Mission Albany

Part of the American airborne landings in Normandy, Operation Overlord

Insignia of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division.

Date	6–15 June 1944
Location	Normandy, France
Result	American victory

Belligerents

United States

Nazi Germany

Commanders and leaders

Maxwell D. Taylor

Friedrich von der Heydte

Units involved

101st Airborne Division
65th Armored Field Artillery Battalion
Company A, 746th Tank Battalion

6th Fallschirmjager Regiment
German III Battalion-191st Artillery Regiment.

Strength

6,928 paratroops
2,300 seaborne glider troop reinforcements

approx. 6,000 (7 battalions infantry, one regiment artillery)

Casualties and losses

(campaign)
546 killed
2,217 wounded
1,907 missing

estimated 4,500 killed, wounded, and missing

Mission Albany was a parachute combat assault at night by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division on June 6, 1944, part of the American airborne landings in Normandy during World War II. It was the opening step of Operation Neptune, the assault portion of the Allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord. 6,928 paratroopers made their jumps from 443 C-47 Skytrain troop carrier planes into an intended objective area of roughly 15 square miles (39 km²) located in the southeast corner of the Cotentin Peninsula of France five hours ahead of the D-Day landings. The landings were badly scattered by bad weather and German ground fire over an area twice as large, with some troops dropped as far as 20 miles (32 km) away.

The division took most of its objectives on D-Day, but required four days to consolidate its scattered units and complete its mission of securing the left flank and rear of the U.S. VII Corps, reinforced by 2,300 glider infantry troops who landed by sea.

The 101st Airborne Division's objectives were to secure the four causeway exits behind Utah Beach, destroy a German coastal artillery battery at Saint-Martin-de-Varreville, capture buildings nearby at Mésières believed used as barracks and a command post for the artillery battery, capture the Douve River lock at la Barquette (opposite Carentan), capture two footbridges spanning the Douve at la Porte opposite Brévands, destroy the highway bridges over the Douve at Sainte-Come-du-Mont, and secure the Douve River valley.

In the process units would also disrupt German communications, establish roadblocks to hamper the movement of German reinforcements, establish a defensive line between the beachhead and Volognes, clear the area of the drop zones to the unit boundary at Les Forges, and link up with the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division.

...
Wikipedia