Task Force Raff’s Race Against Time

The low-flying air armada was too big a target to miss. As Colonel Raff looked on helplessly, a sheet of machine-gun fire erupted skyward from the enemy positions. Mortally wounded tug planes and gliders alike began spiraling down to crash land among the hedgerows. Those men able to crawl out of their wrecked aircraft stumbled dazedly around the battlefield, often falling prey to a sniper’s bullet.

This incident, which took place near the road junction of Les Forges, France, was only one of many small-unit actions to occur on D-Day, June 6, 1944. It was a desperate attempt to link up the massive U.S. force landing across Utah Beach with some 6,000 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division, who’d jumped into battle earlier that morning near the French village of Ste. Mère-Église.

Thanks for another great share MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D.