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
550th Airborne Infantry Battalion (United States) regions subsided in 1943, the 550th was redesignated the 550th Glider Infantry Battalion and undertook glider training in Sicily. The unit was assigned, along with other Allied airborne units, to the 1st Airborne Task Force and participated in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of Southern France, on 15 August 1944 where the 550th captured the town of Le Muy. The 550th Airborne was sent to Aldbourne, England in November 1944 after the 1st Airborne Task Force was disbanded. During the Battle of the Bulge in late December 1944 the 550th was attached to the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment, part of