How the Mail on Sunday saved the paratroopers' 80th anniversary

As they filed to their giant Airbus A400M transport planes, ready to be flown to Normandy, 250 British paratroopers were walking in the footsteps of history – thanks to The Mail on Sunday. 

Wednesday's mass parachute drop to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day was saved after this newspaper alerted Defence Secretary Grant Shapps to the fact that only one plane was available, rather than the four required. 

Three more were found – paving the way for the poignant salute to the drop behind enemy lines that marked the start of the invasion of Nazi-occupied France. 

The MoS travelled with the paras from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, in the lead A400M. 

Troops included Lance Corporal Addy Carter, 22, of the Royal Army Medical Corps – the first female soldier to pass the tough All Arms Pre Parachute Selection that proves personnel have the abilities needed for the Airborne Forces. 

As she waited to be 'dispatched' into fields near Sannerville, where the 8th Battalion Parachute Regiment landed on June 6, 1944, Carter said it was an 'honour' to be 'part of history'. 

But unlike their heroic predecessors, jumpers had to show their passports – at an impromptu border control post in a field. Brigadier Mark Berry, Commander of 16 Air Assault BCT, said: 'It is important we keep alive the memory of what was achieved on D-Day. 

Our predecessors jumped at night into enemy territory, using considerably less sophisticated equipment than we have now. It requires courage to jump out of an aircraft, but to do it those circumstances is hard to comprehend.'