At 0040, Richard Todd and his stick were over the Channel. Todd was standing over a hole in the bottom of the Stirling bomber, a leg on each side. On each leg he had a kit bag, one containing a rubber dinghy, the other entrenching tools. His Sten was strapped to his chest, and he carried a pack and a pouch full of grenades and plenty of extra ammunition. Todd’s batman stood behind him, holding and trying to steady him as the Stirling took evasive action from the flak. ‘Quite a lot of people did fall out over the sea from evasive action’, according to Todd. His batman held tight to him, as the Channel slipped past below.
At precisely 0050, exactly on schedule, Howard heard low-flying bombers overhead, at about 400 feet. To the east and north ofRanville, flares – set by the pathfinders-began to light the sky. Simultaneously, German searchlights from every village in the area went on. Howard recalls the sight: ‘We had a first -class view of the division coming in. Searchlights were lighting up the chutes and there was a bit of firing going on and you could see tracer bullets going up into the air as the paras floated down to the ground. It really was the most awe-inspiring sight. . . . Above all, it meant that we were no longer alone.’
Howard began blowing for all he was worth on his metal whistle. Dot, Dot, Dot (pause). Dash. It was his pre-arranged signal, V for Victory. Over and over he blew it, and the shrill sound carried for miles in the night air. This meant a great deal to the landing troops, says Howard. ‘Paras who landed alone, in a tree or a bog, in a farmyard, alone, and away from their own friends, could hear that whistle. It not only meant that the bridges had been captured, but it also gave them an orientation.’
But it would take the paras at least an hour to get to the bridges in any significant numbers; meanwhile, the tanks were rumbling in Benouville. Wallwork, returning to his glider for another load, went by the CP ‘and there was Howard, tooting on his bloody whistle and making all sorts of silly noises’. Howard stopped blowing long enough to tell Wallwork to get some Gammon bombs up to Fox and his men.
So, Wallwork says, it was ‘Gammon bombs! Gammon bombs! Bloody Gammon bombs! I bowled my flip line. I had already been to look for the damned things once and told Howard that there weren’t any in the glider. But he said, “I saw those Gammon bombs on the glider. Get them!” so back I went panning through this rather badly broken glider looking for the flaming things’.
As Wallwork switched on his torch he heard a rat-tat-tat through the glider. A German in a trench down the canal had seen the light and turned his Schmeisser on the glider. ‘So off went the light, and I thought, “Howard, you’ve had your bloody Gammon bombs”.’ Wallwork grabbed a load of ammunition and returned to the bridge, reporting to Howard on his way past that there were no Gammon bombs. (No one ever figured out what happened to them. Wallwork claims that Howard pitched them before take-off to lighten the load;
Howard claims that they were pinched by the men from nos 2 and 3 platoons.)
Tappenden kept calling ‘Ham and Jam’. Twice at least he really shouted it out, ‘Ham and Jam, Ham and BLOODY Jam’.
At 0052 the target for Tappenden’s message, Brigadier Poett, worked his way through the final few metres of corn and arrived at the river bridge. After checking with Sweeney on the situation there, he walked across to the canal bridge.
Howard’s first thought, when he saw his brigadier coming towards him, was ‘Sweeney’s going to get a bloody rocket from me for not letting me know, either by runner or radio, that the brigadier was in the company area’. Meanwhile he gave his report, and Poett looked around. ‘Well, everything seems all right, John’, Poett said. They crossed the bridge and conferred with Smith. All three officers could hear the tanks and lorries in Benouville and Le Port; all three knew that if help did not arrive soon, they could lose their precarious hold on the bridge.