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Operation Mallard begins with 256 gliders carrying additional troops and equipment for the 6th Airborne Division, take off. The Royal Air Force provides escort with fifteen squadrons of fighter aircraft. Crossing the English Channel without opposition, the gliders reach Normandy by 21:00. Since it is still daylight, the navigation difficulties experienced in earlier operations are avoided. As the gliders approach their designated landing zones, German anti-aircraft fire greets them from defensive positions below.
Riflemen from the 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, part of the 6th Airlanding Brigade, depart from Landing Zone N in a jeep towing a trailer. The gliders are directed towards two landing zones: Landing Zone W, east of Saint-Aubin-d’Arquenay, and Landing Zone N, north of Ranville. The remaining soldiers of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and A Company, 12th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, land at Landing Zone W. Due to the limited availability of aircraft, even two lifts are insufficient for transporting the entire Devonshire Battalion, leaving the rest to arrive by sea on June 7th, 1944. The 6th Airlanding Brigade Headquarters, the 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, and the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment land at Landing Zone N, the latter equipped with Tetrarch light tanks, the first instance of tanks being delivered into battle by air. Observing the arriving gliders, Major-General Richard Nelson Gale later recalls the relief felt upon the arrival of these reinforcements.
German forces respond to the second airborne operation with mortar fire and small arms, although casualties among the incoming Allied troops remain minimal. Generalmajor Feuchtinger, observing the gliders’ landings, fears that his supply routes will soon be compromised and orders his units, already positioned at the coast, to withdraw north of Caen. The arrival of these glider-borne reinforcements unintentionally halts the only German armoured offensive attempted on D-Day.
Departing from Landing Zone N, the 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, advances south to seize the villages of Longueval and Sainte-Honorine-de-Chardronnette. Shortly thereafter, the 211th Battery of the 53rd (Worcester Yeomanry) Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery, equipped with eight 75-millimetre Pack Howitzers, begins engaging German positions within half an hour of touching down. Meanwhile, from Landing Zone W, the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry crosses the Caen Canal and River Orne bridges, which their own D Company had captured 21 hours previously. They then head towards Hérouvillette and Escoville. By midnight, the 6th Airborne Division becomes the only Allied formation to have accomplished all its D-Day objectives.
The arrival of the 6th Airlanding Brigade significantly bolsters the defensive positions of the 6th Airborne Division, whose parachute battalions had been significantly weakened by scattered drops. By 11:00 on June 7th, 1944, the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, occupies Escoville, approximately 4.8 kilometres south of Ranville. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, occupies Longueval, situated about 4 kilometres southwest of Bas de Ranville, without opposition. Ordered to advance an additional 1.6 kilometres towards Sainte-Honorine, the battalion is caught in open ground by German artillery and mistakenly shelled by the light cruiser H.M.S. Arethusa. Unable to proceed further, they retain control of Longueval. In the evening, the 12th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, arrives to reinforce the defences at Bas de Ranville.
