trained for the next two years. D-Day landings The Orne river formed the eastern, or left, flank of the Allied landings at Normandy on 6 June 1944. Control of both bridges was vital because Allied forces needed the Orne as a geographic barrier against an immediate counter-attack against the allied flank by German forces, and because access to a lateral road would ensure supplies from Sword Beach to the 6th Airborne Division, which had been dropped to the east of Caen. Supplies of ammunition, fuel and rations were essential if the 6th Airborne was to effectively protect the left flank of the Allied invasion force. Furthermore, the crossings had to be held, undamaged, so as to serve as causeways from the beach landing areas, when the Allies moved forward. Howard led 'D' Company and an engineer detachment, in a glider-borne assault in the early hours of 6 June 1944. Released at 8,000 feet over the Normandy coast, three gliders, each carrying about 28 heavily armed troops—in total 90 men, pilots included—clipped the tops of a group of poplar trees skirting a very small field and a dangerous pool and bounced to a halt only a few yards from each other, at precisely 0016 hours. All gliders were brought to an immediate halt, almost on top of the objectives—the nose was "buried in barbed wire and almost on the bridge", in the words of a soldier under Howard. The assault troops engaged their objectives almost from the moment they stepped outside of the wreckage of their aircraft. The German defenders were taken completely by surprise for they had almost no time to react, form, and attempt a defence of the objectives; since the British force had, in effect, landed within the boundary of the objective. Some of the Germans were caught asleep in their gun pits. Only one German soldier was able to fire a Very pistol to try to warn soldiers on the Orne bridge a few hundred yards away, but by the time he fired, the other bridge had been overrun. There was no time to attempt to blow the bridge, and even if there had been, the explosives needed for the job had never been fitted to the bridge. It was the classic example of a "commando-style" military operation, where surprise is the attacker's greatest asset; and when it is executed as planned, surprise is complete because the