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The bags that would have been carried by C Company were distributed amongst the other aircraft, but were not fitted onto the legs of any parachutists; most of them had one already anyway. They were fitted with bicycle chutes and were to be kicked, or thrown, out of the aperture as the stick jumped. Folding bicycles had always been thrown out in this way so there was no great difficulty about it except for the great weight of the bags which would make them awkward to handle in the dark, and in a hurry.

Once on the ground anyone locating one of these unattended bags, which were all painted in a very distinctive colour, was to bring it into the RV with them.

B Company under Maj R. Neale, had a special role connected with the water crossings. They were the ferrying experts and, as such, carried the bulk of the heavy boating equipment.

A Company, under Maj J. Tayler, was to be the first over the obstacles and so carried their normal equipment and a smaller proportion of the dinghies.

The drop was made punctually at 0500 hr and, for the most part, accurately but many men were well off the DZ, due, in most cases, to the exits being slowed by the kit bags. Two of the Stirlings were shot down with complete loss of both parachutists and aircrews. One pilot, failing to locate the DZ, took his aircraft back to base without dropping the parachutists. They came out the next day in the glider train and were very disappointed at having missed the battalion's first operational jump. A few of the pilots were not so wise as this one and dropped their sticks very wide of the correct spot.

It was obvious that the pilots were having considerable difficulty in pin-pointing the DZ, which was hardly surprising because the moon, which should have been shining brightly, was obscured at the time of the drop by clouds, whose presence no meteorological expert could have been expected to predict. As a result planes were running in from all angles which greatly confused the men on the ground until they realised what was happening. One of the best ways of getting one's bearings on landing is to watch the flight of the aircraft, which normally run-in on a definite compass bearing.

The enemy had been caught by surprise at first but soon made the DZ an unhealthy spot by firing machine guns across it from various positions. The German uses tracer ammunition considerably and the sight of this criss crossing over the ground presented a rather pretty picture to the descending parachutists. The jump was made from three hundred feet, and in some cases from considerably lower, so there was only about ten seconds in which to admire the firework display before it became much too personal to be appreciated.

The advanced party, who had jumped from Albemarles thirty minutes before the main drop, and included, as representatives from the battalion, Lieut Rogers and Ptes Wing, Moran Starke and Styles, carried an Aldis lamp, with a green mask, as a rallying guide for the battalion. Their pilot had found it difficult to pin-point the DZ accurately enough to drop them near any particular part of it and, as a result, Rogers, complete with his lamp, had not located the RV himself by the time of the main drop and was separated from the rest of his party.

He decided to flash the lamp however and so rally round him men of the battalion, who could continue the search as a formed body. Curiously enough the first one to rally to him was the CO, who had landed on a road, on which he bruised his heel, which slowed his progress.