trialled on No. 3 Troop. Mayne had been quite impressed with its effect: the men had been dragging their heels, but after taking the drug perked up enormously, picking up their feet, swinging their arms and singing merrily. Finally came their last training exercise: a mock assault on a British anti-aircraft battery 2 miles or so from where the Ulster Monarch was docked. ‘The attack’, noted Peter Davis, ‘was an outstanding success in every way.9 I do not think it any exaggeration to say that those gunners were completely at a loss.’
By early June, then, the Allies had a decent number of supremely well-trained and highly motivated troops. There were also British Commandos, created and designed for raiding operations. Really, these men were among the very best soldiers anywhere in the world at this time. It was in the delivery of these troops where differences emerged, for while the SRS and Commandos were in pretty safe hands with the navy, the same could not be said for Allied paratroopers, whether those under Gavin’s command or the British training for later operations on the Primosole Bridge; for while the state of glider training was absolutely deplorable, training for the troop carrier commands was hardly sufficient either. In part this was because delivering paratroopers into combat was just one of their many roles; transports were constantly busy, especially given that the Allies were preparing for HUSKY from bases stretched as far apart as Palestine, Malta and French Morocco.
It meant, though, that troop carrier aircrew simply had not had the same levels of combined training as had those being delivered into battle by the navy. This amounted to a grave flaw in the development of the airborne arm: that while so much thought had been given to training the elite troops themselves, the same concentration had not been applied to those charged with delivering them to the battle zone. The British had not developed a troop transport, and while the Americans had successfully developed the DC-3 into the C-47 – called the Dakota by the British – some important adaptations had not been made, such as providing the military aircraft with self-sealing fuel tanks, which helped prevent the fatal spread of fire should one of them get hit. Furthermore, the cream of the crop among pilots and navigators tended to fly fighters or bombers, not transport aircraft. This led to the paradoxical situation where some of the very best troops were being delivered into combat by among the least trained and least skilled pilots. There were, of course, exceptions; but 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, who would be delivering the 505th Parachute Combat Team into Sicily, had conducted only two night-time parachute drop exercises. Of these, one had become badly dispersed while the second went rather better; it was hard to know what could be gleaned from these results, but even an optimist could only conclude they now had a fifty–fifty chance of getting it right on the night. A better option would be to have the troops dropped in daylight, but that simply wasn’t possible. The invasion fleet needed to approach the coast under cover of darkness because of the threat of enemy aircraft and coastal batteries, which meant the invasion had to be launched at very first light. The whole point of the airborne operations was to take out strongpoints and secure ground before the landings. And that meant dropping in darkness.
Colonel Jim Gavin had wavered continually during this training and waiting period. Jump exercises on to the hard, stony desert near their training base in Morocco had led to one too many injuries, which was frustrating. His men were in fine fettle; but despite this, one moment he felt confident, the next dark doubts crept into his mind. ‘I feel quite certain that I will also get an opportunity for advancement if I survive,’ he confided to his diary.10 ‘I may not. I am going to keep the parachute tradition in mind. Chances will be taken, risks run, and everything ventured. If I survive, well and good. If I am killed at least I have been true to myself, my convictions … At the moment, I haven’t the slightest fear.’
He worried, too, about his subordinate commanders. One in particular, Major Gray of the 2nd Battalion, troubled him. Gavin just didn’t feel he was cutting it. Despite these concerns, he’d not thought to relieve him before the assault; but then Gray had gone AWOL for a few days. As it happened, he had been on a legitimate fact-finding operation – but for Gavin it was enough to wield the axe. ‘More bad judgement than AWOL,’ Gavin had conceded.11 ‘I should have replaced him in the States.’ Gray had been one of just three battalion commanders in the 505th, and Gavin had to feel totally confident in all of them. Major Mark Alexander, the highly competent battalion XO – deputy – took over the command on 21 June. Despite Gavin’s doubts, Gray had been popular with the men, making Alexander’s task, just a couple of weeks before the jump into action, an invidious one. ‘It really put pressure on me,’ said Alexander, ‘as I had a lot to do to get on top of things.12 There were a lot of good men in the battalion, but some of them were still Gray’s men and I had to fight that issue because they didn’t understand why he was being relieved.’
None the less, Alexander, at thirty-one, was older than most, tall and athletic, and had a natural aura of authority; he was also, like Gavin, the kind of man who would never dream of asking any of his men to do something he would not do himself. Gavin gave him a very able West Pointer, Captain Jack Norton, as his new XO, and together the two men swiftly got the battalion back on an even keel. Even so, Alexander had not been too happy with how the night exercises had gone, and so had spoken to the commander of the troop carrier group that would be taking them to Sicily. No matter where they were dropped, Alexander emphasized, he wanted to make sure the battalion was dropped together. That way, they would at least have the opportunity to organize themselves and fight as a battalion. It was hardly a resounding vote of confidence in the Troop Carrier Wing.
Then there was the time it took to move everyone and all their equipment up to Tunisia. The move from Oujda in western Algeria had begun on 16 June, by which time Gavin had once again been racked by doubts. It was too late for any more practice jumps, however, as the move was not expected to be completed until 3 July. By that time they were bivouacked about 20 miles north of the ancient city of Kairouan and 10 miles south of Enfidaville, where just a couple of months earlier there had been fierce fighting. Battle debris was still strewn all over the place. ‘The loneliest sight in the world,’ Gavin jotted in his diary, ‘is to come across a lone grave in the desert marked only with a simple wooden cross and a rusty helmet.’13 He was keenly aware that one day very soon, that could easily be him.
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