A piece of local history I have only just discovered relating to D Day

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Parachutes on D-Day

The USAAF used Exeter alongside the RAF, with two squadrons of P-38s in October 1942 for operations over France. In April 1944, the RAF units were withdrawn and the airfield taken over by the US 9th Air Force as Station 463.

On the 18th April the 440th Troop Carrier Group flying seventy C-47As and seventy CG-4 gliders, with other types, arrived in preparation for D-Day. The group comprising the 95th, 96th, 97th and 98th Squadrons had so many aircraft that many had to be parked on the grass as there was insufficient hard standing. The Third Battalion 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment Screaming Eagles arrived in Exeter from Hungerford by train on 27th May and briefing for Operation Neptune, as D-day was coded commenced on 29th May. The battalion was on standby to depart on the 4th June but bad weather in the Channel postponed the operation until the 6th June. On 5th June the US Army Signal Corp photographed troops of the Battalion preparing to embark, each man loaded down with kit that weighed as much as himself. At 22.30 the battalionenplaned and the first aircraft took off at 23.20.

After take off, the four squadrons, totalling 45 aircraft, and codenamed Serial 10 carrying 723 men and 2 platoons from C/326th Airborne Engineers also of the 101st Airborne headed for the assembly area at Portland, in poor weather, before joining aircraft from other southern airfields for the journey across the Channel. The unit lost three C-47s dropping the paratroopers over Carentan in the early morning of the 6th June. On the next day they continued flying parapacks, fuel and ammunition to the landing area of Normandy, losing two more aircraft, for which they received the Distinguished Unit Commendation. They lost a third aircraft that day, when it was hit by a stray bomb from a higher flying P47 Thunderbolt.

The unit moved to Rheims in France in September and the RAF returned to Exeter, but in smaller numbers than formerly. As the Allies fought their way across France and Belgium to the German border, the need for defensive units lessoned and the airport transferred to 23 Group of Training Command in January 1945. No 3 Glider Training School relocated to Exeter where glider-tugs and gliders also used Culmhead airfield as a landing ground.