Dropping in on the Germans
During the winter, large-scale exercises were undertaken. The men practiced capturing bridges and destroying emplaced gun positions. The 502nd participated in Exercise Eagle, which was the dress rehearsal for the invasion. During the exercise, the perils of parachute drops were demonstrated; eight of the nine C-47 transport aircraft responsible for H Company dropped their men nine miles from their intended drop zone. Soon, the men were moved from their base camps to the marshalling areas, where they were essentially cut off from the rest of the world (a security precaution). They recieved their equipment and awaited their orders. When they came, it was learned that D Company (commanded by Captain William Bolton), along with the Second Battalion was to knock out four concrete-reinforced German gun positions near St. Martin-de-Varreville, to prevent them from firing on the beaches. On the night of June 5, the men entered their planes. They flew out of their airfields in what would be some of the leading planes for the paratroopers. The Second Battalion was to land in their designated zone, drop zone "A".
Mission Albany (as the air drop was named) was one of the largest paratroop drops to date, and it showed. The C-47 aircraft were scattered by anti-aircraft fire, and the landing zones weren't properly indicated. The Second Battalion was dropped nearly as a single unit, albeit in the wrong place. This was nearly a miracle itself, as the parachutes that the troopers used had nearly no method of control. So, the troopers were totally at the mercy of the weather and his surroundings. When they landed, they found that the landing area was filled with bushes and trees that were anywhere around five feet tall. This led to many injuries among the troops, and some lost their equipment in the foliage. These hindrances were made worse by the fact that they had landed in the dark among alert German troops. The Second Battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Steve Chappuis was dropped nearly alone, but gathered a group of troopers and reached their target, but found that the German artillery had been removed after an earlier air raid.
This is a photo of the bocage country from the area aroud Normandy, showing the foliage that the paratroopers struggled through during their fights with the Germans, who used these dense hedgerows as camoflage, causing devastating casualities among the isolated pockets of Allied paratroopers.