THE MISSION OF THE 1ST BATTALION, 505 PARACHUTE INFANTRY REGIMENT
THE MAIN ROADWAY AND RAIL TRACK intersection located about 800 yards east of the Merderet River and Manoir de La Fière became one of the landmarks and focal assembly points for the widely dispersed 507 and 508 paratroopers. These included Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin, who dropped a mile off course with the 508 PIR, northwest of Ste. Mère-Eglise. Going back towards Ste. Mère-Eglise, the double-tracked rail line runs from Cherbourg to Paris; at the intersection a bridge above the tracks on the road runs east and west. The Germans posted guards on such bridges and had soldiers walking the tracks.
Regular German guards were indeed posted on and near the railroad bridge intersection the night of June 5. In a phenomenal stroke of bad luck that affected 82d paratroopers in general, and the 1/505 and A Company in particular, a platoon of Germans had been posted in and around the Leroux Manoir farm buildings and bridge. Monsieur Leroux later told historians that 28 German infantrymen roused him from bed at 2300 hours on June 5 to inform him that they would be out-posting his property. He was amazed by the news, because this was the first time that German soldiers had ever guarded La Fière bridge or the Manoir.
While the enemy was settling in around the Manoir and bridge, the 505 was airborne and well on its way, heading for the English Channel. So it was, 878 years after William the Conqueror had left Normandy for England with 13,000 fighting men, that 13,000 paratroopers took off for Normandy on June 5, 1944—and 146 of them were headed straight for the Leroux farmhouse. The 505 troopers jumped at 0151 hours on June 6, right smack on their drop zone in the middle of the 505 pathfinders.