At the end of his early May briefing, Poett had told Howard that he could have anything he needed for his training programme. Taking Poett at his word, Howard ordered up German opposition: soldiers who would defend the bridge wearing German uniforms, using German weapons and tactics, and insofar as possible shouting their orders in German. He obtained captured German weapons, so that all his men were thoroughly familiar with what they could do, and how to operate them. He had but to snap his fingers, and trucks would appear, to carry his platoons to wherever he wanted to go.
D Company got the best of everything, except in food, in which area it got no special favours. There was very strict rationing throughout the country, and the food was bad; worse, there was not enough of it. Parr recalls:
Much of your money, spare money, went on grub. I was always hungry. You worked so hard, you trained so hard that the grub they gave you wasn’t enough to keep you going and you didn’t ask what it was, you just grabbed it and you just shovelled it down, as simple as that. So the first thing you got paid you used to do is make out for the NAAFI and get chow. Yeah, you supplemented your diet with your pay, there’s no doubt about that.
Howard was carrying some heavy burdens, of which the chief was being the only man in the company who was ‘bigoted’. Howard longed to put Brian Friday at least into the picture, partly to share the burden of knowledge, partly so that he could discuss his planning with him. He did, in fact, get permission to brief Friday around May 21.
He was pushing the men hard now, harder than ever, but no matter how he varied the order of landing or direction of attack or other aspects of the exercise, it was always the same make-believe bridges, at the same distances. Everyone was getting bored stiff. After about ten days of this, Howard called the men together on the parade ground and told them, ‘Look, we are training for a special purpose’. He did not mention the invasion – he hardly had to – but he went on: ‘You’ll find that a lot of the training we are doing, this capturing of things like bridges, is connected with that special purpose. If any of you mention the word “bridges” outside our training hours and I get to know about it, you’ll be for the high jump and your feet won’t touch before you land in the Glasshouse and get RTU.’ (Wally Parr told Irene the next evening, over the telephone, that he would be doing bridges on D-Day.)
Von Luck, as noted, had moved to the east ofCaen, between the River Dives and the Orne River. So had Hickman. Von Luck planned, and practised, his defences. He marked out the routes forward to alternative assembly areas behind likely invasion points. He laid down rest and refuelling areas, detailed traffic control units, marked bypasses and allotted anti-aircraft guns for road protection. Hickman meanwhile was engaging in anti-paratrooper exercises. Even Major Schmidt, at the bridges, was finally getting some sense of urgency. He was completing his bunkers, and was almost ready to get around to putting in the anti-glider poles. The Gondrees watched all this, and said nothing, except to Madame Vion.
Howard asked the topographical people to search the map of Britain and find him some place where a river and a canal ran closely together and were crossed by bridges on the same road. They found such a spot outside Exeter. Howard moved the company down there, and for six days, by day and by night, attacked those Exeter bridges. Townspeople came to gape as the lads dashed about, throwing grenades, setting off explosives, getting into hand-to-hand combat, cursing, yelling, ‘Able, Able’, or ‘Easy, Easy’ at the top of their lungs. Howard had them practise every possible development he could imagine – only one glider getting down, or the gliders landing out of proper sequence, or the dozens of other possibilities. He taught every man the basic rudiments of the sappers’ jobs; he instructed the sappers in the functions of the platoons; he made certain that each of his officers was prepared to take command of the whole operation, and sergeants and corporals to take command of each platoon, if need be.