British Airborne, company commander Captain Howland and his XO 1st Lt. Fred E. Perry worked hard to develop usable techniques. Perry recalls: "Everyone knew through hard experience that the Air Corps needed help to drop us on the correct drop zone. We organized the Scout Company for this purpose. This was later made into a Scout Platoon under my command, consisting of 10 enlisted and myself. We were equipped with a British homing radio and U.S. Navy Aldis lamps, which radiated a beam to guide planes. We trained on this procedure until the invasion at Salerno. In the meantime, the 82nd Airborne Division arrived from the States on May 10 and camped near the 509th at Oujda. We were attached to them. The 82nd would not buy our Scout Platoon idea, but they sure found out in a hurry after Sicily that we really had something that was needed. At the time, Major General Matthew Ridgway and his "All-American" staff thought they knew it all. Impressed with themselves, although they were not jumpers or experienced glider troopers, they airily dismissed the 509th and its fresh combat experiences, as well as any nonstandard/Limey concept. They would learn the hard way. Sicily and Italy After the serious problems uncovered during the parachute drop in the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Allied high command questioned the utility of parachute infantry primarily because of the difficulty of dropping the infantry as cohesive units rather than as scattered groups. A review of procedures and methods resulted in the establishment of the pathfinder teams to aid navigation to drop zones. The pathfinder forces were only formed about a week in advance of the jump at Paestum, Italy, on September 13, 1943. When the majority of the pathfinders landed directly on target, they were able to set up their radar sets and Krypton lights on the drop zone. A quarter of an hour later, the main body of paratroopers from the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (504th PIR) landed right on the middle of the drop zone. The same night, the newly formed pathfinder detachment from the 509th PIB saw their first action in that capacity at Avellino, Italy. However, unlike the successful pathfinders at Paestum, those of the 509th at Avellino had markedly less success. However, this was not their fault, as the mountainous terrain surrounding the area deflected the radar signals and caused the pilots to