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As the Allied commanders planned the biggest military operation in human history, they realized that very realistically casualties ranging from 50 to 70% could be expected among the airborne units, without whom the operation couldn’t succeed.

They tried to prepare for the inevitable, but they didn’t know that everything that could go wrong would go wrong.

You’re about to see what actually happened to the airborne units of D-Day, how disturbingly many of them were lost, and why, and also how, against all odds, they made sure that the operation would not fail.

By early 1944, the United Kingdom was packed with nearly 2 million Allied troops.

American, British, Canadian, and others were reaching the peak of their buildup.

And yet, for the soldiers, the actual place and date of the coming invasion remained a mystery.

They knew something massive was coming.

The scale of ever intensifying training followed by strict lockdowns of military bases made it clear that something was near.

But the exact time and place were kept in total secrecy.

Rumors spread.

Some believed the invasion would land in Norway.

Others were convinced it would be Calala.

Very few guessed it would be Normandy.

That confusion, however, wasn’t accidental.

Operation Fortitude, which was the most elaborate deception plan of the war, was working exactly as intended.

Fake radio traffic, dummy landing craft, and an entirely fictional first US Army group under General Patton were all part of the game to deny the Germans any clue where the real invasion would happen.

The Germans fully expected the Allies to attack at Cala since it was the narrowest point between Britain and France.

Normandy seemed less likely, and that was exactly why the Allies chose it.

it would be less defended and the element of surprise would be on their side.

Meanwhile, airborne divisions were training for something different.

They weren’t preparing to land on beaches, but to drop into darkness behind enemy lines.

The US 82nd and 101st along with the British 6th Airborne Division were being relentlessly trained in the days leading up to the invasion.

However, nothing could have prepared them for what was about to happen.

Most of these troops had never seen combat, but the airborne badge had quickly become a symbol of elite status within the Allied ranks.

They were trained to fight alone, surrounded and outgunned, and that alone was worthy of respect.

Still, very few of them had any idea just how bad it was going to get.

In total, over 23,000 paratroopers and glider infantry were scheduled to land behind enemy lines on the night of June 5th.

The American 101st Airborne would be tasked with securing the causeways leading off Utah Beach to ensure that the first waves of tanks and infantry wouldn’t be trapped on the sand.

The 82nd would jump farther inland to block German reinforcements and seize key road junctions.

On the eastern flank, the British Sixth Airborne would take Pegasus Bridge and destroy German gun batteries threatening Sword Beach.

At least that was the plan.

They were going in first, hours before the main landings began at dawn.

Their objective was to disrupt, delay, and confuse the German defenses long enough for the beach heads to be secured.

It was the opening move of Operation Neptune, which was the combat portion of Operation Overlord.

And logically, it carried enormous risk.

Thousands of paratroopers had to be dropped in the middle of the night over unfamiliar terrain across dozens of miles and drop zones.

They were flying through heavily defended airspace and jumping directly onto fortified enemy units, carrying only what they had on their backs.

The whole plan depended on precise drops, tight coordination between air and ground forces, and fast linkups between scattered units once they hit the ground.

And almost none of that would actually happen because almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

Generals knew that if it worked, the airborne assault would crack open the German defenses from within.

If it didn’t, thousands of men would be lost before the real battle even began, and no one knew what the outcome would be.

Getting all airborne units into position required an airlift operation on a scale never attempted before.

The workhorse of the airborne drop was the C47 Sky Train, known to the British as the Dakota.

It was a reliable twin engine transport plane, but not much more than that.

It was never designed for combat missions.

To make matters even worse, since experienced pilots were taken for bombing missions, paratroopers would be delivered mostly by cargo pilots who had never seen combat.

They had been trained in formation flying and jump zone coordination, but they were about to enter hostile skies for the first time.

Over 1,000 C-47s were deployed to deliver around 13,000 paratroopers.

Then there were the gliders.

And I think this is the craziest tactic.

The British in particular relied heavily on gliderorn troops to bring in not just infantry but also heavier equipment like jeeps, artillery and even light tanks in some cases.

The two main types were the Horser which carried troops and the larger Hamililkar which could carry vehicles and gear.

Gliders were simple wooden aircraft with no engine.

A regular airplane like a C47 would pull them into the sky with a long cable.

Once they reached the right spot, the cable was released and the glider would silently glide down toward the landing zone.

But gliders couldn’t land like normal planes.

They had no power, no brakes, and no option for a second try.

Pilots had to make the right calculations on the first attempt to reach the target, then literally crashland the glider somehow without killing everyone on board.

And they had to do that in total darkness without navigation using only paper maps, a compass, and what they could see.

If anything went wrong, the entire crew on board could easily be killed.

And a lot of times they were, unsurprisingly.

Still, gliders were used because they could carry more men and heavier gear than parachutes, and they made almost no noise and had no radar signature when coming in.

But it was undoubtedly one of the most dangerous and scariest flying assignments of the war.

The first men to go in were the Pathfinders.

These were small elite teams of paratroopers dropped ahead of the main force to set up Eureka beacons, signal lights, and radar reflectors that would guide the rest of the aircraft to their proper drop zones.

These men jumped alone or in small teams hours before everyone else.

And sadly, many of them never made it to their markers.

Some were dropped too far from their targets.

Others were killed or captured before they could set up the signals.

Without those signals, the rest of the drop would become an unpredictable scatter across the entire region.

Spoiler alert, it did.

Just after midnight on June 6th, the sky over Normandy began to fill with the steady hum of hundreds of approaching aircraft.

But the Germans were not asleep.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion, German commanders had been anticipating an airborne assault somewhere along the coast.

They didn’t know exactly where or when it would come, but they knew it was coming.

So, they had deliberately flooded the low-lying fields behind the beaches, turning large areas of land into waste deep marshes, which were nearly invisible from the air, but absolutely deadly for anyone landing in them.

They even stuck wooden poles called Raml’s asparagus in the fields to deny gliders a landing zone, as they would be wrecked if they hit them.

Folcham, Yaga, Vermacht, and even some SS Panza divisions were stationed nearby.

And though many officers still expected a landing at Calala, the defenses in Normandy were on high alert.

Then, as the massive formations approached the drop zones, they first flew into thick cloud cover that had drifted in over the coast.

Visibility dropped sharply, and with it, navigation became guesswork.

Soon after, German anti-aircraft guns opened up with everything they had and lit up the sky.

Those pilots, many of whom had never flown under fire before, broke formation in chaos, and panic began.

Planes were being shot down left and right, crashing with paratroopers still inside.

Some veered off course, others climbed or descended too low, trying in every way to save themselves, as staying in formation didn’t help much either.

Doors were open and green lights came on.

Paratroopers were dropped either too early or too late, too high or too low, and often at too fast a speed.

The entire airlift was turned into a chaotic patchwork of broken lines and missed marks.

For the paratroopers inside, there was little choice.

When the green light came on, they jumped and most of them landed everywhere except where they were supposed to.

The result was that over 75% of the paratroopers were misdiated drop zones.

Many were dropped in small clusters or completely alone, making it impossible to regroup and organize quickly.

Paratroopers were equipped with more than 120 lb of gear.

And for those fortunate enough to not be shot by anti-aircraft fire, they hit the ground hard.

Broken bones and injuries were common.

For those who landed in flooded fields, that weight became a death sentence.

Tragically, hundreds would drown under the weight of their equipment in those flooded areas, while some groups even dropped over the sea and had to be rescued by the Navy.

Search lights and fires from the bombing raids lit up the sky, and many paratroopers were shot before ever hitting the ground.

Some veterans recalled how they watched in horror as fellow paratroopers, unable to steer their shoots, landed directly into burning buildings, and were sucked in by the fire.

Many landed on rooftops, poles, trees, and power lines.

John Steel of the 82nd became famous after being caught on the church steeple.

He hung there wounded, playing dead as the firefight raged below him.

And there is a dummy paratrooper on that same church steeple even today as a sort of monument.

Those who landed directly on top of German positions were immediately captured if they were lucky.

There are multiple documented cases of executions of prisoners of war, particularly by the SS.

It was outright chaos.

Casualties were already mounting, and the real battle hadn’t even started.

The situation wasn’t much better for the gliders.

Some crashed into trees, telephone poles, or each other.

Others smashed into stone walls or ditches at high speed.

Dozens were killed during the landing, while many others were seriously injured.

When we talk about confusion, it was perhaps even worse for the Germans on the ground.

They had no idea what was going on.

The Allies also dropped hundreds of dummy paratroopers nicknamed Roberts far away from the real landing zones.

These were life-sized manoquins filled with straw or sand.

Some equipped with firecrackers that simulated gunfire or were designed to explode on the ground.

Their purpose was to mislead German defenders, drawing them away from the real landings.

And they were quite successful in that.

But the confusion worked both ways.

Scattered across the countryside in groups of two, five, maybe 10, most paratroopers had no idea where they were.

Radios were damaged, lost, or not working.

Most men had no contact with anyone outside their immediate group.

The command structure disintegrated within minutes of the drop.

Officers couldn’t find their men.

Companies couldn’t find their objectives.

Ad hoc groups formed across the region.

They gathered what weapons and ammo they could find and started moving toward the sound of gunfire or the next road junction.

Some units had already lost over 60% of their strength within the first few hours.

Not from battle, but from scattered landings, drowning, crashes, and disorganization.

And this was only the beginning.

Now, there were thousands of airborne troops on the ground, desperately trying to link up and find their objectives.

To lower the chance of friendly fire, the American 101st used small metal clickers known as crickets to identify one another in the dark.

When coming upon someone, a paratrooper would challenge him with one click.

It was supposed to be answered by two of the same clicks in return.

If there was no answer, well, you would probably want to shoot whatever it was.

Other units use pre-arranged passwords.

One would shout flash, and the other should respond with thunder.

That code was supposed to be valid for the first 24 hours.

Still, friendly fire incidents happened.

By dawn, units were slowly gathering with whatever friendlies they came upon.

Now, despite everything going against them, the airborne units went into action.

They laid ambushes, blew bridges, or took up defensive positions at crossroads or inside buildings and tried to hold them for as long as they could.

They knew they were a critical link in the operation and that without their objectives successfully completed, the whole main force could be pushed back into the sea.

Farther east on the British side, the ninth parachute battalion was tasked with destroying the Merville battery, a heavily fortified German gun position that could hit Sword Beach.

Over 600 men were dedicated for the assault, but only about 150 made it to the rally point.

They attacked anyway.

They managed to get inside the battery and destroy the guns, though they suffered horrible losses.

Some paratroopers found help from the French resistance, who guided them through unfamiliar terrain or sheltered the wounded.

From the German perspective, the situation made little sense.

Paratroopers were showing up in dozens of different places, attacking convoys, ambushing patrols, blowing bridges.

Reports were scattered and contradictory.

German commanders couldn’t figure out the size or scope of the attack.

Some believed they were facing a full-scale airborne invasion.

Others thought it was just a diversion.

However, that confusion bought much needed time to secure the beach heads.

By the end of the first day, some companies were down to less than 25% of their strength.

Men were missing, wounded, or already dead.

In the first few days alone, airborne casualties exceeded 8,500 men.

Survivors were now fighting for days without food, sleep, or resupply.

By June 8th and 9th, American infantry and armored units had finally linked up with many of the airborne troops in land.

The beach heads were expanding, and the invasion was beginning to stabilize.

But for the paratroopers, the mission wasn’t over, and most of them would remain on the front line for weeks.

The 101st in particular stayed in action in Normandy until early July despite being promised they would fight for 3 days and then be relieved.

With so many units stretched thin and the outcome of the operation still uncertain, they were used as conventional frontline infantry.

And just a few months later, many of these same survivors would jump again in Operation Market Garden into yet another mission that would spiral into confusion and disaster, which we could cover in the next video if you’d like.

Still, what they accomplished in Normandy was more than important.

They had cut off German reinforcements, thrown enemy plans into disarray, and held ground that simply could not be lost.

Their presence forced the Germans to lose time they couldn’t afford to waste.

And without that disruption, the beaches may not have held.

And who knows how the entire operation might have ended.