82nd and the 101st

While the Allies knew that establishing the beachheads would be a long and hard fought battle, they knew that another major difficulty of operation overlord would be holding them from counter attack. If the Allies were pushed back into the sea during this invasion, they would not be able to muster enough resources, planning, and men to do it again for another year. Not only would the war drag on, but the Soviets on the Eastern fronts were finally pushing the Germans back with their massive army. If the Western democracies didn’t help to defeat the Germans then the Soviets could gain huge amounts of land and influence. Operation Overlord had to succeed. The 82nd and the 101st had to succeed.

The 82nd and the 101st were both airborne division of the US army. Together they were some 13,000 strong tasked with delaying or stopping the German counter attack. This would allow the troops on the beach to succeed in holding the beaches as well as pushing inland towards the towns and villages such as Caen which were also major objectives. But to be clear the Americans were not the only nations to send in airborne troops. Both Britain and Canada together dropped almost 10,000 troops with similar objectives: Seize major roads/bridges and slow the Germans.

Just after midnight, the first wave of airborne units were dropped from their planes. These units were tasked with marking the landing zones so that the following waves could land in altogether. But almost everything went wrong. In fact, only 1 of the 5 drop zones had been marked by the time the 2nd wave came.

As the next wave approached, their luck seemed to be similar to the pathfinders. Bad weather and poor navigation meant that thousands missed their drop zones. Some planes flew too low and were fired at by anti-aircraft. Some of their men were unable to even deploy their parachutes before crashing to the ground. Most were blown off course and others dropped straight onto german troops leading to their immediate deaths. Not only this, but the Germans had flooded the surrounding areas creating swamps which were also very dangerous for paratroopers. Those that landed here would likely die due to how hard it was to get out of their harnesses and the weight of their gear.

Nevertheless, the paratroopers were able to land and began to rally themselves together starting to push towards their goals. Their unorganization during the drop actually made it extremely hard for the Germans to send out units to stop them because it seemed like there were paratroopers everywhere. After about 4 hours, another wave of troops, approached by glider carrying reinforcements along with anti-tank weapons. For the next week, these troops would fight hard to gain and hold strategic points hampering the arrival of Germany’s armies which threatened to counterattack. The divisions suffered some 2,500 casualties but their goal had been accomplished.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/american-airborne-landings-normandy.html
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-struggles-paratroopers-d-day.html