6th Airborne Division (United Kingdom)

The 6th Airborne Division was an Airborne division in the British Army during the Second World War. It took part in Operation Tonga the airborne landings on the left flank of the invasion beaches in the Normandy Landings. It played a small part in the Battle of the Bulge and was involved in Operation Varsity the Allied assault across the Rhine river. At the end of the war in Europe it was planned to send the Division to the Far East for operations against Japan but these plans were cancelled after the Atom bombs were dropped on the Japanese mainland. Instead the Division was sent to Palestine on internal security duties, where it remained until being disbanded in April 1948.

As well as the 6th Airborne Division, Britain also had two other Airborne divisions, the 1st and the 2nd Airborne Division. However the 2nd Airborne Division was known as a deception unit. It comprised a small amount of personnel and equipment, especially radio communications, which aimed to mimic the activities of a real, 10,000 strong plus, division. It was disbanded in 1944 as its troops provided replacements for the 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions.

World War 2 and D-Day
The 6th Airborne Division was first activated on May 3rd 1943. The 6th Airborne was not founded as any ordinary Airborne Division was, it was formed from the 3rd Parachute Brigade and 1st Airlanding which were reassigned from the 1st Airborne Division.

On the night of June 5th to the 6th, the 6th Airborne Division rode in Horsa gliders behind "Sword" beach. Once they landed; the units scattered in order to quickly achieve their objectives. One unit secured Pegasus Bridge and also "Horsa Bridge".The area around Pegasus and Horsa were successfully defended until they were eventually relieved, having repulsed numerous counter-attacks by the Germans. The 6th Airborne Aivision was inactivated on April 1st 1948.

Later Operations
The 5th Parachute Brigade was deployed to the Far East in July 1945 to take part in the campaign against the Japanese, with the intention of the rest of the division to follow. The war ended suddenly in August with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese formally surrendered on 2 September. Thus the division's move was halted and the 5th Brigade was employed in operations in Malaya and Singapore to assist in the disarmament of the Japanese occupation forces. The brigade subsequently moved to Java, where it attempted to assist in maintaining order against hostile nationalist forces intent on preventing the Dutch from returning to the colony. The division left with the arrival of substantial forces from the Royal Netherlands Army in April 1946.

Elsewhere the division was moved to Palestine in September 1945, taking part in internal security duties against Zionist organisations known as Irgun, Haganah and the Lehi (group) who were attempting to expel the British. The 6th Division continued to carry out operations against the groups in difficult circumstances until they were disbanded on 1 April 1948 just before the British withdrawal from Palestine.

In the present-day British Army the 16 Air Assault Brigade (named to perpetuate the 16 Parachute Brigade) is numbered in honour of the 1st Airborne and 6th Airborne divisions.

Call of Duty Game
In the Original Call of Duty game, the player takes the role of a British Soldier who at first starts out as a member of the 6th Airborne Division; dropping behind enemy lines the night before D-Day to secure Pegasus Bridge on the Caen Canal, but then gets reassigned to the Special Air Service; who then gives Sgt. Evans some assignments, sabotage AA guns on Eder Dam, and sabotage the battleship Tirpitz; when in fact there was no such incident besides the attack attempted by 32 Lancaster of the 617th Dam Buster Squadron on October 29th 1944. In Call of Duty: World at War Final Fronts Pvt. Tom Sharp is part of this Division.

Trivia

 * This is the unit that Cpt. Price and Sgt. Evans served in before joining the SAS.