Operation Tonga
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Operation Tonga was the codename given to the airborne operation undertaken by the British 6th Airborne Division between 5 June and 7 June 1944 as a part of Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings d
British pathfinders of the 22nd Independent Parachute Company synchronising their watches in front of an Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle
Lieutenant-General Frederick E. Morgan, the original planner of Operation Overlord.
Major-General Richard Gale, commanding the 6th Airborne Division, addresses his men (4–5 June 1944)
Men of 22nd Independent Parachute Company being briefed, in preparation for Tonga
The Battle of Merville Gun Battery was a series of British assaults beginning 6 June 1944, as part of Operation Tonga, part of the Normandy landings, during the Second World War. Allied intelligence b
Operation Tonga
…bridges to deny their use to the Germans and secure several important villages. The division was also assigned the task of assaulting and destroying the Merville Gun Battery, an artillery battery that Allied intelligence believed housed a number of heavy artillery pieces, which could bombard the nearest invasion beach…
Overhead view of the battery, showing the damage caused by a bombing raid in May 1944
2010 photograph of one of the concrete gun casemates
Men of the 9th Parachute Battalion marching through Amfreville in Calvados later in June