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It took only two hours for the 508th PIR
to change station from Nottingham, England to Normandy, France.
The almost uneventful flight over the English Channel quickly turned chaotic
when the close flying C47s encountered low clouds.
The regiment had planned to drop in four serials on
a field north of Piquaville. However, when the C-47 formations became
shrouded in clouds, many of the planes broke formation to avoid midair collisions.
Moments later, the C-47s still in formation ran into
very heavy antiaircraft and machinegun fires and many of them dispersed.
Unfortunately, only the leading C-47s in each formation
had electronic instrumentation calibrated to home on the equipment operated
by the pathfinders that had dropped earlier. The trailing planes
in each formation were expected to follow the leader. Therefore, the
C47s that were out of formation lost their primary capability for finding
the drop area. As the result, the 508th PIR men were dropped
all over Normandy.
The majority of the 508th PIR men dropped
astride the Merderet River, east of the drop zone and some of the men landed
as far away as nine kilometers south of Cherbourg.
As the result of the disastrous drop, the 508th
PIR was unable to assemble into a cohesive fighting regiment for several days.
Aggravating the 508th PIRs’ dilemma was the loss of the regiment’s
equipment bundles. Many of the bundles were lost forever when they landed
in the Merderet or Douve Rivers.
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