When Coutts’ plane was hit and caught fire, a trooper who had been badly wounded during the flight was hooked up and pushed out in the hope that he would survive the jump. Then Coutts and the other troopers bailed out. Later, Coutts learned that the pilot and crew had also managed to parachute to safety before the plane exploded.

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Shortly after landing, Company E of the 513th Parachute Infantry launched an attack along a railway toward a building later determined to have been a German command post. Private First Class Stuart S. Stryker’s platoon made a frontal assault but was pinned down after advancing only 50 yards. Stryker, armed with only a carbine and shouting to his fellow troopers to follow him, charged the German position. Inspired by his bravery, Stryker’s comrades joined him. They charged head-on into a hail of bullets and took the position. Only some 25 yards from the objective, Stryker was killed, but his initiative saved his platoon. For his bravery, Stryker was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Private George J. Peters of G Company, 507th Parachute Infantry, was the only other man to receive the Medal of Honor for actions that day. Peters single-handedly charged and wiped out a German machine-gun nest that threatened his squad. Private Robert ‘Lendy’ McDonald, a trooper in A Company, 513th Parachute Infantry, had a close call while still airborne. As he was next to last in his stick, his assigned seat was near the crew compartment. Once the plane took off, he sat in the vacant navigator’s seat of the new C-46. The plastic observation bubble afforded him an excellent view of the vast air armada all around him.

As soon as the troopers had responded to the command, ‘Stand up and hook up!’ the sharp crack of German anti-aircraft fire filled the air. A loud ripping noise filled the plane, and McDonald and the troopers around him were covered in a shower of plastic. Looking back into the navigator’s compartment, McDonald saw a jagged hole in the metal seat where he had been sitting, and the observation bubble was gone except for a few jagged pieces. Evidently, a German round had come straight up through the plane, failed to explode, and exited through the bubble.

McDonald did not have time to reflect on his good fortune, however, because the plane was on fire. Peering through the doors, he could see nothing but flames. But on the command to jump, the troopers began to pour out the doors, plunging through the fire. McDonald sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes and followed them out. In a fiery split second, he was free of the doomed plane.

The 513th jumped into the British 6th Airborne’s drop zone instead of its own. The troopers quickly assembled, cleared the British area of Germans and proceeded to their own objectives. By 2 p.m., only two hours after they had landed, Coutts was able to report to General Miley that the regiment’s objectives were secured.

As they approached their landing zones, the glider tug planes had no choice but to fly a straight course. The glider pilots were already struggling to maintain control of their flimsy craft; if the tug pilots took evasive action to avoid the deadly groundfire, their two glider tows might crash into each other. If they increased their speed, the gliders could break up or become uncontrollable. This was the first time the double tows had been used in a combat operation.

To make matters worse, the last glider group was forced to climb to around 2,500 feet due to a stackup of traffic over its landing zone. The gliders released at that altitude established a new height record for combat release. But the glider pilots knew that it would take longer for them to reach the ground, giving the Germans longer to shoot at the fat, slow targets.

The smoke screen, several miles long by the time the airborne troops arrived, had been meant to cover only the river crossing, but it had also drifted over the drop zones and landing zones. The paratroopers had to jump through the white haze, not knowing what obstacles awaited them below. The glider pilots also dived into the void, knowing they could crash into other gliders, trees or obstacles that would smash their light craft to pieces. Some paratroopers did land in the trees, and some gliders did collide with obstacles, but most of the airborne troops came out of the smoke at 200 to 300 feet and managed to land safely.

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