On the night of June 5th-6th, 1944, the 6th Airborne Division began the invasion of occupied France. Landing by parachute and glider, these men became the first Allied troops to breach Hitler's Atlantic Wall. Perhaps the most famous incident on that first night was the coup-de-main glider assualt on the Orne River and Canal bridges by Major John Howard's company of Oxs & Bucks from the Airlanding Brigade. A less well known, but equally astonishing success, was the 9th Parachute Battalion's assault on the Merville Battery. (Click here for a battlefield tour of the Merville Battery.)

The Merville Battery was a series of heavy gun emplacements in concrete bunkers built by the German Army. The battery was built near the coast, and could easily lay fire on Sword beach, the landing area designated for the British 3rd Infantry Division on the morning of June 6th. (The map at this paragraph shows the location of the Merville Battery at the point marked with the A. The Sword beach landing area is marked with the B. The site of Major Howard's glider assualt is marked with the C.) The battery contained four large-caliber guns, each in a concrete bunker closed with steel doors. The entire battery was surrounded by barb wire, machine-gun nests, minefields and anti-tank ditches. It was garrisoned by a force of two hundred men.

The 9th Battalion of the 3rd Parachute Brigade was given the task of silencing this position prior to the sea-borne invasion on the morning of June 6th. Under the command of Lt.-Col. Otway (Pictured at right), the battalion mustered over 500 men. The battalion was assigned a number of Royal Engineers, specialists who's job was to help breach the peremiter barriers and the demolition of the guns after the assault.

The plan of attack required detachments of the 9th Battalion to secure the area surrounding the battery, establish a secure base of operations for the assualt, and create diversionary attacks against local German forces to delay the possibility of reinforcements arriving at the battery. The main assault would take place when the Engineers had breached the surrounding wire.

Fifty men in three gliders were timed to land within the compound at the moment the assualt took place. A veteran of this force has told us that these glider troops painted luminescent 'skull-and-crossbones' on their Denison smocks just prior to boarding at Brize Norton. This was done as a precaution to keep their own troops from firing on them.

When the assualt was successful, a signal flare was to be fired into the early morning air. If the Royal Navy did not see this flare by the designated time on the morning of the assualt, they were prepared to divert a ship to bombard the position. This contingency plan for silencing the guns was not likely to be effective, so it was imperative that the paras succeed and save the infantry on the beach.

Reconnaisance photo of the battery taken before the assault.

Diagram of the assault, showing minefields, casements, machine guns, and barbed wire.

The attack had a very inauspicious start when the initial parachute drops were badly scattered. Only 150 men of the 9th Battalion could be assembled with LT.-Col. Otway for the assault. To make matters worse, no Engineers (or their explosives), no vehicles and no cannon could be found. The only support for this small force was a single heavy machine-gun. Nevertheless, the men immediately moved towards their objective and into position in preparation for the assault. As Otway said in describing the situation, "it was a question of move off, or give up. In the Parachute Regiment giving up is not an option."

As Otway's men moved into position they saw two of the gliders coming down (the third was forced to land in England). One glider missed the battery by 500 yards and landed well outside the wire, near Otway's force. The second landed over half a mile away. Although outnumbered and with the planned attack in shambles, the assault began immediately. The German defenders put up a stiff resistance and casulties were severe, but the battery was taken. The parachutists then used their gammon bombs to disable the guns.

The price was high, with seventy casulties (killed and wounded) among the paras. After the assault the entire battalion could only muster 80 men, although more men would rejoin the battalion in the following days as they made their way back from the scattered drops. The assualt was one of many examples of courage and ability shown by the men of the 6th Airborne Division during the Normandy D-Day assualt. Although their success came at a high price, it surely saved the men in the sea-borne assault from taking higher casulties. The carnage that could result during a beach assault when prepared defendors with coordinated artillery were waiting was shown at Dieppe and Omaha beaches. It is notable that this was not the case on Sword Beach, thanks in large part to the disruption of the enemy forces during the night of June 5th-6th.

Memorial in Normandy for the 9th Battalion.