1939−1942 (third from right), CO of the
1st Parachute Battalion, during an inspection of Down's battalion at
RAF Ringway, 1941. By December 1940 Gale, who had not seen service with the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and Belgium, had been promoted to the acting rank of
lieutenant-colonel and, wishing for a field command, was given command of the 2/5th Battalion,
Leicestershire Regiment, a second-line
Territorial Army (TA) unit that was part of Brigadier
Gerard Bucknall's
138th Infantry Brigade, itself part of the
46th Infantry Division, then commanded by Major-General
Charles Hudson, which had fought with the BEF. Gale had just under a year to organize and train the division before it was due to participate in
Operation Tonga, codename for the British airborne landings in Normandy, in June 1944. The plan for the
Allied invasion of Normandy was for five Allied divisions (two US, two British and one Canadian) to land on designated beaches between
Varreville in the west, on the
Cotentin Peninsula, and
Ouistreham, by the mouth of the
river Orne, in the east. Airborne troops were to secure each flank of the
beachhead, with the US
82nd and
101st Airborne Divisions landing on the western flank, and the British 6th Airborne Division, under Gale, on the eastern flank. The 6th Airborne Division was to capture a number of bridges over the river Orne and the
Caen Canal and hold the nearby surrounding areas, to destroy the bridges over the
river Dives, and, finally, to destroy the
Merville Gun Battery by the coast. Shortly after midnight on 6 June 1944, known otherwise as
D-Day, men of Major
John Howard's 'D' Company of the 2nd Battalion,
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (2 OBLI), a
glider infantry unit forming part of the 6th Airlanding Brigade, landed in
glider and
captured the Caen canal and Orne river bridges (now known as
Pegasus Bridge and
Horsa Bridge) via
coup de main. It was achieved with light casualties. The two parachute brigades, the 3rd and 5th, landed soon after and landed, for the most part, where intended, although numbers of paratroopers dropped in the flooded countryside. The Merville Gun Battery also fell, although with heavy losses to Lieutenant-Colonel
Jock Pearson's
8th Parachute Battalion. At dawn, Gale himself landed in Normandy by a glider piloted by
Billy Griffith. By midday on D-Day elements of Brigadier
Lord Lovat's
1st Special Service Brigade had landed at
Sword Beach, with the
British 3rd Infantry Division following, and began to relieve the airborne troops at the bridges. The arrival of the rest of the 6th Airlanding Brigade in the evening, in
Operation Mallard, completed the 6th Airborne Division's concentration in Normandy. In July, after
Victory in Europe Day (VE-Day), Gale, with the corps HQ, was sent to India, where the
Japanese were still fighting. In India Gale took elements of his old 6th Airborne Division, still led by Bols, under command, along with the
44th Indian Airborne Division, and planning began for airborne operations in the
Far East, in particular the recapturing of
Bangkok, although the
surrender of Japan cancelled these plans and, after almost six years, the war finally came to an end. ==Later life==