Band Of Brothers - 101st US Airborne Easy Company

This may be a WW2 RP centred around the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, Easy Company

During World War II, it was renowned for its role in Operation Overlord (the D-Day landings and airborne landings on June 6, 1944, in Normandy, France), Operation Market Garden, the liberation of the Netherlands and, perhaps most famously, its action during the Battle of the Bulge around the city of Bastogne, Belgium.

The pathfinders of the 101st Airborne Division led the way on D-Day in the night drop prior to the invasion. These night drops cause a lot of trouble for the gliders. Many crashed and equipment and personnel were lost. They left from RAF North Witham having trained there with the 82nd Airborne Division.

The 101st Airborne Division's objectives were to secure the four causeway exits behind Utah Beach between St Martin-de-Varreville and Pouppeville to ensure the exit route for the 4th Infantry Division from the beach later that morning. The other objectives included destroying a German coastal artillery battery at Saint-Martin-de-Varreville, capturing buildings nearby at Mésières believed used as barracks and a command post for the artillery battery, capturing the Douve River lock at La Barquette (opposite Carentan), capturing two footbridges spanning the Douve at La Porte opposite Brévands, destroying the highway bridges over the Douve at Saint-Côme-du-Mont, and securing the Douve River valley. Their secondary mission was to protect the southern flank of VII Corps. They destroyed two bridges along the Carentan highway and a railroad bridge just west of it. They gained control of La Barquette locks, and established a bridgehead over Douve River which was located north-east of Carentan.

In the process units also disrupted German communications, established roadblocks to hamper the movement of German reinforcements, established a defensive line between the beachhead and Valognes, cleared the area of the drop zones to the unit boundary at Les Forges, and linked up with the 82nd Airborne Division.