Howard describes it as 'a work of art - every building, tree, bush and ditch, trench, fence etc. was there'. The model was changed daily, in accordance with the results of the morning reconnaissance flight. Thus on May 15 Schmidt knocked down two buildings along the canal, to give him a better field of fire. Howard saw the change on the model the next day.

  Howard's visits to Broadmoor were characterised by the place's nickname. The Madhouse'. After clearing numerous check points with his green pass, Howard recalls going in and being struck by 'the harassed look on the faces of many people walking about the building, obviously up to their eyes in last-minute changes in major plans'.

  At the end of his early May briefing, Poett had told Howard that he could have anything he needed for his training programme. Taking Poett at his word, Howard ordered up German opposition: soldiers who would defend the bridge wearing German uniforms, using German weapons and tactics, and insofar as possible shouting their orders in German. He obtained captured German weapons, so that all his men were thoroughly familiar with what they could do, and how to operate them. He had but to snap his fingers, and trucks would appear, to carry his platoons to wherever he wanted to go.

  D Company got the best of everything, except in food, in which area it got no special favours. There was very strict rationing throughout the country, and the food was bad; worse, there was not enough of it. Parr recalls:

  Much of your money, spare money, went on grub. I was always hungry. You worked so hard, you trained so hard that the grub they gave you wasn't enough to keep you going and you didn't ask what it was, you just grabbed it and you just shovelled it down, as simple as that. So the first thing you got paid you used to do is make out for the NAAFI and get chow. Yeah, you supplemented your diet with your pay, there's no doubt about that.

  Howard was carrying some heavy burdens, of which the chief was being the only man in the company who was 'bigoted'. Howard longed to put Brian Friday at least into the picture, partly to share the burden of knowledge, partly so that he could discuss his planning with him. He did, in fact, get permission to brief Friday around May 21.

  He was pushing the men hard now, harder than ever, but no matter how he varied the order of landing or direction of attack or other aspects of the exercise, it was always the same make-believe bridges, at the same distances. Everyone was getting bored stiff. After about ten days of this, Howard called the men together on the parade ground and told them, 'Look, we are training for a special purpose'. He did not mention the invasion - he hardly had to - but he went on: 'You'll find that a lot of the training we are doing, this capturing of things like bridges, is connected with that special purpose. If any of you mention the word "bridges" outside our training hours and I get to know about it, you'll be for the high jump and your feet won't touch before you land in the Glasshouse and get RTU.' (Wally Parr told Irene the next evening, over the telephone, that he would be doing bridges on D-Day.)

  Von Luck, as noted, had moved to the east ofCaen, between the River Dives and the Orne River. So had Hickman. Von Luck planned, and practised, his defences. He marked out the routes forward to alternative assembly areas behind likely invasion points. He laid down rest and refuelling areas, detailed traffic control units, marked bypasses and allotted anti-aircraft guns for road protection. Hickman meanwhile was engaging in anti-paratrooper exercises. Even Major Schmidt, at the bridges, was finally getting some sense of urgency. He was completing his bunkers, and was almost ready to get around to putting in the anti-glider poles. The Gondrees watched all this, and said nothing, except to Madame Vion.

  Howard asked the topographical people to search the map of Britain and find him some place where a river and a canal ran closely together and were crossed by bridges on the same road. They found such a spot outside Exeter. Howard moved the company down there, and for six days, by day and by night, attacked those Exeter bridges. Townspeople came to gape as the lads dashed about, throwing grenades, setting off explosives, getting into hand-to-hand combat, cursing, yelling, 'Able, Able', or 'Easy, Easy' at the top of their lungs. Howard had them practise every possible development he could imagine - only one glider getting down, or the gliders landing out of proper sequence, or the dozens of other possibilities. He taught every man the basic rudiments of the sappers' jobs; he instructed the sappers in the functions of the platoons; he made certain that each of his officers was prepared to take command of the whole operation, and sergeants and corporals to take command of each platoon, if need be.

  Howard insisted that they all become proficient in putting together and using the canvas boats that they were bringing along in the event the bridges were blown. Assault boat training was 'always good for morale,' according to Howard, because 'somebody inevitably went overboard and that poor individual never failed to make sure he wasn't the only one who got wet'.

  The hurling about of grenades and thunder-flashes caused some problems and brought some fun. Thunder-flashes were tossed into the river, to provide fish for supper. The local Council protested at this illegal fishing. The Council also protested that all this running back and forth over its bridges, and all these explosives going off, were seriously weakening the structures. (They stand, solid, today.) A homeowner in the area had some tiles blown off his roof by a mortar smoke bomb. Irate, he confronted Howard, who passed him along to Friday, who gave him the proper forms to fill in so that he could get the tiles replaced. One month later, sitting in a foxhole in Normandy, Friday let out a whoop of laughter. The mail had been delivered, and in it was a letter from the homeowner, demanding to know when his roof would be fixed.

  Out of all this practice and after consulting with his officers, Howard made his final plan. The key to it was to put the pillbox out of action while simultaneously getting a platoon onto the other side of the bridge. It had to be accomplished before shots were fired, if possible, and certainly before the Germans were fully aroused. The pillbox was a key not only because of its firing power, but because - according to information received from Georges Gondree - that was the location of the button that could blow the bridge. Howard detailed three men from no. 1 glider (Brotheridge's platoon) to dash to the pillbox and throw grenades through the gun-slits. To take physical possession of the opposite bank, Howard detailed Brotheridge to lead the remainder of his
platoon on a dash across the bridge. Ideally, Howard wanted Brotheridge to hear the thuds of the grenades in the pillbox as he was mid-way across the bridge.

  No. 2 glider, David Wood's platoon, would clear up the inner defences, the trenches, machine-gun nests and anti-tank gun pit along the east bank. No. 3 glider, Sandy Smith's platoon, would cross the bridge to reinforce Brotheridge. On the river bridge, the procedure would be the same, with Friday in no. 4 glider (Hooper's platoon), Sweeney in no. 5, and Fox in no. 6. All six platoons were trained to do all six of the platoon tasks.

  Each glider would carry five sappers, the thirty men under the command of Captain R. K. Jock Neilson. The sappers' main job was to move immediately to the bridges, then hand-over-hand themselves along the bottom beams, cutting fuses and disposing of explosives.

  If all went well at both bridges, Howard intended to call two platoons from the river bridge over to the canal bridge, sending one towards Benouville as a fighting patrol, and holding the other in reserve. This was because the threat he faced lay to the west. That was German-occupied territory, with a garrison of some sort in every village. The first counter-attack was likely to come from the west, possibly led by tanks. To the east, the 6th Airborne Division would be dropping thirty minutes later and setting up in Ranville to provide protection in that direction.

  The landing operation was John Howard's plan. His superiors let him work it out himself, then approved his final presentation. He ran through it again and again, until the men were exhausted and almost too tense and too bored to care any longer.