They reached the east bank. Lieutenant Fox in the lead. There was no opposition - the sentries had run off when the mortar was fired. As Fox stood there, panting and drinking in his victory, Thornton came up to him. Thornton said he had set up the Bren gun on the inside of the bridge, so that he could cover the advance party. Then he suggested to Fox that it might be a good idea to spread out a bit, instead of standing all bunched together on the end of the bridge. Fox agreed and spread the men out.
At 0021, Sweeney's glider was almost on the ground. Sweeney called out, 'Good luck, lads. Don't forget that as soon as we land, we're out and no hesitating'. Then he heard the glider pilot say, 'Oh, damn it'. The Horsa had hit a slight air pocket and dropped to the ground sooner than the pilot wanted it to. The landing itself was smooth, but the pilot apologised. 'I'm sorry, I've landed about 400 yards short.' Actually, he was closer to 700 metres short.
After his platoon had left the glider, Sweeney gathered the men and set off at a trot. They could hear the battle going on for the canal bridge. Almost immediately he fell into a drainage ditch and was soaked, but got out again and started doubling forward. When the platoon reached the river bridge they charged across, shouting 'Easy, Easy, Easy', at the top of their lungs. Because there was no opposition, Sweeney half-suspected that either Friday's or Fox's platoon had got there before him, 'but I still had that awful feeling as I went over the bridge that the thing might blow up in our face'. He left one section at the west bank, crossing with the other two sections.
There, on the other side of the bridge, were Fox and his men, all shouting back 'Fox, Fox, Fox'. The calm of the scene came as something of a disappointment: 'we were all worked up to kill the enemy, bayonet the enemy, be blown up or something and then we see nothing more than the unmistakable figure of Dennis Fox'.
Sweeney had often seen Fox standing, just like that, during the practice runs back at Exeter. Fox's great concern on the runs, like that of all the platoon leaders, had always been the umpires and how they would rate his performance.
Sweeney raced up to Fox. 'Dennis, Dennis, how are you? Is everything all right?'
Fox looked him up and down. 'Yes, I think so. Tod', he replied. 'But I can't find the bloody umpires.'
By 0021, the three platoons at the canal bridge had subdued most resistance from the machine-gun pits and the slit trenches - the enemy had either been killed or run off. Men previously detailed for the job began moving into the bunkers. This was not the most pleasant of tasks, according to Sandy Smith: 'we were not taking any prisoners or messing around, we just threw phosphorus grenades down and high-explosive grenades into the dugouts there, and anything that moved we shot.'
Wally Parr and Charlie Gardner led the way into the bunkers on the left. When they were underground, Parr pulled open the door to the first bunker and threw in a grenade. Immediately after the explosion, Gardner stepped into the open door and sprayed the room with his Sten gun. Parr and Gardner repeated the process twice; then, having cleaned out that bunker, and with their ear-drums apparently shattered for ever by the concussion and the sound, they went back up to the ground.
Their next task was to meet with Brotheridge, whose command post was scheduled to be the cafe, and take up firing positions. As they rounded the corner of the cafe, Gardner threw a phosphorus grenade towards the sound of sporadic German small-arms fire. Parr shouted at him, 'Don't throw another one of those bloody things, we'll never see what's happening.'
Parr asked another member of his platoon, 'Where's Danny?' (To his face, the men all called him 'Mr Brotheridge' but they thought of him and referred to him as 'Danny'.)
'Where's Danny?' Parr repeated. The soldier did not know, and said that he had not seen Brotheridge since crossing the bridge. 'Well', Parr thought, 'he's here, Danny must be here somewhere'. Parr started to run around the cafe when he ran past a man lying opposite the cafe in the road. Parr glanced at him as he ran on. 'Hang on', he said to himself, and went back and knelt down. 'I looked at him, and it was Danny Brotheridge. His eyes were open and his lips moving. I put me hand under his head to lift him up. He just looked. His eyes sort of rolled back. He just choked and lay back. My hand was covered in blood.
'I just looked at him and thought, "My God, what a waste!" All the years of training we put in to do this job-it lasted only seconds." '
Jack Bailey came running up. 'What the hell's going on?' he asked Parr. 'It's Danny', Parr replied. 'He's had it'. 'Christ Almighty', Bailey muttered,
Sandy Smith, who had thought that everyone was going to be incredibly brave, was learning about war. He was astonished to see one of his best men, someone he had come to depend on heavily during exercises and who he thought would prove to be a real leader on the other side, cowering and praying in a slit trench. Another reported a sprained ankle from the crash and limped off to seek protection. He had not been limping earlier. Lieutenant Smith lost a lot of illusions very fast.
On the other side of the bridge, David Wood's platoon was clearing out the slit trenches and the bunkers on each side of the road. Shouting 'Baker, Baker, Baker' as they moved along, they shot at any sign of movement in the trenches. The task went quickly enough, most of the enemy having run away, and soon the trenches were pronounced clear. Wood discovered an intact MG 34 with a complete belt of ammunition on it, and detailed two of his men to take over the gun. The remainder filled in the trenches, and Wood went back to report to Howard that he had accomplished his mission. As he moved back, congratulating his platoon along the way, there was a burst from a Schmeisser. Three bullets hit virtually simultaneously in his left leg, and Wood went down, frightened, unable to move, bleeding profusely.
Wallwork, meanwhile, had come to, lying on his stomach under the glider. 'I was stuck. Ainsworth was stuck and I could hear him. I came round. Ainsworth seemed to be in bad shape and yet he would shout. All he could say was, "Jim, are you all right, Jim? Are you all right, Jimmy?" and he was a sight worse than I was, he was pinned under.'
Wallwork asked if Ainsworth could crawl out. No. Well, could he get out if the glider were picked up? Yes. 'And I lifted the thing. I felt like I was lifting the whole bloody glider, I felt like Hercules when I picked this thing up. Ainsworth managed to crawl out.' As a medic looked after Ainsworth, Wallwork began to unload ammunition from the glider and carry it forward to the fighting platoons. He did not yet realise that his head and forehead had been badly cut, and that blood was streaking down his face.
Over at the river bridge, Sweeney's section on the far bank heard a patrol coming up the towpath from the direction of Caen. The section leader challenged the patrol with the password, 'V. But the answer from the patrol was certainly not 'for Victory', and it sounded like German. The entire section opened fire and killed all four men. Later investigation showed that among them was a gagged British para, one of the pathfinders who had been caught by the German patrol, and who was evidently being taken back to headquarters for interrogation.
By 0022, Howard had set up his command post in the trench on the northeast corner of the bridge. Corporal Tappenden, the wireless operator, was at his side. Howard tried to make out how the fire-fight was going at his bridge as he waited for reports from the river bridge. The first information to come to him was nearly devastating: Brotheridge was down.