Forgotten D-Day 300 - Pathfinders In Action

[Music] they were all volunteers who had already passed the grueling selection process to become paratroopers whether american british or canadian the men who are called pathfinders certainly earned their pay on d-day for they were the spearhead of the great allied invasion of normandy before the infantry and tanks stormed the five invasion beaches on the morning of the 6th of june 1944 a massive airborne operation was to take place to deliver two american and one british airborne division to landing zones behind the beaches to knock out certain german defenses that threaten the landings disrupt german communications and capture towns to eventually link up with the troops coming off the beaches in total twenty thousand american british and canadian paratroopers and glider-borne troops were to take part but before the great bulk of these divisions arrived landing zones had to be marked out and defended and that job fell to just 300 daring men who volunteered to jump into normandy an hour before the first big parachute drops just 300 likely armed men would head deep behind enemy lines where they would be outnumbered many many times over in missions that on the face of it looked almost like suicide jobs they would seize drop zones and using special radios and signal lights guide the main transports in to deposit the rest of the airborne divisions all of this would happen five hours before the first allied soldiers set foot on a beach the british were the first to create pathfinder units in nineteen forty two two independent companies were founded one each for the first and sixth airborne divisions and one the 21st independent parachute company landed ahead of british forces during the invasion of sicily in july 1943 seeing extensive action the 22nd independent parachute company spearheaded the drop of the sixth airborne division into normandy the americans came late to the concept of pathfinders following disastrous drops by u.s paratroopers in north africa and sicily where the men were widely scattered severely diminishing the combat effectiveness of the u.s airborne divisions utilizing pathfinders u.s forces made a much more accurate drop in italy on the 13th of september 1943 proving the unit's value a pathfinder school was established at raf north whittam in england in preparation for d-day the first allied troops to depart for normandy left england at 1103 pm on the 5th of june 1944 men of the british 22nd independent parachute company they appeared over their target at 20 minutes past midnight on the 6th of june the pathfinder company flew in six armstrong whitworth albemarle aircraft and their task was to mark three drop zones to be used by the sixth airborne division one hour later [Music] at the same time as the british pathfinders were dropped a simultaneous glider-borne operation was launched by major john howard and 180 men the oxfordshire and buckinghamshire light infantry and the royal engineers to capture by coup de maine the bridges over the kong canal and orn river an operation to prevent german reinforcements threatening the flank of the british airborne landing [Music] howard's force actually landed ahead of the pathfinders and successfully assaulted and captured the bridges but then things began to go wrong the three pathfinder teams each in two aircraft ran into heavy cloud cover causing navigational difficulties at the same time some 200 dummy parachutists were dropped to confuse the german defenses these teams codenamed titanic included some real paratroopers who set up loudspeakers to play sounds of combat to further confuse the defenders as to the true location of the allied drop zones the 60 british pathfinders of the 22nd independent parachute company carried with them eureka transponders to guide in the main force that were equipped with rebecca transceivers aboard the planes to ensure accurate jumps three drop zones were to be created dz-n north east of romville dzv west of varaville and dzk west of toofraville strong winds and german flack caused the albemarle transport crews to dump the pathfinders all over the place the team for dzv landed close to varyville but all their beacons were broken or lost in a marsh the team for dzn were completely lost and actually sent out the wrong signal to the main parachute unit due to arrive shortly the last pathfinder team was also lost however between 1 and 2 am thousands of british and canadian paratroopers began to land in normandy many being scattered far and wide but some units managed to launch their assaults as planned the u.s landings fared no better the first u.s pathfinders to drop were men from the 82nd airborne division to mark three drop zones for the division to land on dz0 northwest of san mariglies dzt north of omfraville and dzn north of piconville 30 minutes after the pathfinders landed 369 c-47 transports were due to bring in the bulk of the division at 1 21 am the first u.s pathfinders dropped along with the pathfinders for the 101st airborne division also dropping to mark three drop zones for their division they ran into the same problems as the british had low cloud cover and heavy german flack many never found their lz's some of the lz's were heavily defended by germans and the pathfinders were too few in number to capture them while other dzd's turned out to be flooded some power finders set up their equipment anyway meaning the following drops would be inaccurate but the substantial scattering of all allied paratroopers actually convinced the germans that the airborne operation was much more extensive than it actually was aiding eventual allied success thirteen thousand u.s paratroopers landed on d-day but seventy percent of their heavy equipment was lost around 3 am the glider elements of the allied invasion began landing on more landing zones bringing in heavy equipment medical teams and some vehicles soon after u.s paratroopers though widely scattered managed to capture the town of some mary gliese behind the invasion beaches british canadian and u.s paratroopers and glider troops fought like hell to hold open l-zeds and capture some of their objectives as the amphibious invasion started all along the coast though not as successful or effective as planned the allied pathfinders nonetheless did manage to secure some of the drop zones and without them the airborne operations may have been a complete disaster and actually failed in all of its objectives pathfinder operations would be further refined learning the lessons of d-day and pathfinders remain a vital part of the british and american airborne units today their job virtually unchanged from 1944 it is a job that still employs the best of the best thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 500,548

Rating: 4.9716067 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton, Pathfinders, D-Day, Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne

Id: tTjWAfWI7LI

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021

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[u/TheReal_Jack_Cheese]

Mark Felton is such a welcome sight. His insights and narration is top quality.