Airborne forces critical equipment carried in 408 gliders daylight missions code-named Operation Bluebird, phase 2, simultaneous with the beach landings, and Operation Dove, phase 3. A second daylight parachute drop, Operation Canary, dropped 736 men of the 551st PIB with nearly 100% effectiveness late on the afternoon of August 15. The airborne objective was to capture the area, destroy all enemy positions and hold the ground until the U.S. Seventh Army came ashore. Operation Market Garden of September 1944, involved 35,000 airborne troops dropped up to behind German lines in an attempt to capture a series of bridges over the Maas, Waal
1st Airborne Task Force (Allied) land simultaneously in Normandy and in southern France in June 1944, attacking the Germans from the north and south in a classic pincer movement, after which the southern forces would head east to aid Allied forces in Italy. However it was soon realized that there were not enough landing ships or men available to carry out both operations at the same time, so the southern invasion ("Operation Anvil") was postponed. The southern invasion (now "Operation Dragoon") was planned for August 1944, and all airborne forces were allocated to a new unit formed on 11 July 1944 as the Seventh Army