… of the Normandy Invasion.
"In his landmark book D-Day: June 6, 1944, author Stephen E. Ambrose tells the story of Sgt. Elmo Jones of the U.S. 101st Airborne. Moments after leaping out of a C-47 Dakota into the darkness above Normandy, the young paratrooper found himself standing alone in enemy territory. "Damn," he said to himself. "I just cracked the Atlantic Wall." Jones was a pathfinder – one of the specially trained elite fighting men who volunteered to be among the first Allied soldiers to parachute into Occupied France. Surrounded, outnumbered and deep behind the Nazi lines, Jones and his squad mates were charged with a vital task: to secure the drop zones and then illuminate the areas for the 20,000 other Allied paratroopers that would be arriving within the hour. Nearly 300 pathfinders took part in the pre-invasion. In honour of the 70th anniversary of D-Day, we thought we'd compile some fascinating facts about these remarkable trailblazers.
• The pathfinders parachuted into Normandy a full hour ahead of the main airborne assault and six hours before the amphibious troops hit the beaches. Once on the ground, they were to seize the drop zones and use special radio sets and signal lanterns to shepherd Allied aircraft into the target areas. Pathfinders typically jumped in small sections or "sticks" of just 18 paratroopers: one dozen to assemble the special beacons and lights and another six to provide cover. Each pathfinder group was assigned its own landing zone to capture and mark. The American drop sites were located a few miles inland from Utah Beach in the west, while the British made their jumps east of Sword Beach.
One key piece of pathfinder gear was the top-secret "Eureka" radio transponder, an ingenious bit of technology developed in Great Britain in 1943 and then later manufactured in the U.S. The satchel-sized device was designed to emit a series of pulses that could be picked up and measured by Allied aircraft. Using special receivers known as "Rebeccas", pilots in the lead drop planes could zero in on the pathfinders' transmissions and then calculate their distance to the objective. As the aircraft closed to visual range, the ground teams helped crews pinpoint the landing zones using special hand-held Holophane lanterns…"
Full article here
link
Amicalement
Armand
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
