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There were the solid gains represented by the facts that the battalion was in position in its bridgehead, the bridges were intact and a useful reserve was available in the Coup de Main party whose casualties had been remarkably light. ,

The other side of the problem was not anything like so encouraging. The battalion was now pitifully weak in numbers and several of those that were present carried arms only adequate for close quarter fighting. The actual number available, including all ranks, did not quite touch two hundred, excluding Howard’s party which could produce seventy more.

There were no 3" mortars, no medium machine guns and no wireless sets. There were, however, a few PIATs which were to give an excellent account of themselves.

The battle would quite clearly have to be fought out at close range but this did not present much of a problem as the prospect of meeting the enemy face to face would be relished by the battalion. The very act of arriving on the battlefield by parachute inspires a sense of superiority, everyone feels twice the man he did before the jump, end no one ever had any doubts anyway about their ability to deal with Germans. Furthermore the training of the battalion, and indeed of the whole division, had always been to hold fire until the enemy were close enough for a kill to be certain, however erratic a shot the man behind the weapon might be.

Twenty of the tiny reserve held at Battalion Headquarters and consisting of part of a platoon of C Company and the mortarmen and machine gunners were sent off with orders to break through the ring and report to Maj Taylor as reinforcements. The mortamen and machine gunners, who were armed only with their pistols, were to pick up rifles off the casualties that A Company must inevitably have suffered. This party was commanded by Lt MacDonald and duly achieved its object. They remained with A Company and provided a little, but very welcome, relief. The fact that they had achieved their object was not known at Battalion Headquarters however as the runner with the message was killed on his way back.

The German attacks were numerous and were pressed vigourously but they made the mistake of underestimating the strength of the battalion and attacking with forces of about company strength only. On eight separate occasions such attacks were repulsed at different points on the perimeter and less organised attacks by smaller numbers, and occasionally by armoured cars, were almost continuous. When an attack was repulsed the attackers would withdraw out of range and either re-group for another attempt or move away to try their luck somewhere else. The lack of the the mortars was sadly felt on these occasions because there is no weapon more suited for dealing with attacking enemy who have drawn back to re-consider their problem; under such circumstances a few well placed mortar bombs are likely to inflict more casualties than were sustained in the assault itself and may well prevent a further attempt altogether.

B Company, under Maj Neale, for their part were having plenty of excitements in covering the part of the village known as Le Port and blocking the approaches to the bridge from the west. Le Port included the bulk of the houses comprising the village as well as the church. The chief approach from the west was a valley which was covered by the wooded escarpment held by the company but used nevertheless almost continuously by parties of Germans trying to break through. B Company were being pecked at almost all the time by parties of varying sizes and saw a very great deal of fighting. This fighting developed more into separate platoon