82nd Airborne
Normandy 1944
Author Steven Smith
Year 2017
ISBN 978-1-61200-539-2
Binding Paperback
Pages 64
Size 180 x 245mm (7.25 x 9.75in)
Price £9.99
Commanded by Major General Matthew B Ridgway, the 82nd Airborne trained exhaustively for their role before being shipped overseas to Casablanca, North Africa n in April 1943, making their first combat drop in July 9, part of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.
A second operation, including night parachute drops, went onto the Salerno beachhead on September 13 and 14 and provided more experience. In December, the bulk of the division left for the UK and training for D-Day.
Reorganised, the division dropped onto the Cotentin peninsula between Ste-Mère-Église and Carentan on the night of June 5, in a mission codenamed Boston, history’s largest airborne assault of the time, though Operation Market Garden later that same year would be bigger.
