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If Chaos Reigns: The Near-Disaster
and Ultimate Triumph of Allied Airborne
Forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944

SYNOPSIS:

"Gentlemen, do not be daunted if chaos reigns; it undoubtedly will."  So said Brigadier S. James Hill, commanding officer of the British 3rd Parachute Brigade, in an address to his troops shortly before the launching of Operation Overlord—the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  No more prophetic words were ever spoken, for chaos indeed reigned on that day, and the many more that followed.

Much has been written about the Allied invasion of France, but Flint Whitlock has put together a unique package—a history of the assault that concentrates exclusively on the activities of the American, British, and Canadian parachute and glider forces that descended upon Normandy in the dark, pre-dawn hours of June 6, 1944.  Landing in the dark in the midst of the unknown, the airborne and glider-borne troops found themselves fighting for their lives in the very jaws of the German defenses, while striving to seize their own key objectives in advance of their seaborne comrades to come.

If Chaos Reigns details the formation, recruitment, training, and deployment of the Allies' parachute and glider troops, including such little-known vignettes as the role played by "para-dogs"animals who dropped with the paratroopers to provide sentry duty.  There are also many never-before-published first-person accounts by the veterans who were there—from paratroopers to glidermen to the pilots and aircrewmen who flew them into the battle, as well as the commanders (Eisenhower, Taylor, Ridgway, Gavin, and more)—that make for compelling, "you-are-there" reading.  

If Chaos Reigns is a fitting tribute to the men who rode the wind into battle and managed to pull victory out of confusion, chaos, and almost certain defeat.

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As he drifted down toward a farmhouse that he recognized from the briefings to be a German battalion headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway, commanding the British 9th Parachute Battalion, could see that he was being carried by the wind away from the hump of the Mervilee Batterys four casemates.  With no time to steer his chute, he slammed against the wall of a house and dropped several feet into a garden where two of his men already lay.  A German, having heard the thud, opened an upstairs window and looked out.  Seeing movement, he fired at the Brits; one of the Brits responded by tossing a rock through the window.  Otway and the two men then high-tailed it out of the garden and took cover nearby while the Germans inside the house rushed out to look for whomever was disturbing their peace.

Meanwhile, the plane from which Otway had jumped was circling the area, for only seven men of his stick had managed to jump on the first pass; the pilot made two additional passes over the area.  Suddenly there was a loud crash of breaking glass.  Otway's batman, Corporal Joe Wilson, had just come down on the glass greenhouse attached to the headquarters farmhouse.  Luckily he managed to avoid being killed or captured by the Germans and took off for the battalion's rendezvous point (RV) in the woods more than a mile from the battery.

Moving to the rendezvous point, Otway managed to pick up a few 9th Para stragglers along the way but, when he counted noses, he found that he had only a handful of troops.  Waiting in the woods, Major Alan J.M. Parry, his second-in-command and the commander of A Company, whispered, Thank God you've come, sir.

Why? asked Otway, fearing the worst.

The drops bloody chaos, sir.  There's hardly anyone here.

It was true.  9th Para was scattered over more than fifty square miles; the bulk of the unit was missing, dropped into trees, marshes, flooded areas, and villages—everywhere except Dropping Zone V.  At 0235 hours, nearly an hour and a half after the drop, only 110 of the battalions 750 men had reached the RV.  Forty more stragglers came in during the next fifteen minutes, but there were no jeeps, guns, trailers, anti-tank weapons, or, except for twenty lengths of Bangalore torpedoes and a few pounds of plastic explosive, demolition equipment.  The sappers, mortars, radios, signal equipment, mine detectors, and naval bombardment party were all missing.  And most of the Canadians of A Company, who were supposed to provide flank security, were nowhere to be found.  The battalion had one Vickers machine gun, one Bren gun, and a Very flare pistol that, ironically, was only supposed to be used to signal the Navy once the mission had been accomplished.  Otway glanced at his watch: nearly 0300 hours, and the battery had to be taken by 0530 or else the light cruiser HMS Arethusa would begin shelling it. 

Otway lay in hiding for a half hour observing the German sentries wandering around inside [the wire], smoking, and they hadn't got a clue. But he was in a terrible quandary.

Should he wait awhile longer in hopes that the men and equipment he needed would show up or should he launch the attack with what he had at his disposal?  Given the circumstances, no one would have blamed him if he decided to abort the assault and move on to the secondary objectives (which were many).  After another hour of hopeful waiting, Otway realized that he could not delay the assault any longer and called for a meeting of his available officers and non-coms.  He told them that despite their diminished numbers the attack would proceed; all of his subordinates supported that idea, even though they knew many of them would likely die in the effort. 
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ORDERING INFORMATION:

Casemate Publishers (June 2, 2011)
908 Darby Road
Havertown, PA 19083,
(p)610-853-9131
(f)610-853-9146
casemate@casematepublishing.com

Hardcover: $29.95
ISBN-10: 1612000002
ISBN-13: 978-1612000008

Kindle Edition available at amazon.com

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