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
2nd Parachute Brigade in Southern France and was disbanded on 23 November 1944. Its surviving manpower was used as reinforcements for the other American airborne formations. 2nd Parachute Brigade in Southern France The British 2nd Parachute Brigade was part of the Operation Rugby airborne landings in August 1944. The operation was carried out by an ad hoc airborne formation called the 1st Airborne Task Force. Operation Rugby was itself part of the Operation Dragoon invasion of Southern France by the American 7th Army. The airborne task force landed in the River Argens valley with the objective of preventing German reinforcements from reaching the landing beaches. The