Image from thePegasusbridgemovie.com

Pegasus Bridge is an upcoming British war film based on Operation Deadstick, the mission to capture the Bénouville Bridge across the Caen Canal on 6 June 1944 as part of the Normandy landings of World War II. It is directed by Lance Nielsen and due for release in June 2017.

The Longest Day, was a 1962 epic war film based on the book of the same name which included the mission to secure Pegasus Bridge.

Pegasus Bridge is a bascule bridge (a type of movable bridge), that was built in 1934, that crossed the Caen Canal, between Caen and Ouistreham, in Normandy, France.

The successful taking of the bridges played an important role in limiting the effectiveness of a German counter-attack in the days and weeks following the Normandy invasion.

In 1944 it was renamed Pegasus Bridge in honor of the operation. The name is derived from the shoulder emblem worn by the British airborne forces, which is the flying horse Pegasus.

Via IMDB.com: In the early hours of the 6th of June 1944 Allied Airborne Forces launched one of most daring assaults in history. 181 men in 6 gliders landed at night to capture two bridges vital to the success of the D-Day landings, one of these would become known as Pegasus Bridge.

The men who captured and held these objectives were led by two young charismatic and very different leaders. Major John Howard led the men of the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry who managed to land their gliders a stone’s throw from the bridge and Colonel Geoffrey Pine-Coffin led the men of the 7th Parachute Battalion who occupied the surrounding ground and held off the German counter attacks.

Pegasus Bridge tells the story of these leaders and the young men who would follow them into battle. This film is a grand tale of real wartime heroism-the story follows an ensemble cast of key characters from their initial briefing on the operation in the UK and training through to the actual assault on the bridges, their capture and the desperate defence that followed in the immediate twenty-four hours.

It is told not only from the British perspective but also through the eyes of the first French family to be liberated, the sweethearts left behind and several key German characters who were responsible for the defence of the area. As the British paratroopers and glider infantrymen struggle to hold off the ever increasing number of German forces will they will be relieved from the sea in time?

• Jason Flemyng as Brigadier Nigel Poett
• Phil Davis as Major General Bernard Montgomery
• Danny Webb as General Richard Gale
• Rupert Penry-Jones as Colonel Richard Geoffrey Pine-Coffin
• Marc Zammit as Lieutenant Danny Thomas
• Jake Francis as Captain Richard Todd
• Mike Beckingham as Corporal Bill ‘Jack’ Bailey
• Scott Peden as Captain Jock Neilson
• Neal Ward as Private Stan Watson

Please also check out these found at PegasusBridgethemovie.com associated links:

Batterie De Merville
Summer of ’44 Living History Group
Panzer21
Airborne Assault Para Data
Airborne Museum Hartenstein
Grand Bunker Museum
Spitfire Pilots
Perfection in Miniature
The Parachute Regiment
Oxford Branch of the Royal Green Jackets Association
Grossdeutschland Aufklärungsgruppe
Generalstab
Axis-Allied

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