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
Operation Rösselsprung (1944) Luftwaffe aircraft in the skies over Yugoslavia. This offensive included over one thousand sorties by the newly formed Balkan Air Force. A costly ground attack was also launched by a combined Partisan, British and US force on the German-held Dalmatian island of Brač. Code-named "Operation Flounced", the assault was mounted from the British-held island of Vis further out in the Adriatic Sea on the night of 1/2 June. Fighting continued late into 3 June 1944 and resulted in the reinforcement of the island by a further 1,900 German troops. The assault force on Brač consisted of 13 battalions from the