become disoriented. Normandy Airborne and pathfinder forces did not see combat again until June 6, 1944, at the commencement of the D-Day landings of Operation Overlord. Pathfinders taking part in the Allied parachute assault on Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, were trained by the Pathfinder School at RAF North Witham (U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) designation 'Army Air Force Station 479') Lincolnshire. At 21:30 on June 5, about 200 pathfinders began to take off from North Witham, for the French Cotentin Peninsula, in 20 Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft of the 9th Troop Carrier Command Pathfinder Group. They began to drop at 00:15 on June 6, to prepare the drop zones for the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. They were the first American troops on the ground on D-Day. However, their aircraft were scattered by low clouds and anti-aircraft fire. Many never found their assigned landing zones. Some of the landing zones were too heavily defended. Some were flooded. The low clouds and extremely intense anti-aircraft fire caused the pathfinder sticks to be dropped off course, with only one stick landing in the correct place (Ambrose, p. 196). Their radar beacons did work somewhat effectively; even though the pathfinders set up their equipment off course, many of the sticks of follow up paratroopers landed clustered near these beacons. However, the lights proved ineffective, as most were not set up due to the clouds and misdrops of the pathfinders. While the bad weather and heavy anti-aircraft curtailed the effectiveness of the pathfinder teams on D-Day, the overall airborne drop was a success. This was true because the misplacement and scattering of the airborne forces deceived the German High Command and, as happened in Sicily, convincing them that there were far more American paratroopers present than there actually were in France. Southern France The invasion of the South of France took place on August 15, 1944, in the form of Operation Dragoon (Rottman, p. 80). The 509th PIB, the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, and the 551st PIB formed the American airborne contingent of the invasion, dropping into the French Riviera in the early hours of the morning. As had been the problem with previous night drops, such as Normandy, the pathfinders were misdropped when the planes carrying them got lost. Further delays were encountered when these men had to find each other on the ground, work their way through a heavily