Cassidy’s Battalion

The chief threat to the UTAH BEACH landings was the German coastal battery located just to the westward of the village of St Martin De Varreville. It had been the target of air bombardment in the preceding days but the results were not known. The fate of the northern half of the operation could have turned on it; the assured destruction of the Battery became a chief preoccupation of the 502d Airborne Infantry Regiment led by Lt. Colonel Patrick Cassidy. Widely scattered in the drop Cassidy and the paratroops under him were still determined to succeed in their objectives. In this short monograph produced by the European Theater of Operation historian S.L.A. Marshall, which was based on the oral testimony collected from the men involved, we follow Cassidy and his men as they attempt to achieve their important objectives.