Operation Ladbroke - Planning

Planning

As there were insufficient transport aircraft for all three brigades to conduct their operations simultaneously, it was decided that the first operation would be Ladbroke, whose objective was the capture of the Ponte Grande Bridge. The mission, under the command of Brigadier Philip Hicks, was conducted just prior to the amphibious landings, on the night of 9 July, while the remaining two operations took place on the successive two nights. The 1st Airlanding Brigade was also given the additional tasks of capturing Syracuse harbour and the urban area that adjoined it, and either destroying or confiscating a coastal artillery battery that was in range of amphibious landings. When training began for the operation, difficulties immediately arose. The original plan for the airborne operations had called for all three to employ parachutists, but in May Montgomery altered the plan; after determining that airborne troops would be a considerable distance from Allied ground forces, he believed that the force sent to capture Syracuse would be served best by gliders in order to provide them with the maximum possible amount of firepower. His airborne advisor, Group Captain Cooper of the Royal Air Force, argued that a glider landing conducted at night with inexperienced aircrews was not practical, but the decision was left unchanged. Montgomery's orders raised several issues, the first with the transport aircraft of the Troop Carrier Wings assigned to the airborne operations. When they had arrived in North Africa, it had been decided that the 52nd Troop Carrier Wing would operate with 1st Airborne Division and its counterpart, the 51st, with 82nd Airborne Division. A few weeks later this arrangement was switched, with the 52nd now operating with 82nd Airborne Division and the 51st with 1st Airborne Division; this seemed a logical decision, as each Wing had operational experience with the division it had been paired with. However, the decision to turn the Syracuse assault into a glider-based one was problematic; the 51st had practically no glider experience, whilst the 52nd had much more but was already training for a parachute-based mission. To switch both was impractical and would have led to a number of problems, which left 1st Airborne Division, and thus 1st Airlanding Brigade, with an inexperienced Troop Carrier Wing.