Brave glide
Sir: In his otherwise excellent article 'Nor- mandy memories' (11 November) Gavin Stamp writes – 'Pegasus Bridge ... was taken and held by British paratroops dur- ing the night of 5-6 June 1944.'
How is it, I wonder, that Mr Stamp joins the legions of journalists who do not know the difference between paratroops and the Air Landing Brigades? Not one of the men capturing the two bridges over the canal and river Orne on D-Day wore a parachute or was in the Parachute Regiment.
They flew in five eight-ton Horsa gliders which were landed in precisely the correct spots by army pilots of the Glider Pilot Regiment who glided from 6,000 feet over the Normandy coast at Cabourg. It was midnight and when the news got back to Eisenhower's HQ Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory told him that it was one of the most outstanding flying achieve- ments of the war.
David Brook
Birds Hill, Great Bealings, Woodbridge, Suffolk
Previous page
