Half of the HQ-2/517 and D/517 are dropped one kilometer and a half from La Motte at about 4:31. Battalion XO' Tom Cross broke a leg in the landing. Nevertheless, he gathers what he can find from his battalion and finds Colonel Seitz.
At dawn the half of the battalion is on its way to its objectives and encounters slight German opposition to sentries and patrols. At noon, the battalion achieved its objectives. The troops of this serial made the best landing of all the 517th PIR with about a third of the drops concentrated to 1,5 km to the south east of La Motte. Captain Dave Armstrong, commander of the D Company, seriously injured his posterior by landing on a pine. It is 1st Lt. Loren James who will command the company until the end of the war.
Col. Graves landed on the hill north-east of Le Muy. At daybreak he found Captain John McKinley, F Company's commander with several of his men, with his column advancing west along the Nartuby river towards La Motte, which was his objective, under the occasional fire of snipers. A German group is near a camouflaged barracks, eight them are captured after short shootings. In another skirmish near Le Muy, 1st Lt. George Giuchici (F Co.) was wounded by a german hand grenade. A patrol is sent north to contact the British paratroopers, saying that La Motte is already occupied by the Americans and the British. Fox Company joined his battalion, and Colonel Graves reached the Regimental CP in the early afternoon, finding him already at work.
Many of the 517th Regimental Headquarters landed in the German fortified area on the hill north-east of Le Muy. These include 1st Lt. Alex Tait, 1/Sgt. Arnold, and Capt. Albin T. Dearing (RHQ S-2), Richard A. Bigler (517th Communication Officer) and Robert B. Pearce (RHQ S-1).
Tait with Sgt. Arnold and 7 other men, turning around Le Muy, went to the northeast quarter of Le Muy and fired shots and then retreated for a short distance. In the middle of the morning the British paratroopers arrive and Tait directs his group away in direction of La Motte.
Capt. Pearce broke his leg and suffered serious internal injuries to the landing. T/4s Theodore J. Van Cleave and Burdin landed nearby.
When a patrol of 3 Germans arrive to check the area, Van Cleave, still trying to get out of his harness, kills one of the men with his knife and the other two with a grenade. The two men want to stay, refusing to leave Pearce. When the British attack on Le Muy begins, they evacuate Bob Pearce to CP.
Dearing and Bigler land in the fortified zone, unknowingly, very close to Tait, Pearce and the others. They gather 18 men from 517th and 460th, Dearing and Bingler then head west. At dawn they meet a German motorcycle patrol and kill three enemies. Near Le Muy, they are confronted with a great German force where Dearing is finally captured and then taken to Le Muy.
Captain Bigler retired further and arrived at the Regimental HQ the next morning with three cripples.
Several men also landed inside of Le Muy. Lieutenant John "Boom Boom" Alicki and part of his Demolition Platoon attached to 2/517 landed a few hundred meters south of the Muy. He sees most of the men in his stick who land on a German bivouac. A violent shooting then bursts and about thirty Germans encircle the small troop and take prisoners 8 men including the Sgt. William Brown who are taken to Le Muy. In this struggle, Pvt. Henry A. Ciner of the Pathfinder Team is killed. The men are released the next day after the capture of Le Muy.
Lt. 1st Lt. Thomas F. Patin, XO of the Demo Platoon and part of his Demolition Section attached to the 2nd Battalion landed about 1 kilometer south of La Motte. He gathers his section and moves to a bridge northeast of La Motte and prepares it for its demolition. Then, part of its section establishes a roadblock on the road between Le Muy and Les Arcs near the railway bridge. No enemy is encountered.
The energetic Forrest Paxton (RHQ S-3) having landed two kilometers south of Le Muy established the HQ of the Regiment at Sainte Roseline with a hundred parachutists.
When Col. Graves arrives at 1 pm, Paxton orders to remove the anti-air obstacles of Drop Zone A.
The Château de Valbourgès is located in the town of La Motte between Le Mitan and Sainte Roseline. It is the property of Mrs. Merry and her children, as well as one of her sons-in-law, Mr. Stevens of English nationality. That night, there are several cousins and cousins of the family who came on holiday. They are 16 in total to reside in the castle. They are awake around 3 am and remarks parachutists with American flags, they do not pay attention until the Lt. Col. George R. "Ike" Walton, second in command of the 517th PRCT knocks on their doorstep. He installed in the cellar his command post, a relief station and asked the family, for more safety, to take refuge there. The first wounded are installed in the dining room and the daughters of the family put paratroopers at ease by helping them to remove their equipment and install them comfortably. Walton, wounded his leg on landing and it is on a chaise longue that he continues to direct his troops.
Now, they have to prepare for the parachuting of the 551st PIB and the landing of the gliders. The men are instructed to clean the anti-air trap drop zone, but the weather is very limited. They manage to cut the wires attached to the piles and find that the mines are not connected together. The 460th always ready, surveyed a landing area studied for the 602nd GFAB, and marked their position for the guns.
Some of the 517th's pathfinders, who had escaped from Le Muy, had made their way to the landing zone. They set up their equipment, establish a fluorescent 'T' panels, and stand ready when the next lift will point the tip of his nose.