Within five and a half hours all objectives were taken. Prisoners at first came in hundreds then thousands. Following the link-up the 6th Airborne Division took the lead in a mile advance through Germany, marching 11 miles per day until they captured enemy transport.
Within weeks they linked up at the Baltic port of Wismar with advancing Russians coming from the east. June I had the privilege and good fortune, as a young Battery Commander of 24 in a Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, to be appointed in July to command a totally new unit called 2nd Forward Observer. The Universal Carrier, also known as the Bren Gun Carrier, was a light armoured tracked vehicle built by Vickers-Armstrong from onwards.
The Browning Hi Power pistol also known as:. Whilst the Mess Tin Ration served. Members of 5th Parachute Brigade walk and cycle to Brelingen. A Horsa glider is unloaded on the landing zone of the Rhine Crossing operation. Gliders on the ground after airborne landing in the area of Hamminkeln. Large scale Rhine reheasal. Dakotas fly over drop zone dropping troops and supplies. Polish gunners prepare for battle with one of the new medium calibre guns. German women search the wreckage of their homes shelled by the Americans.
Glider pilots with German prisoners near Hamminkeln railway station, March A British para takes the details of one of the first Germans taken prisoner in the Rhine operations. Royal Ulster Rifles 6th Airborne on the banks of the river Issel. Two British airborne men by the sign for Hamminkeln the day they took the town.
Brig Bellamy commands glider troops in Hamminkeln after its capture. March Soldier receiving treatment in an airborne dressing station. March 25th, The first planes carrying soldiers of the 17th Airborne took off at a. While the troop planes circled overhead, the gliders and their tows lifted off. Inside the troop planes and in the gliders the men settled down for the flight to the drop areas.
The British and American flights met up near Brussels, Belgium. From there on it was a straight, mile run to the drop areas, four to six miles east of the Rhine. As the aircraft neared the Rhine River, the men saw troops below crossing in assault boats and a buildup of men and supplies waiting to cross. As the planes came into view, the Allied artillery bombardment of the German positions on the east side was halted as a precaution — but German anti-aircraft fire soon opened up on the airborne convoy.
Black shell bursts dotted the sky, and red tracer bullets arced up, reaching for the planes. The troopers watched with horror as first one then another troop plane nosed over and headed down.
Paratroopers and glider troops alike were anxious to get on the ground, where they felt they had a fighting chance. The new double-door Cs, used for the first time to drop paratroopers in combat, did not have self-sealing fuel tanks. When the tanks were hit, the gasoline burst into flames that ran back along the fuselage.
As the planes began to burn, the pilots bravely fought to hold them level as they continued to search for their drop zones and tried to give the paratroopers an opportunity to get clear of the aircraft. Colonel Raff and some of his paratroopers were dropped two miles northeast of their drop zone. Raff rounded up his troops and led them off on the double toward their objectives.
The remainder of the regiment, plus Edward S. The troopers moved swiftly, and all of their objectives were secured within about an hour. Kenneth L. In addition to their concern about the anti-aircraft fire, the troopers were also worried about the new quick-release chutes that they were using for the first time in combat.
What if the shock of the opening chute caused them to accidentally hit the quick release? The chutes had a safety pin to prevent this from happening, but the troopers worried anyway. Then Coutts and the other troopers bailed out. Later, Coutts learned that the pilot and crew had also managed to parachute to safety before the plane exploded. Shortly after landing, Company E of the th Parachute Infantry launched an attack along a railway toward a building later determined to have been a German command post.
Private First Class Stuart S. Stryker, armed with only a carbine and shouting to his fellow troopers to follow him, charged the German position. They charged head-on into a hail of bullets and took the position. Only some 25 yards from the objective, Stryker was killed, but his initiative saved his platoon.
For his bravery, Stryker was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Private George J. Peters of G Company, th Parachute Infantry, was the only other man to receive the Medal of Honor for actions that day. Peters single-handedly charged and wiped out a German machine-gun nest that threatened his squad.
As he was next to last in his stick, his assigned seat was near the crew compartment. The plastic observation bubble afforded him an excellent view of the vast air armada all around him. A loud ripping noise filled the plane, and McDonald and the troopers around him were covered in a shower of plastic. Evidently, a German round had come straight up through the plane, failed to explode, and exited through the bubble. McDonald did not have time to reflect on his good fortune, however, because the plane was on fire.
Peering through the doors, he could see nothing but flames. But on the command to jump, the troopers began to pour out the doors, plunging through the fire.
McDonald sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes and followed them out. In a fiery split second, he was free of the doomed plane. The troopers quickly assembled, cleared the British area of Germans and proceeded to their own objectives. As they approached their landing zones, the glider tug planes had no choice but to fly a straight course. The glider pilots were already struggling to maintain control of their flimsy craft; if the tug pilots took evasive action to avoid the deadly groundfire, their two glider tows might crash into each other.
If they increased their speed, the gliders could break up or become uncontrollable. About Us About The Museum. Contact Contact Us. Visit Visit The Museum.
Giving About The Foundation. Ways To Give Friend of the Museum. Events Museum Events. Operation Varsity Early in the morning on March 24, , two Airborne divisions, one American and one British, flew over the Rhine River becoming the largest single-day airborne operation in history.
Donate Now. Varsity also introduced a new aircraft, the C Commando, for deploying airborne troops. The C could carry twice as many paratroopers as the C Dakota thirty-six, an entire platoon, versus eighteen. Furthermore, the C was faster and had doors on either side of the cabin, allowing troops to exit the aircraft quickly. One drawback for Varsity planners was that only 75 Cs would be available, and most soldiers would still be carried by the older, slower Cs. In the weeks before the operation, the soldiers of the th made a number of practice jumps from Cs to familiarize themselves with the new aircraft.
Despite its advantages, the C would prove to have a fatal flaw that only became apparent during the actual combat drop, with tragic consequences. After being withdrawn from the front lines in February , the 17th Airborne Division was bivouacked at a dozen airfields around Paris. The relatively short distance to the landing zones in Germany allowed transport planes to double tow two Waco CG-4A gliders bearing soldiers and equipment and eliminated the need for additional flights.
While waiting for D-Day for Varsity, still planned for 24 March, the soldiers of the 17th rigorously trained and readied equipment and weapons for their upcoming mission. As the date for the operation approached, chaplains held services for the men and many soldiers attended. Massive amounts of Allied artillery, along with a huge smoke screen, also supported the crossings. The soldiers of the 17th Airborne were served a hearty breakfast of steak and eggs before being loaded into trucks and taken to the aircraft and gliders which would transport them to Germany.
The first planes carrying the 17th Airborne took off shortly after , with the last getting aloft just before The airborne lift included a total of 9, paratroopers and glider-borne soldiers, carried aboard 72 Cs, Cs, and CG-4A gliders. This, combined with the British airborne armada of nearly aircraft and gliders, carrying over 8, soldiers, stretched nearly miles and took thirty-seven minutes to pass a given point.
The two formations rendezvoused in the skies near Brussels, Belgium, before proceeding to the drop zones miles away. In addition, nearly 1, Allied fighters escorted the transports. MG James M. The first aircraft carrying the 17th Airborne reached the target area at , slightly ahead of schedule. While the weather was sunny and bright, the drop zones were obscured by haze caused by the massive smoke screen covering the river crossings and Allied artillery.
As a result, the first troops from the 1st Battalion, th Parachute Infantry, which included COL Raff, the regimental commander, landed nearly two miles away from their planned drop zone. Raff gathered a group of paratroopers together, while MAJ Paul Smith, the battalion commander, organized another, and both set out to take their objectives and to eliminate enemy positions firing on the landing zones.
Two German tanks emerged from the castle grounds, but both were quickly knocked out, one by a well-placed shot from a 57mm recoilless rifle, the first successful use of the weapon in combat. By , resistance in the castle ended after Company G cleared the structure room by room. Peters charged the enemy machine gun position alone. Despite being hit and knocked down twice, he continued his one-man assault and eliminated the gun with grenades. Peters died shortly after from his wounds and was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor.
Within a couple of hours, the th had taken most of its objectives, taking 1, prisoners, destroying five tanks, and capturing or destroying several batteries of artillery. Many enemy gun positions survived the Allied aerial and artillery bombardment and now turned their attention to the low-flying transport planes and descending paratroopers overhead. The planes lacked self-sealing fuel tanks; if a fuel tank was punctured, high octane aviation gas would stream along the wings towards the fuselage.
All it took was a single spark to turn each plane into a flying inferno. German 20mm incendiary rounds proved extremely lethal and set several damaged aircraft ablaze. Nineteen of the seventy-two Cs were lost, with fourteen going down in flames, some with paratroopers on board.
Another thirty-eight were severely damaged. Many soldiers wounded during the flight to the drop zones chose to jump and take their chances rather than remain in the dangerously flawed aircraft. After Varsity, Ridgway issued orders prohibiting the use of Cs in future airborne operations.
Upon hitting the ground, Coutts and his men came under intense small arms fire. Many more were hit on the way down. Hundreds of British paratroopers scrambled about, and British gliders soon began landing all around.
0コメント