The assault group comprised a reinforced company of six infantry platoons and an attached platoon of Royal Engineers.
Responsibility for the operation was assigned to the members of 'D' Company, 2nd (Airborne) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, part of the 6th Airlanding Brigade, 6th Airborne Division. If the Germans retained control over the bridges, they could be used by their armoured divisions to attack the landing beaches of Normandy. Failure to capture the bridges intact, or to prevent their demolition by the Germans, would leave the British 6th Airborne Division cut off from the rest of the Allied armies with their backs to the two waterways. The mission was vital to the success of Operation Tonga, the overall British airborne landings in Normandy. Once captured, the bridges had to be held against any counter-attack, until the assault force was relieved by commandos and other infantry advancing from the landing beach. Intelligence reports said both bridges were heavily defended by the Germans and wired for demolition. The objective was to capture intact two road bridges in Normandy across the River Orne and the Caen canal, providing the only exit eastwards for British forces from their landing on Sword Beach. The capture of the Caen canal and Orne river bridges (wrongly known as Operation Deadstick (which in fact was a specialized glider exercise), and in official documents as Operation Coup de Main) was an operation by airborne forces of the British Army that took place in the early hours of 6 June 1944 as part of the Normandy landings of the Second World War.
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