page_title: 5th Parachute Brigade (United Kingdom)
section_title: Formation
hierarchical_section_title: 5th Parachute Brigade (United Kingdom) / Formation
caption_attribution_description: English: Paratroopers adjust their parachute harnesses during a large-scale airborne forces exercise, 22 April 1944.
context_page_description: The 5th Parachute Brigade was an airborne forces formation of brigade strength, raised by the British Army during the Second World War. Created during 1943, the brigade was assigned to the 6th Airborne Division, serving alongside the 3rd Parachute Brigade and the 6th Airlanding Brigade.
  The brigade first saw action in the British airborne landings on D-Day Operation Tonga, where it was responsible for capturing bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne in Operation Deadstick. The brigade remained in Normandy until September 1944, by which time it had advanced to the mouth of the River Seine. Its next engagement was in reaction to the surprise German offensive in the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge. This was followed by Operation Varsity, the last Allied airborne mission of the war. After this, the brigade advanced across Germany, reaching the Baltic Sea by the end of fighting in the European theatre.
  The brigade was then sent to India as the division's advance party, but the war ended before it could begin operations. Instead the brigade became involved in disarming the Japanese forces in Malaya and Singapore, to restore British sovereignty.
context_section_description: On 23 April 1943 the War Office authorised the formation of a second airborne division, which would be numbered the 6th Airborne Division. Under its command the division would have the existing 3rd Parachute Brigade, along with two airlanding battalions transferred from the 1st Airborne Division to form the nucleus of the new 6th Airlanding Brigade. To fill out the division, a new parachute brigade was raised on 1 July by the redesignation of the 72nd Independent Infantry Brigade. Numbered the 5th Parachute Brigade, it was initially commanded by Brigadier Edwin Flavell, but on 5 July he was given command of the Airborne Forces Depot, and Brigadier Nigel Poett took over the brigade. In 1945, while the brigade was serving in the Far East, the brigade's last commander, Brigadier Kenneth Darling, took over from Poett.
  The parachute battalions in the brigade were the experienced 7th (Light Infantry), which was transferred from the 3rd Parachute Brigade, and two new parachute battalions, the 12th (Yorkshire) Parachute Battalion and the 13th (Lancashire). These were standard line infantry converted to parachute duties, and had to undergo airborne forces selection and training at the Airborne Forces Deport. On formation, each battalion had an establishment of 556 men in three rifle companies; the companies were divided into a small headquarters and three platoons. Each platoon had three Bren machine guns and three 2-inch mortars, one of each per section.  The only heavy weapons in the battalions were a 3 inch mortar platoon and a Vickers machine gun platoon. By 1944 a headquarters or support company was added to the battalion, comprising five platoons: motor transport, signals, mortar, machine-gun and anti-tank. This company had eight 3 inch mortars, four Vickers machine guns, and ten PIAT anti-tank projectors.
  The brigade was supported by the 4th Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery from the Royal Artillery. This battery had three troops, equipped with four Ordnance QF 6 pounders each, and provided the brigade's only anti-tank guns. Later in the war, the battery was increased to five troops, three of them retaining the 6 pounder, while the other two had four Ordnance QF 17 pounders each. While the 6 pounder could fit inside the Horsa glider, the size and weight of the 17 pounder and its Morris C8 tractor unit required the larger Hamilcar glider. The 591st (Antrim) Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers. and the 225th (Parachute) Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps completed the brigade formation.
  'D' Company, commanded by Major John Howard, from the 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (OBLI), of 6th Airlanding Brigade, also served with the brigade for a one off mission in Normandy. At the end of the war, while serving in the Far East, the pathfinders of the 22nd Independent Parachute Company, and the Parachute Platoon from the Light Composite Company, Royal Army Service Corps, were attached to the brigade.
caption: Parachute troops during Exercise Mush, April 1944
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