Mission Boston

Mission Boston was a parachute combat assault at night by Major General Matthew Ridgway's U.S. 82nd "All American" Airborne Division on June 6, 1944, part of the American airborne landings in Normandy during World War II. Boston was a component element of Operation Neptune, the assault portion of the Allied invasion of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord. 6,420 paratroopers jumped from nearly 370 C-47 Skytrain troop carrier aircraft into an intended objective area of roughly located on either side of the Merderet river on the Cotentin Peninsula of France, five hours ahead of the D-Day landings.

The drops were scattered by bad weather and German anti-aircraft fire over an area three to four times as large as that planned. Two inexperienced units of the 82nd, the 507th and 508th Parachute Infantry Regiments (PIR), were given the mission of blocking approaches west of the Merderet River, but most of their paratroops missed their drop zones entirely. The veteran 505th PIR jumped accurately and captured its objective, the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, which proved essential to the success of the division.

Overview

The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, commanded by Major General Matthew Ridgway, was a veteran outfit, with two of its units, the 504th and 505th Parachute Infantry Regiments (PIR), making combat jumps into Sicily and Italy. However, the 504th had not arrived in England in time to train for Operation Neptune, and had been replaced in the mission by the unblooded 507th and 508th PIRs, both temporarily attached for the operation (the 507th later transferring to the 17th Airborne Division). Because of its previous combat experience, the 82nd Airborne Division was assigned the riskier of the two jump missions, into the center of the Cotentin. Its final regiment, the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, was scheduled to fly in on June 7.

The 82nd Airborne Division's objectives were to capture the town of Sainte Mère Église, a crucial communications crossroad behind Utah Beach, and to block the approaches into the area from the west and southwest. They were to seize causeways and bridges over the Merderet at La Fière and Chef-du-Pont, destroy the highway bridge over the Douve River at Pont l'Abbé (now Étienville), and secure the area west of Sainte Mère Église to establish a defensive line between Gourbesville and Renouf.

In the process units would also disrupt German communications, establish roadblocks to hamper the movement of German reinforcements, establish a defensive line between Neuville and Baudienville to the north, clear the area of the drop zones to the unit boundary at Les Forges and link up with the 101st Airborne Division, under Major General Maxwell D. Taylor.

To complete its assignments, the 82nd Airborne Division divided itself into three forces:
* Force A (parachute): the three parachute infantry regiments and support detachments, commanded by assistant division commander Brigadier General James M. Gavin,
* Force B (glider): the glider infantry regiment, artillery battalions, and airborne support elements, commanded by the division commander Major General Matthew B. Ridgway, and
* Force C (seaborne): remaining combat elements, division support troops and attached units including tanks, landing at Utah Beach, commanded by Brigadier General George P. Howell.

Mission description

Boston was the second of two combat jumps, with " Mission Albany" preceding it by one hour to drop the 101st Airborne Division. Each mission consisted of three regimental-sized air landings. Drop Zones T and N were west of the Merderet River from north to south, and Drop Zone O was east of it, just northwest of Sainte Mère Église.

Each of its parachute infantry regiments (PIR) was transported by three or four "serials", formations containing 36, 45, or 54 C-47s, totalling ten serials and 369 aircraft. The planes, individually numbered within a serial by "chalk numbers" (literally numbers chalked on the airplanes to aid paratroopers in boarding the correct airplane), were organized into flights in trail, in a close pattern called "vee's of vee's" (three planes in triangular vee's arranged in a larger vee of nine planes). The serials were scheduled over the drop zones at six-minute intervals. The paratroopers were organized into "sticks", a plane load of troops numbering 15-18 men.

The main combat assaults were preceded at each drop zone by three teams of pathfinders that arrived thirty minutes before the main assault to set up navigation aids, including Eureka radar transponder beacons and marker lights, to aid the C-47s in locating the DZs in the dark.

To achieve surprise, the parachute drops were routed to approach Normandy at low altitude from the west. The serials took off beginning at 22:30 on June 5, assembled into formations, and flew southwest over the English Channel at MSL to remain below German radar coverage. Once over water all lights except formation lights were turned off, and these were reduced to their lowest practical intensity. At a stationary marker boat code-named "Hoboken" and carrying a Eureka beacon they made a left turn to the southeast and flew between the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Alderney to their initial point on the Cotentin coast near Les Pieux, code-named "Peoria".

Over the Cotentin Peninsula numerous factors negatively affected the accuracy of the drops, including a solid cloud bank over the entire western half of the wide peninsula at penetration altitude (1500 feet MSL), an opaque ground fog over many drop zones, and intense German anti-aircraft fire ("flak"). The weather conditions broke up and dispersed many formations and the ground fire scattered them even more. However, the primary factor limiting success of the paratroop units, because it magnified all the errors resulting from the above factors, was the decision to make a massive parachute drop at night.

Parachute assault

Missed drop zones

The 82nd Airborne Division's drop, mission "Boston", began at 01:51. The 505th PIR, assigned to jump on Drop Zone O, was scheduled to arrive ten minutes after the last serial of the 101st Airborne Division's drop. The C-47s carrying the 505th did not experience or else overcame the difficulties that had plagued the 101st Airborne Division's drops. Pathfinders on DZ O turned on their Eureka beacons as the first 82nd Airborne Division serial crossed the initial point and lighted holophane markers on all three battalion assembly areas. The 2nd Battalion, first to jump, was accurate but jumped from above the planned altitude. C-47s carrying the 3rd and 1st Battalions were off course but adjusted in time to jump. Most flights were able to fly in formation above the clouds and none encountered serious anti-aircraft opposition. As a result, the veteran 505th PIR enjoyed the most accurate of the D-Day drops, half the regiment dropping on or within a mile of its DZ, and 75% within two miles (3 km).

The other regiments were more significantly dispersed and eight aircraft were shot down, several with paratroopers still inside. The 508th experienced the worst drop of any of the PIRs. A platoon leader of the 508th, First Lieutenant Robert P. Mathias, who was struck by a blast of fire yet still managed to lead his team out of the plane.

The 508th serials had not seen the clouds and flew through, rather than over, them, with C-47s taking evasive action to avoid collisions. Minutes later they emerged into fierce antiaircraft fire. In need of pathfinder aids, the pilots discovered that the sets near DZ N were ineffective or not turned on. The flight leaders navigated accurately to the drop zone, but most of their flights were no longer in formation. 25% of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment came down within a mile of the DZ, and another quarter within . Fully half the regiment was unavailable for its assigned tasks, however, because it dropped east of the Merderet, and half of those jumped more than away or were missing.

First Lieutenant Malcolm D. Brannen, Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 508th PIR came down between Picauville and Étienville, south of the DZ. Near dawn, just after observing the landing of reinforcements by gliders in Mission Chicago, Brannen and the group of paratroopers he had assembled fired on an automobile headed for Picauville at high speed, and in a brief firefight, Brannen shot and killed ''Generalleutnant'' Wilhelm Falley, division commander of the 91st Air Landing Division.

The 507th's pathfinders landed accurately on DZ T, but because of Germans nearby, marker lights could not be turned on. Many of its C-47s straggled and only three sticks jumped on the DZ. From 30 to 50 sticks (450-750 troops) landed nearby in grassy swampland along the river. Estimates of drowning casualties vary from "a few" to "scores" (against an overall D-Day loss in the 82nd of 156 killed in action), but much equipment was lost and the troops had difficulty assembling.

Almost 30 sticks of the 507th PIR came down in 101st Airborne Division areas and became temporarily attached to that division. The headquarters company of the 1st Battalion, carried by the last serial of the night, was dropped beyond Carentan at Montmartin-en-Graignes

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