Nine C-47s from the 53rd Transport Command Squadron had managed to misdrop the entire Headquarters Company of the Third Battalion along with 55 equipment bundles containing machine guns, mortars, ammunition, rations, maps, demolitions equipment, and medical supplies. Sometime after 2:38 AM on June 6, Captain Leroy Brummitt, first man of his stick of paratroopers, found himself lost and alone.

He knows every inch of the road.

The distance was three and threequarter miles, and the conditions briefly—catchweight over 13 stone, all horses to be the property of, and ridden by, an M.P., and no horse to have previously won a steeplechase.

During the day conditions worsened quickly—for example, a 2-6-0 on the Uckfield line suddenly encountered flood water high enough to enter its ashpan and extinguish its fire—until lock gates up-river at Barcombe gave way and a tidal wave rolled down the valley meeting head-on a spring tide rolling up from the coast.