6th Airborne's First Contact at Pegasus Bridge, Vital for D-Day Success | WW2 Walking The Ground

Join WWII historian James Holland and writer and comedian Al Murray on their battlefield tour of Normandy for their ontheground perspective on the vital seizure of Pegasus Bridge by British Airborne forces on DDay, 6th June 1944. Subscribe".

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🗒️ Episode Notes

In the small hours of 6th June 1944, ahead of the main seaborne landing force that would hit the coast of Normandy, members of D Company, 2nd (Airborne) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, were tasked with landing their Horsa gliders as close to Benouville Bridge as they could. Spanning the Caen Canal, the bridge was a vital part of the D-Day invasion strategy. If the airborne forces could take the bridge quickly and hold it, the main invasion force would have an immediate advantage, stopping any counter attack that the Germans might launch from the east. The mission was a coup-de-main operation led by Major John Howard. Speed and surprise were key, and as James Holland and Al Murray discover, the operation, one of the first of D-Day, was brilliantly executed. Benouville Bridge was later renamed Pegasus Bridge in honour of the operation. The name comes from the Pegasus shoulder emblem that was worn by British airborne forces.

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