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
112th Special Operations Signal Battalion Airborne and Special Operations Forces. Over the next half century, this bond would strengthen. The 512th soldiers, then commanded by 1LT George R. Hartley, conducted signal operations in support of Brigadier General Robert T. Frederick's 1st Airborne Task Force during Operation Dragoon (15 August 1944) at Le Muy, France. They made the unit's first parachute and glider assaults into battle. Thus, earning an "arrowhead" for the unit battle streamer. The 1st Airborne Task Force blocked German counterattacks in support of an Allied landing near Cannes, France. It was an operation that tested the concept of daylight mass tactical parachute drops