On Invasion Day, who jumps in before Paratroopers: the Pathfinders

By Bob Ford Special to

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On June 6, 1944, two minutes past midnight, a C-47 aircraft carrying 20 men entered enemy air space over France. It’s the beginning of D-Day. These men are part of the 101st Airborne Division, but their mission is different from the large attacking force that will follow, they are Pathfinders.

In modern day warfare, Pathfinders lead invasions, identifying, securing and marking landing and drop zones for the attacking paratroops.

“First used in World War II, the Pathfinders, like many of the invading paratroopers on D-Day, were scattered all over Normandy,” said Kevin Drewelow, director of the Combat Air Museum at Forbes Field in Topeka.

Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious assault in the history of warfare. More than 5,000 allied ships and 13,000 aircraft participated in the historic landing. Full moon, high tide and deception on exactly where the invasion would take place worked, but there was one variable the allied commanders could not control that caused havoc … the weather.

The Pathfinder’s mission is to set up radio and visual equipment to help guide paratroopers safely to the ground, but it doesn’t always work as planned.

Utilizing high frequency radio waves along with red and green holophane lamps, the teams would try to establish a safe and secure landing zone. If the area was compromised by the enemy, a red light signaled the zone closed. In the daylight the squad would signal using red and green smoke grenades.

Germans were everywhere in Normandy and the invading troops landed miles off target mostly due to the wind and dense cloud cover. That’s OK according to Lt. Dick Winters of Easy Company, “we are paratroopers, we’re supposed to be surrounded.”

Glenn Braddock of Cherryville, Kansas, jumped into France early that morning. Of the 150 Pathfinders who went in on June 6, only 58 came out. Braddock survived, his story along with the history of the Pathfinders can be found at the Combat Air Museum in Topeka, Kansas.

Operation Overlord was a costly success that saw over 10,000 allied casualties, but the troops gained a crucial foothold in Nazi-occupied Europe.

The going was tough for allies fighting off the beach onto hedgerow after hedgerow, months went by with heavy casualties without significant gains. The allies looked for another way to flank the enemy and enter Germany.

Operation Market Garden was an airborne invasion plan to drop troops into Holland, designed to end the war by entering Germany from the north. The Pathfinders would be called on again to lead the way.

The Operation was designed to capture a series of bridges, some over the Rhine, then advance a huge force utilizing those bridges into Germany. The strategy was British Gen. Bernard ‘Monty’ Montgomery’s brain child to redeem British pride after the Dunkirk debacle.

The first to go in was Glenn Braddock and his Pathfinder team to guide the invading paratroopers. Similar problems that altered D-Day affected Market Garden.

In war it seems it’s always about the weather, when you’re planning an invasion with tens of thousands of men and women, you can’t keep soldiers on stand-by for days waiting for blue skies, if at all possible you gotta GO!

Along with rainy, overcast skies and muddy roads, the Nazis had moved a couple Panzer divisions, undiscovered by the allies, into Holland. The most strategic bridge was the Arnhem Bridge over the Rhine, after heavy fighting it was never captured.

Think, “A Bridge Too Far.” The allies would have to find another way into Germany.

By the end of 1944, several allied commanders thought Germany was close to surrendering. The Russians were carving through Poland towards Berlin while the allies on the western front continued to maneuver eastward.

Hitler however had one last “Hail Mary,” assault in him. Maybe the Germans could hold their own on the battlefield one more time … everyone was tired of fighting. If the Nazi’s could create a stalemate on the front lines, I believe, they wanted to negotiate for peace rather than having to accept a surrender unconditionally.

The Battle of the Bulge would turn out to be America’s costliest battle of the war.

The 101st Airborne was in trouble. Hitler attacked the thin American line through the dense Ardennes forest, surprising the allies and ultimately surrounding the “Screaming Eagles,’ in Bastogne, Belgium. On Dec. 16, 1944, the Germans threw everything they had left in the West into the attack, think of “Band of Brothers.”

Two Panzer Armies and their 7th Army consisting of 557 tanks and 405,000 men struck. The stunned allies countered with 483 inferior tanks, and 228,000 soldiers who had hoped the war would have been over by Christmas.

As the Germans advanced, the American troops held out in Bastogne during horrific weather. Receiving additional units and equipment to the surrounded troops became impossible.

Time went by as the freezing 101st Airborne held on without proper winter gear, minimal ammunition and exhausted medicine supplies. As said, it was the highest U.S. casualty count for a battle of the war. Eighty-one thousand brave souls and an additional 800 tanks were lost. The exhausted Germans fared worse, 103,000 soldiers killed, wounded or captured and 550 tanks destroyed.

Two days before Christmas in 1944 the weather cleared, once again, in came Glenn Baddcock and his fellow Pathfinders to guide a mammoth airdrop. The drop zone had to be precise for our troops and not the enemy to receive the tons of supplies brought in.

Hundreds of C-47 transports, in what many called the “Christmas miracle,” battled anti-aircraft fire and what was left of the Luftwaffe to deliver life saving munitions and food. Thanks to the Pathfinders the airlift worked and the rest is history. Germany surrendered a few months later.

Pathfinders are unsung heroes in our military annals, as many front line veterans remain humble concerning their experiences, we honor all those who served, survived and sacrificed through tough times, thank you!