D Day - Operation "Boston" - Order of battle

OPERATION "BOSTON"

IX Troop Carrier Command - 82nd Airborne Division

Lewis H. Breton	Paul L. Williams	Julian M. Chappell	Maurice Beach	Charles H. Young	Frank X. Krebs
Matthew B. Ridgway	James M. Gavin	William E. Ekman	Frederick C. Kellman	Arthur M. Stephanich	Benjamin H. Vandervoort

'Boston' was the second of two combat jumps, with 'Mission Albany' preceding it by one hour to drop the 101st Airborne Division. Each mission consisted of three regimental-sized air landings. Drop Zones T and N were west of the Merderet River from north to south, and Drop Zone O was east of it, just northwest of Sainte-Mère-Église.
The main combat assaults were preceded at each drop zone by three teams of pathfinders that arrived thirty minutes before the main assault to set up navigation aids, including Eureka radar transponder beacons and marker lights, to aid the C-47s in locating the DZs in the dark.
The 82nd Airborne Division's objectives were to capture the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, a crucial communications crossroad behind Utah Beach, and to block the approaches into the area from the west and southwest. They were to seize causeways and bridges over the Merderet at La Fière and Chef-du-Pont, destroy the highway bridge over the Douve River at Pont l'Abbé (now Étienville), and secure the area west of Sainte-Mère-Église to establish a defensive line between Gourbesville and Renouf.
The drops were scattered by bad weather and German anti-aircraft fire over an area three to four times as large as that planned. Two inexperienced units of the 82nd Airborne Division, the 507th and 508th Parachute Infantry Regiments, were given the mission of blocking approaches west of the Merderet River, but most of their paratroops missed their drop zones entirely. The veteran 505th PIR jumped accurately and captured its objective, the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, which proved essential to the success of the division.