The capture of the Caen Canal and Orne River bridges (wrongly known as Operation Deadstick [which in fact was a specialized glider exercise], and in official documents as Operation Coup de Main) was an operation by airborne forces of the British Army that took place in the early hours of 6 June 1944 as part of the Normandy landings of the Second World War. The objective was to capture intact two road bridges in Normandy across the River Orne and the Caen Canal, providing the only exit eastwards for British forces from their landing on Sword Beach. Intelligence reports said both bridges were heavily defended by the Germans and wired for demolition. Once captured, the bridges had to be held against any counter-attack, until the assault force was relieved by commandos and other infantry advancing from the landing beach.
The mission was vital to the success of Operation Tonga, the overall British airborne landings in Normandy. Failure to capture the bridges intact, or to prevent their demolition by the Germans, would leave the British 6th Airborne Division cut off from the rest of the Allied armies with their backs to the two waterways. If the Germans retained control over the bridges, they could be used by their armoured divisions to attack the landing beaches of Normandy.
Responsibility for the operation was assigned to the members of 'D' Company, 2nd (Airborne) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, part of the 6th Airlanding Brigade, 6th Airborne Division. The assault group comprised a reinforced company of six infantry platoons and an attached platoon of Royal Engineers.
The British assault group flew from the south of England to Normandy in six Airspeed Horsa gliders. The pilots of the gliders succeeded in delivering the company to its objective. After a brief exchange of fire, both bridges were captured and defended successfully against German tank, gunboat and infantry counter-attacks, until relief arrived.
Background
British forces
During the planning stage of the Normandy invasion, the decision was made to land the 6th Airborne Division (Major-General Richard Gale) on the left flank of the invasion beaches between the River Orne and the River Dives. Their primary objective was to capture the two road bridges over the River Orne and the Caen Canal and prevent a German flanking attack on the landing area. Failure to capture the bridges would leave the 6th Airborne Division cut off in enemy territory, so the 5th Parachute Brigade were earmarked to defend the bridges against counter-attacks. Gale decided that the only way to capture the bridges intact was by a glider coup de main assault. He then asked Brigadier Hugh Kindersley of the 6th Airlanding Brigade to nominate his best company for the operation.
'D' Company, 2nd (Airborne) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Major John Howard) and second in command Captain Brian Priday, was selected for the mission. The company had trained hard and became the fittest in the battalion, often utilizing bomb-damaged inner-city areas to practice street fighting with live ammunition. Howard expected the invasion to involve night-fighting and changed the daily routine to ensure that his men were up to the task. For weeks at a time, they rose at 20:00 and completed exercises, drills and normal paperwork throughout the night before retiring at 13:00. Gale tested the company through two exercises where the objective was to capture bridges, when it became apparent that the company would not be able to carry out the mission on its own. Asked to select two more platoons from the battalion to join them, Howard chose two from 'B' Company commanded by Lieutenants Fox and Smith. Any explosive charges found attached to the bridges were the responsibility of 30 Royal Engineers from the 249th (Airborne) Field Company, commanded by Captain Jock 'Joe' Neilson. Changes were then made to the operational plan to accommodate six platoons. Three were assigned to attack each bridge simultaneously with infantry overcoming the troops on guard duty while the engineers located and dismantled any demolition charges. For six days and nights the company carried out exercises just outside Exeter, in the south-west of England, where two bridges similar to their objectives were found over the Exeter Ship Canal.
Transport to Normandy was arranged in six Airspeed Horsa gliders, piloted by 12 NCOs from 'C' Squadron, Glider Pilot Regiment. The Horsa had a wingspan of 88 feet (27 m) and a length of 67 feet (20 m), with a maximum load of 15,750 pounds (7,140 kg) or space for two pilots, twenty-eight troops or a mixture of two jeeps, artillery guns and trailers. Pilot training involved practice landings on a small strip of land, instrument flying using stopwatches for accurate course changes and fitting flight crew goggles with dark glass to get them used to night flying. By May 1944 they had carried out 54 training sorties, flying in all weathers both day and night.
Howard was not told the exact details of the operation until 2 May, 1944. His orders were to seize the bridges over the River Orne and Caen Canal at Bénouville and Ranville intact and hold them until relieved. The relief force would initially be a company from the 7th Parachute Battalion under Howard's command. When the remainder of the parachute battalion arrived, he would hand over to their commander Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Pine-Coffin. The 3rd Infantry Division and the commandos of the 1st Commando Brigade were scheduled to land at Sword at 06:00 on the day then advance to the bridges where they were expected to arrive at 11:00.
At the end of May 1944, 'D' Company left the battalion camp at Bulford in Wiltshire for RAF Tarrant Rushton in Dorset. The base was then secured and Howard briefed everyone on the mission, distributing photographs of the bridges and unveiling a model of the area. Glider pilot commander Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork told Howard that with a full load of men, ammunition, assault boats and engineers' stores his gliders would be dangerously overloaded. Howard decided to only take one assault boat per glider and leave behind two men from each platoon. At the last minute, Doctor John Vaughan replaced an injured man in one of the platoons.
On 5 June 1944, the company made final preparations for the mission. Each man was issued their personal weapons and ammunition as well as up to nine hand grenades and four Bren gun magazines. Each platoon also had a 2-inch mortar and a radio. Just before the men boarded the gliders, codewords were issued. 'Ham' indicated the canal bridge was captured and 'Jam' the river bridge. Capture and destruction of the canal bridge would be signalled using the codeword 'Jack'; 'Lard' would be used if a similar fate befell the river bridge.
Bridges
The Ranville bridge spans the River Orne and the Bénouville bridge crosses the Caen Canal to the west. They are 5 miles (8.0 km) from the coast and provided the only access to the city of Caen. The main road between the two communes crosses the bridges and then continues east to the River Dives. At 190 feet (58 m) long and 12 feet (3.7 m) wide, the Caen Canal bridge opens to allow canal traffic to pass underneath. The controls were housed in a nearby cabin. The canal is 27 feet (8.2 m) deep by 150 feet (46 m) wide, with earth and stone banks 6 feet (1.8 m) high. Small tarmac tracks run on both banks along the canal's entire length.
Between the two bridges there is a strip of mostly marshy ground about 550 yards (500 m) wide, broken up by ditches and small streams. The Ranville bridge over the River Orne is 350 feet (110 m) long, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide and can be opened to allow river traffic to pass. The river is 160–240 feet (49–73 m) wide and with an average depth of 9 feet (2.7 m). It has mud banks averaging about 3.6 feet (1.1 m) high and a tidal rise and fall of 16–6.5 feet (4.9–2.0 m). A number of small houses lie to the west of the river, connected by a track 8–10 feet (2.4–3.0 m) wide, that runs along both banks.
German forces
The bridges were guarded by 50 men belonging to the German 736th Grenadier Regiment, 716th Infantry Division. The unit was commanded by Major Hans Schmidt and based at Ranville, 1.2 miles (1.9 km) east of the River Orne. The 716th was a static formation and had been assigned to Normandy since June 1942. The division's eight infantry battalions were deployed to defend 21 miles (34 km) of the Atlantic wall. The unit was poorly equipped with a mixture of foreign weapons and manned by conscripts from Poland, the Soviet Union, and France under a German officer and senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs). Schmidt's soldiers had orders to blow up the two bridges if they were in danger of capture.
A second division, the 21st Panzer, moved into the area in May 1944. One of its regiments, the 125th Panzergrenadier, commanded by Colonel Hans von Luck, was billeted at Vimont just east of Caen. There was also a battalion of the 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment based at Cairon to the west of the bridges. Colonel von Luck trained his regiment in anti-invasion operations. He also identified likely incursion points and marked out forward routes, rest and refuelling areas and anti-aircraft gun positions. The 21st Panzer Division was a new formation based on the former Afrika Korps unit, which had been destroyed in North Africa. Although equipped with an assortment of older tanks and other armoured vehicles, the division's officers were veterans and 2,000 men from the old division filled its ranks. Further afield were the 12th SS Panzer Division at Lisieux and the Panzer Lehr Division at Chartres, both less than a day's march from the area.
Defences were in place at both bridges. On the west bank of the Caen Canal bridge there were three machine-gun emplacements and on the east bank a machine-gun and an anti-tank gun. To their north were another three machine-guns and a concrete pillbox. An anti-aircraft tower equipped with machine-guns stood to the south. At the River Orne bridge, the eastern bank south of the bridge had a pillbox with anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. To the north of the bridge were two machine-guns. Both bridges had sandbagged trench systems along the banks. However, the presence of German machineguns near the canal bridge was categorically denied by Helmut Roemer and Erwin Sauer, in: HK.von Keusgen, Pegasus-Bruecke und Batterie Mrville (014)
The operation
Flight and landings
At 22:56 on 5 June, 1944, the six gliders towed by Halifax bombers took off from RAF Tarrant Rushton. Horsa number one, the first of the three headed for the Caen Canal, carried Howard with Lieutenant Den Brotheridge's platoon, number two bore Lieutenant David Wood's platoon, and number three carried Lieutenant Smith's platoon. Priday with Lieutenant Hooper's platoon made for the river bridge aboard number four. Horsa number six carrying Lieutenant Fox's platoon was followed by number five bearing Tod Sweeney's platoon. Each glider also carried five Royal Engineers.
Flying over the English Channel at 7,000 feet (2,100 m), the bombers crossed the Normandy coast at 00:07 on 6 June, 1944 and released their towed gliders. With Wallwork at the controls, the number one glider crashed into the barbed wire surrounding the canal bridge defences at 00:16. The other two gliders followed at one-minute intervals. The number two glider broke in half and came to halt at the edge of a large pond. One of the men, Lance-Corporal Fred Greenhalgh, was knocked unconscious following the crash landing and thrown out of his glider and died by drowning, becoming the first casualty of the operation.
Brotheridge and Smith's platoons headed for the bridge, while Wood's platoon moved towards the trenches on its north east side.
Capture of the bridges
The Germans knew the invasion was imminent if not the exact location; Major Schmidt, in command of the bridges, had been told that they were one of the most critical points in Normandy. The defenders however were not on full alert and only two sentries were on duty when the gliders landed. The sound of a gunshot alerted the two sentries on the canal bridge. As Brotheridge's platoon attacked, one ran off shouting "paratroops" while the second fired a flare gun to alert nearby defenders. Brotheridge shot him while other members of his platoon cleared the trenches and pillbox with grenades. Alerted by the flare, the German machine gunners opened fire at the men on the bridge, wounding Brotheridge as he threw a grenade. The grenade silenced one of the machine gun positions and another was taken out by Bren gun fire.