#Operate behind enemy lines free
#Operate behind enemy lines windows

The generally poor quality of these troops was not unexpected, and it was realised that behind them lay some of the best units of the German Army ready to counter-attack.ДЄs our men prepared to meet these counter-attacks they were continually harried by snipers, who fought with great resolution until they were killed or until their ammunition was exhausted. There were some units of Volksdeutsche who had had German nationality forced upon them after the Hitlerian conquests of Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as a number of Italians. The Reichsdeutsche was usually either a boy in his teens or an elderly veteran of the last war. German prisoners proved a very mixed bag. German officers were captured in their beds in several places, and it became clear that the anti-air-landing precautions were not nearly as thorough as the Germans had been trying to make out for the past two years. As D-Day went on it was possible for us, studying the maps at the headquarters of the air-borne division, to see the very high degree of successful surprise which the unit had achieved. Other paratroops told me that as they marched through a small village which had just been devastated by Allied air bombardment they were cheered by French men and women standing among the still smoking ruins of their homes.

One elderly Frenchman walked into a cemetery where British wounded were being collected amongst grotesque examples of French funerary art and laid upon the stretcher of one of the most seriously wounded men a huge bunch of red roses - an unwittingly appropriate tribute to the wounded men. These considerations did not affect some of them, however. Churchill's statement that feint landings would take place, and they reflected that if what they were watching was a feint then the withdrawal of the British troops would mean that they would be responsible once again for their actions to Himmler and Laval. They were a little shy and a little reserved for the most part, probably because they remembered Mr.

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In little knots they gathered at windows and at street corners and watched us.

#Operate behind enemy lines free

Meanwhile the parachutists had been busy, and the inhabitants of the little French villages near where the landings took place awoke to find themselves free again. A force of Lancasters led by Wing Commander Gibson, V.C., of MВ”hne Dam fame, put out of action a German battery which otherwise would have made the landing of troops on that beach impossible. Out of the entire force of 'plane which took the unit into action only one tug and one glider were shot down.Д«y the time the glider on board which I was had landed it was very nearly daylight, and the dawn sky was shot with the brilliant yellows, reds, and greens from the explosions caused by the huge forces of Allied bombers covering the sea-borne attack, which was about to begin.

Then came the gliders with the troops to seize various points, and finally more gliders carrying equipment and weapons of all kinds. The Germans would be less likely to be on their guard on a night when the weather was unfavourable for an attack.ДЇirst came parachutists, whose duty it was to destroy as far as possible the enemy's defences against an air landing. The weather was not ideal for an air-borne operation, but it was nevertheless decided to carry it out.

Then from this aerodrome and from aerodromes all over the country an armada of troop-carrying 'planes protected by fighters and followed by more troops aboard gliders took the air. It was nearly dark when they formed up to enter the 'planes, and by torchlight the officers read to their men the messages of good wishes from General Eisenhower and General Montgomery. There were three cheers, a short prayer, and in the gathering darkness they drove off to the aerodromes with the men in the first lorry singing, incredible as it seems, the notes of the Horst Wessel song at the tops of their voices. The brigadier and the lieutenant colonel made brief speeches. Each of the black-faced men appeared nearly as broad and as thick as he was tall by reason of the colossal amount of equipment which the parachutist carries with him. I watched the unit go to war at dusk on D-1 (the day before D-Day), parading with everybody, from its brigadier downwards, in blackened faces and wearing the camouflage smocks and rimless steel helmets of the air-borne forces. It was landed behind the German lines, seized vital positions, and then linked up with the Allied forces which had landed on the beaches. He was woundfed, but not seriously, and is now in England.)ДЄ British parachute unit formed part of the Allied airborne force which was the spearhead of the Second Front. Woodhead was one of the three British war correspondents who were landed in France form the air.