On May 2, Howard was summoned to ‘Broadmoor’, code name for Gale’s planning headquarters, an old country place full of rickety stairs and low beams, near Milston on Salisbury Plain. It was surrounded by barbed wire and military police and had elaborate security precautions. Once inside, Howard was taken to Brigadier Poett’s office. Explaining that D Company was being detached from the Ox and Bucks and given a special assignment, Poett handed Howard his orders. They were marked Bigot and Top Secret, and they instructed Howard ‘to seize intact the bridges over the River Orne and canal at Benouville and Ranville, and to hold them until relief.
The orders provided ample information on enemy dispositions that Howard could expect to encounter, a garrison of about fifty men armed with four to six light machine-guns, one or two anti-tank guns, and a heavy machine-gun. ‘A concrete shelter is under construction, and the bridges will have been prepared for demolition.’ There was a battalion of the 736th Grenadier Regiment in the area, with eight to twelve tanks under command, and with motor transport. At least one platoon would be prepared as a fighting patrol, ready to move out at once to seek information. Howard should expect the enemy to be ‘in a high state of alertness. The bridge garrison may be standing to, and charges will have been laid in the demolition chambers.’
At this point in his reading Howard may have wondered how on earth General Gale expected him to seize intact bridges that were prepared for demolition. All the enemy had to do was press a button or move a switch and up would go the bridges. Gale himself, in his 1948 book, The 6th Airborne Division in Normandy, explains his thinking about this problem:
There is always or nearly always a slip between the cup and the lip: orders are vague: there is uncertainty: has the moment arrived or should one wait? Who is the individual actually responsible both for working the switch and for ordering the bridges to be blown? These questions are age-old and on the doubts that might exist in some German mind or minds at the critical moment I based the plan. But a moment or two was all that I knew we would get. The assault on the bridges must, therefore, come like a bolt from the blue.
Howard’s orders of May 2 informed him that his initial relief would come from the 5th Para Brigade, which would drop northeast of Ranville at 0050 hours and then ‘move forthwith to take up a defensive position round the two bridges’. Simultaneously, 3rd Para Brigade would drop on the high wooded ground south of Le Mesnil forest. At 0600, the British 3rd Infantry Division would begin its landings west of Ouistreham ‘with objective Caen’. Attached to the 3rd Division were Lord Lovat’s Commandos, who would move forward as rapidly as possible to establish a land link between the beaches and the paratroopers and glider-borne troops in and around the bridges. The brigade of Commandos could be expected any time after 1100 hours.
To carry out his assignment, Howard was given his own D Company, plus two platoons from B Company, a detachment of thirty sappers, one wing of the Glider Pilots Regiment, and six Horsa gliders. Poett’s May 2 orders also gave Howard the general outline of how he should proceed: ‘The capture of the bridges will be a coup de main operation depending largely on surprise, speed and dash for success. Provided the bulk of your force lands safely, you should have little difficulty in overcoming the known opposition on the bridges. Your difficulties will arise in holding off an enemy counter-attack on the bridges, until you are relieved.’ The counter-attack should be expected any time after 0100 hours, or within an hour of landing, and the most likely line of approach for the counter -attacking force would be from the west.
Howard was ordered to organise his defensive position immediately after taking the bridges, because ‘it is vital that the crossing places be held, and to do this you will secure a close bridgehead on the west bank, in addition to guarding the bridges. The immediate defence of the bridges and of the west bank of the canal must be held at all costs.’ Poett’s orders envisaged more than a passive defence, however. ‘You will harass and delay the deployment of the enemy counter-attack forces … by offensive patrols’, the orders read. ‘Patrols will remain mobile and offensive. Up to one third of your effective force may be used in this role. The remaining two thirds will be used for static defence and immediate counter-attack.’