Decentralization

As the paratroopers of Col. James Gavin’s 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment boarded their C-47 Skytrain aircraft on the night of July 9, 1943, war was no longer an abstract affair. They were spearheading the Allied effort to invade the island of Sicily, the vanguard for Operation Husky.

Eight months earlier, a smaller airborne operation in North Africa as part of Operation Torch had offered lessons on the likelihood of success. Charged with seizing two Vichy French–controlled airfields at Tafaroui and La Senia south of Oran, Algeria, the airborne mission—dubbed Operation Villain—was ineffective. The fifteen-hundred-mile flight from England through intermittent stormy weather had scattered the aircraft, and only six out of the thirty-nine aircraft carrying Lt. Col. Edson D. Raff’s 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion dropped their parachutists on the objective. Most landed thirty-five miles away from their drop zone. By the time Raff’s men arrived at Tafaroui, both airfields were in friendly hands, secured by 1st Armored Division tanks. The 509th PIB executed two more parachute assaults in North Africa. On November 15, the battalion seized the Algerian airfield of Youks-les-Bains near the Tunisian border before advancing Germans could use it. Raff’s battalion was welcomed with open arms by the French 3rd Zouaves, who presented their distinct badge as a token of partnership. On Christmas Eve 1942, a thirty-man commando-style raid on the bridge at El Djiem failed to locate their objective, and only eight men made it back alive.²

After seizing Youks, Raff proceeded to Tebessa with an ad hoc force that included 509th paratroopers, Zouaves, a battalion from the US 26th Infantry Regiment, a company of Algerian Tirailleurs, a British antimine engineer detachment, and a company of tank destroyers. This motley crew next moved to Gafsa and destroyed seventy thousand gallons of fuel before the Wehrmacht could seize it. Known colloquially as “Raff’s Army” or “Raff’s Tunisian Task Force,” the paratroop leader’s multinational combined-arms force demonstrated the ability of airborne leaders to operate in combined operations far from support with bold, aggressive action. Maj. William Yarborough, the Fifth Army airborne adviser accompanying Raff, described the officer as a “human dynamo” and wrote that “operating without support or without certain re-supply, bothered him none at all.” After the raid at Gafsa, Raff’s force attacked Faid Pass, a key mountain crossing in southern Tunisia. Raff coordinated a combined-arms air and ground assault on the German-held pass. By the evening of their fourth day, sustained French artillery fire and timely reinforcements finally forced a German surrender. While Raff’s actions leading an ad hoc force demonstrate the mindset that paratroopers brought with them into combat, the wide dispersal of aircraft and paratroopers on the initial jump was a harbinger of things to come.³

Operation Husky called for the untested 82nd Airborne Division to parachute into Sicily across successive nights. Because of a shortage of transport aircraft, the initial airborne phase of the operation would include only one regiment, fighting as a reinforced combat team. The Allied plan called for the US Seventh Army to land the 3rd, 1st, and 45th Infantry Divisions by sea along the southern coast of Sicily. At the same time, the 505th Regimental Combat Team jumped near Gela to secure high ground in front of the 1st Division’s beaches and disrupt enemy reserves. Securing the high ground and road network between the beaches and enemy reinforcements meant capturing “Objective Y,” a critical road juncture where the road from Niscemi met the road that ran between Gela and Vittoria. Gavin’s 505th was also to assist in securing the landing field at Ponte Olivo for the arrival of Col. Rueben Tucker’s 504th PIR and the buildup of Allied combat power, before becoming the II Corps’ reserve. The 52nd Troop Carrier Wing was to fly the 3,405 paratroopers on 266 C-47s in strict nine-ship V formations to ensure accurate delivery of troops closely enough to assemble into fighting units before the moon went down. The second lift, consisting of the 504th PIR, was prepared to reinforce on order. Maj. Gen. Ridgway and his division staff were to wade ashore on D-Day.⁴

Ridgway selected Col. Gavin’s 505th because “[he] had done a prodigious job preparing for that attack, and we were ready right down to the last round of ammunition.” The 505th Regimental Combat Team consisted of its three battalions plus the 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry; the 456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion; Company B of the 307th Airborne Engineers; and requisite support assets. Of the twelve infantry companies that dropped, only one landed near its objective— Company I of the 505th PIR. During the drop, a lack of training in nighttime formation flying and thirty-five-knot winds resulted in 88 percent of the paratroopers jumping off-target, landing across a sixty-five-mile stretch from Noto to Licata. Most of Gavin’s forces landed between the 45th Infantry Division and the German Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring, which was headquartered at Caltagirone. The 505th PIR spent most of their first day attempting to assemble while attacking and disrupting German and Italian forces wherever they found them. Paratroopers operating in small units destroyed pillboxes, strongpoints, and roadblocks and took hundreds of prisoners.⁵

Initially slated to drop on the night of D-Day, July 10, Col. Tucker’s 504 PIR was delayed one night owing to the “obscure situation” of Gavin’s forces on the island. When Tucker’s men arrived on the night of July 11, the transports carrying them flew over Allied naval forces mere minutes after a Luftwaffe bombing strike. American antiaircraft gunners opened fire, likely believing the Germans had sent another wave of bombers. Twenty-three of the 144 C-47s were destroyed, and thirty-seven others damaged. Most of the troopers jumped, but assistant division commander Brig. Gen. Charles Keerans did not make it out of his plane, becoming the first airborne general officer killed in World War II, alongside eighty-one paratroopers from the 504th.⁶

The paratroopers expected scattered drops, understood the overall mission, and were eager to find and destroy the enemy upon arrival. By noon on D-Day, 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR commander Mark Alexander had assembled a force of 536 men, including 21 artillerymen and one 75mm howitzer. His battalion was mostly dropped together, albeit far from its planned drop zone. He did not, however, expect enemy armor. “Through my field glasses I could see German tanks up the road to the north,” Alexander later wrote. “We had been told there weren’t any German tanks in Sicily.” While Allied intelligence had pinpointed the location of the Hermann Göring Division ahead of the operation, to protect the secret code-breaking capability known as ULTRA this information was withheld from the lightly armed paratroopers. Even Gavin had no idea of the strength of the enemy they might face. The men of the 82nd reacted and improvised to defend against an unexpected armored force, proving the efficacy of their training and flexibility.⁷

Lt. Col. Charles Billingslea, attached as an observer, noted in his after action report to the army chief of staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, that “wherever they were dropped, even thirty miles from the D.Z.s, those parachutists went ahead and accomplished valuable missions.” And they were doing so for four days—the 82nd was not fully assembled until July 14. The experience in Sicily reinforced to the division’s leaders that airborne operations included dispersal and that their efforts to encourage decentralized command and control paid off. The presence of so many pockets of parachutists roaming the Sicilian countryside sowed mass confusion among German and Italian forces. Enemy commanders surmised that multiple divisions were landing in their midst rather than a single reinforced regiment.⁸

Eisenhower’s primary airborne adviser, the British general F. A. M. “Boy” Browning, wrote in his July 24 report that the parachutists had caused “widespread alarm, rumors and confusion among the enemy troops,” while gauging that the American parachutists speeded up “the landing and advance inland by about 48-hours.” Browning had a vested interest in promoting airborne operations yet was often viewed skeptically by Ridgway and Gavin as a rival more interested in supporting British operations than Allied ones. In the same report, Lt. Gen. George Patton remarked that the “swift and successful landings followed by a rapid advance inland would not have been achieved at such a light cost or at such a speed without the action of his airborne division.” Little groups of paratroopers strewn about the island no doubt influenced the course of battle, although by how much remains in dispute. In any case, their ability to accomplish their objectives while assisting others, and without assembling large forces, proved remarkable.⁹

To Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, the drop seemed a disaster. Wide dispersal, compounded with the offshore fratricide, ensured that Ridgway did not have a cohesive force for four days—hardly what planners had in mind. Eisenhower later remarked that although casualties from the airborne portion of Husky were fewer than feared, the problems in Sicily still caused him to doubt the validity of the airborne division as a concept. Eisenhower recommended that airborne units be employed as no larger than regimental combat teams and not as divisions. Widespread dispersal was uncomfortable for commanders of any unit, even if it was something for which airborne units prepared. For regimental and division commanders, the promise lay in the potential for increased effectiveness through better training with troop carrier squadrons—that is, the delivery aircraft. If they could land more units closer together, then the possibilities were endless. Regardless of the concerns of senior commanders, the potential of larger airborne units delivered closer together remained promising enough to fuel further developments throughout the war.¹⁰

The ultimate lesson from Sicily for airborne officers was that training emphasizing individual and small-unit decentralization indeed created effective groups that could accomplish their mission with minimal guidance. The 82nd learned what could and could not be done by parachute troops; rather than spend hours trying to locate command echelons, American parachutists fought the enemy wherever they landed. As Gavin related in his memoir, the fledging paratroopers “learned to move on our objectives immediately on landing; we observed that the first minutes … when the paratroopers have the initiative are important to both their survival and the capturing of their objective.” Edwin Sayre, commander of Company A of the 505th Parachute Infantry, assessed that the operation was a success because “the major portion of the mission was accomplished” despite the scattered drop. To these paratroopers, Operation Husky proved the efficacy of well-trained small units to sow confusion behind enemy lines, even while dispersed and operating independently.¹¹

Concerns raised by Husky, however, spurred development, especially relating to troop transports’ navigation, training, and employment. After more testing and training, the War Department, on October 9, 1943, published Training Circular No. 113 (TC 113), Employment and Training of Airborne and Troop Carrier Forces. The purpose of the circular was “to provide, in a single reference, information based upon experience gained in recent combat operations concerning the employment of airborne and troop carrier forces.” TC 113 highlighted, among other things, the need for “realistic and thorough joint training” and that air routes must be carefully selected and coordinated to avoid friendly naval convoys. The “Knollwood maneuvers” exercise in the winter of 1943 pitted the 11th and 13th Airborne Divisions against each other across four North Carolina counties. The follow-on “Swing Board,” led by the 11th Airborne Division commander Joseph M. Swing, studied Operation Husky and the results of the Knollwood exercise and determined that poor operational planning, poor troop carrier training, and piecemeal employment of parachute troops were the primary reasons for the issues in Sicily. The training exercise and Swing’s report convinced Army Ground Forces commander Gen. Lesley J. McNair of the efficacy of the airborne divisional concept.¹²

Just two months after the Allied landing in Sicily, the airborne experiment had its next combat test on the Italian mainland. When the Salerno beachhead just south of Naples was in danger of failing in the face of a concentrated German counterattack, the US Fifth Army commander, Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, sent a personal note to Ridgway asking for support (an event explored later in detail). In that message, he also requested that a battalion drop twenty miles inland at the mountain town of Avellino to disrupt German communications and reinforcements. Avellino was a crossroads that, if seized, could significantly affect the Germans’ ability to move armor to push the Allies into the sea. Clark requested that this drop, dubbed Operation Giant III, receive priority. Ridgway initially opposed the mission because of the distance the battalion would land from friendly forces, but he reluctantly agreed when convinced that the mission was vital to protecting the British sector of the beachhead. On the night of September 14, the 509th PIB, now commanded by Lt. Col. Doyle Yardley, parachuted into the area from forty C-47s. Navigational errors, combined with mountainous terrain, forced the transports to drop from an altitude of two thousand feet rather than the customary five to eight hundred feet, which badly dispersed the men of the Geronimo battalion over a hundred square miles. Those few who did make it to Avellino could not accomplish their mission. Yardley was wounded, captured, and spent the rest of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp.¹³

Still, 510 of the 640 troopers returned to friendly lines over two months. Working in groups of five to twenty men, the paratroopers fell back on their training, improvised, attempted to avoid detection, and mounted small raids on supply trains, truck convoys, and outposts. Like in Sicily, the overall mission was unmet, but the paratroopers’ presence caused confusion and chaos for the Germans. The operation reinforced some principles of airborne operations, primarily that even though little groups of paratroopers can have an outsize effect on the enemy, dropping a highly trained force outside reasonable support distance could yield disastrous results. A decentralized command structure is useful only for so long before units need support, especially massed firepower from ground units.¹⁴

The Allied airborne assault into Normandy on June 6, 1944, represented another evolution in the decentralized nature of airborne operations. It was to be the largest vertical envelopment yet attempted, with three airborne divisions—two American and one British— dropping simultaneously. In total, 13,056 paratroopers aboard 1,086 airplanes jumped on the night of June 5–6, 1944. The American portion of the drop occurred in two assault lifts in close succession: Mission Albany (101st Airborne Division) and Mission Boston (82nd Airborne Division). The 82nd and the 101st fought in ad hoc units as enemy fire and clouds scattered their transports, preventing units from consolidating, as expected. Once again, dispersal was mitigated by emphasizing decentralization. In Sicily, paratroopers had been “instructed to attack the enemy, regardless of the size of the opposition, wherever they met him”; in Normandy, they were instructed to move at night and avoid large enemy groups. Individuals assembled with men from different companies, battalions, regiments, and even divisions; deliberate assembly was all but impossible. As the 505th Parachute Infantry was the only regiment with combat experience that jumped in Normandy, paratroopers from that regiment often took charge of small ad hoc groups.¹⁵

The missions for each division were basic airborne tasks designed to facilitate the seaborne landings. The 82nd was directed to seize and hold river crossings at La Fière and Chef-du-Pont, clear enemy forces along the Merderet River, capture Sainte-Mère-Église, destroy crossings over the Douve River at Beuzeville-la-Bastille and Étienville, and prevent the movement of any enemy reserves into the beachhead area. The 101st Airborne Division mission called for their 6,600 men to seize the exits of four causeways that led inland, to assist the 4th Infantry Division’s landing at Utah Beach and likewise secure the VII Corps’ southern flank along the Douve River. The causeways were four elevated roads that constituted the only paths off the beach after the Germans prepared their defenses on the Cotentin peninsula.¹⁶

The 101st Airborne Division’s drop pattern was enormous—fifteen-by-twenty-five miles—yet more than 70 percent of the division landed within an eight-mile square. As the seaborne forces were landing, the division only had 1,100 men organized but rapidly took its objectives. By midnight at the close of D-Day, this number had increased to 2,500. Most fought in small groups under whatever leaders were present while moving on various division objectives. One platoon leader in the 506th PIR remembered that he never had more than half his platoon at any given time. Over 60 percent of the division’s equipment was unaccounted for, and division commander Maj. Gen. Maxwell Taylor worried that “the division could not have maintained itself much over 24 hours without support.” Included in that figure of missing equipment were eleven of twelve airdropped howitzers from the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. Despite the scattered landings, the division took its objectives, including Varreville and Pouppeville, and held the critical causeways leading from Utah Beach to allow the 4th Infantry Division to move inland. By shortly after noon on D-Day, elements of the 3rd Battalion, 501st PIR, established the first link-up between air and seaborne forces.¹⁷

The 82nd Airborne Division had similar problems with its drop. Scattered over a four-square-mile area, the division could account for only 30 percent of its personnel by the end of the day on June 6. By June 8, the division had only 2,100 effectives. However, the division accomplished its mission by June 10 (D+4). By the end of the campaign, the 82nd Airborne Division had suffered 5,363 casualties: 778 killed, 3,373 wounded, and 1,212 missing—all but nine missing from the initial landings. This was from 11,657 men who took part, or a 46 percent casualty rate for the entire division and 54 percent among infantry units. Of the three regiments that landed, the experienced 505th PIR was given the most challenging task and assembled quickly. By 3 p.m. on D-Day, the 505th had more than 1,100 men assembled of the more than 2,000 who jumped, and by the evening had linked up with Company A of the 8th Infantry Regiment from the 4th Infantry Division landing at Utah Beach. The 507th PIR, on the other hand, landed mostly west of the Merderet, and not one single stick (planeload of paratroopers) landed on the drop zone. They were unable to operate as a regiment until June 9. The 508th PIR experienced similar problems, and for the first two days, only one of its three battalions established contact with regimental headquarters.¹⁸

The scattered drop in Normandy reinforced airborne leaders’ belief in the ability of well-trained and well-led decentralized small groups to accomplish unit objectives. Often, the groups securing planned objectives were roughly one-fifth the size of the element planned. After four days, the 82nd finally held both sides of La Fière bridge—vital for linking up with isolated pockets of paratroopers west of the Merderet River. The 101st had succeeded in securing not only the causeways leading to Utah Beach but also the lock system at La Barquette, preventing enemy reinforcements from threatening the seaborne forces on Utah Beach. While ultimately successful, the airborne forces had not met their objectives on time, as all missions were supposed to be accomplished by dawn on D-Day. Still, Eisenhower seemed pleased and wrote to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on D+4 that “the landings on the Cotentin Peninsula apparently went about as well as could be expected with the 101st Airborne Division carrying out its missions in good style. Information on the 82nd Airborne is meager, but General Bradley informed me that the VII Corps had made contact with it.” While subject to the expected problems with dispersion, airborne units relied on their training, and their relative success despite the scattered drops helped garner fame for themselves and their commanders.¹⁹

Casualties among the paratroopers were high, especially among the infantry regiments, but nowhere near the estimate of Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the British commander in chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, who had predicted a staggering 75 percent casualty rate. In the 82nd, total casualties from thirty-three days in combat were 46 percent killed, wounded, or missing—5,245 men. The three parachute infantry regiments suffered 55 percent dead or wounded, and the 325th Glider Infantry suffered a staggering 58 percent casualty rate. Tactical leaders suffered heavily as well; of the twelve commanders who led 82nd Airborne battalions on D-Day, only one emerged unscathed—two killed and four wounded, the rest injured or relieved. The 101st suffered 4,670 total casualties, or 39 percent of the division, including its assistant division commander, Brig. Gen. Don Pratt, in the glider assault on D-Day. The “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st also lost two regimental and five battalion commanders during the fighting in Normandy.²⁰

The disorganized nature of the drop was not, according to the postwar Weapon Systems Evaluation Group, “an unmitigated evil, and in fact, contributed to a degree to the general success of the invasion.” With so many small teams of paratroopers roaming the Normandy countryside, German defenders had no significant, worthwhile targets to attack—many German prisoners reported hopelessness when defending against such an airborne attack, as vertical envelopment presents multiple dilemmas to enemy forces. The chief of staff of the German 7th Army noted the effect of airborne troops on preventing German troops from reaching the beachhead; the drop had in fact succeeded in screening enemy forces in front of the beaches. Echoing official and prisoner reports in his report for the Advanced Infantry Officer course in 1949, 506th staff officer Salve Matheson attributed mission success to unit dispersion and pondered whether the drop would have been as successful if executed as planned.²¹

The drop into Normandy also reinforced many lessons regarding assembly and the principle of mass. Rather than paratroopers fighting alone or in small groups, complete planeloads of men should assemble their equipment as promptly as possible to ensure a maximum mass of manpower and firepower. Yet all paratroopers were to expect dispersion and realize that no unit would ever assemble all its men, so leaders must be prepared to move on objectives with less than the expected number of personnel. This idea was juxtaposed with the need for individuals and small units to take prompt, decisive action as soon as possible to maintain the initiative. After Sicily, though, leaders learned to exercise caution when assembling and, rather than attacking the enemy immediately, to avoid large enemy groups until enough men were assembled.²²

The efficacy of dispersed airborne operations—small units operating behind enemy lines with minimal support—was proven in Sicily and Normandy, thanks to an emphasis on decentralized leadership to mitigate the effects of dispersion. Factors outside the control of the airborne troops, such as fog, air defenses, and nighttime navigation errors, contributed to widespread dispersion during these operations. Owing to poor navigational capability and technology, night drops hampered airborne units’ ability to assemble and link up with ground units. Accordingly, American planners abandoned this tactic in September 1944 in favor of daylight operations. The airborne portion of the invasion of Southern France likewise featured decentralized success amid a much more coherent drop. Sixty percent of First Airborne Task Force paratroopers landed on their drop zones. One group of aircraft jumped early, however, and the paratroopers from those twenty planes captured critical antiaircraft and coastal batteries in the 3rd Infantry Division’s zone at St. Tropez. Operations Market Garden and Varsity, later in the war in the Netherlands and Germany, and smaller operations in the Pacific achieved more accurate drops, thanks to daylight conditions, Allied control of airspace, and concomitant suppression of Axis air defenses.²³ Yet the earlier operations in Sicily and Normandy validated that well-trained small units can sow confusion behind enemy lines. The lessons learned were instrumental in preparing the new airborne units from the United States. But so were lessons in Italy and later at the Battle of the Bulge about the employment of airborne troops as a mobile reserve.

An Expeditionary Mindset

It was two months after the invasion of Sicily and a little less than nine months before D-Day in Normandy when Allied forces stormed the beaches at Salerno, Italy. Beginning at about 3:30 a.m. on September 9, 1943, two corps—the American VI and British X—landed five divisions amid light German defenses, but German reinforcements quickly converged on the beachhead. The Allied forces faced stiffer resistance than in North Africa and Sicily, and Fifth Army commander Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s beachhead was in peril by the 12th. He had already committed his floating reserve, the 45th Infantry Division, and had run out of options. The German 10th Army under Field Marshal Kesselring kept intense pressure on the beleaguered Allied beachhead, and “it looked as if the German attack might drive clean through to the beach,” as Gavin later recalled. The 82nd Airborne Division was sitting in reserve in Sicily at the time; it was available only thanks to the cancelation of an ill-conceived plan to seize four airfields around Rome.²⁴

Fearing he would lose the beachhead, Clark activated his emergency reserve force by sending a personal dispatch to Ridgway on September 13, asking for immediate help. “Since the German counterattacks were becoming steadily stronger,” Clark remembered, “I was only too happy to have the paratroops available.” Gavin received the pilot who brought the note, recalling, “The afternoon about 1330, a tired, begrimed pilot landed at Licata Field in Sicily in a fighter from the Salerno beachhead. He had an urgent message for the division commander and refused to give it to anyone else.” Ridgway had just left Licata for Termini, but the division chief of staff recalled the plane to enable the courier to deliver the message. Clark’s note asked for one regimental combat team to jump onto the beach that night and assemble at the Paestum ruins south of the Sele River.²⁵

Ridgway sent back a terse reply, “Can do,” and within two hours, the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment was assembling near their aircraft. Using C-47 tails as map boards, the leaders briefed the mission planeside. The division then shuffled men to different departure airfields, finalized plans, and coordinated with friendly units before loading paratroopers. Clark also relayed plans for marking the drop zone, which his airborne adviser Maj. William P. Yarborough put together. The marking plan was ingenious and included lighting gasoline-soaked cans of sand in a large T on the beach. This marking system was possible because of the location of the drop zone—behind friendly lines.²⁶

Within eight hours, forty-one C-47 Skytrains of the 52nd Troop Carrier Squadron containing the paratroopers of Col. Rueben Tucker’s 504th PIR lumbered down runways in Sicily. Shortly after midnight, the regimental combat team landed, assembled, and was “looking for a fight” by daylight. Most paratroopers landed within two hundred yards of the drop zone. Tucker—whom Clark described as “a real fighting soldier”—reported to the Fifth Army headquarters at 3 a.m. on the 14th. “As soon as assembled, you are to be placed in the front lines,” Clark told Tucker. “Sir,” Tucker replied, “we are assembled and ready now.” By daylight, fifteen hours after Clark’s request, 1,300 paratroopers were on the ground under Tucker’s command. The most effective use of paratroopers to this point in the war was in this role as a highly mobile reserve.²⁷

On September 14, while the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion dropped in the hills around Avellino, Gavin’s 505th PIR entered the fray at Salerno, giving Clark two entire airborne regimental combat teams on the beachhead. The 82nd Airborne Division then prepared to send in gliders from Sicily containing the 32nd Glider Infantry Regiment on the night of the fifteenth but found no suitable landing areas, and that regiment landed by sea instead. The effect of the airborne soldiers on the battle’s outcome was significant and provided a needed boost in morale and manpower at a critical point. By September 17, the Allied forces closed the gap along the Sele River and attacked inland, led by the 82nd Airborne, using heavy artillery from the regular infantry divisions. The 504th PIR, led by the aggressive Tucker, who Gavin surmised might have been the best regimental combat commander in the entire war, seized the village of Altavilla and its commanding high ground. After a staunch forty-eight-hour defense, the Germans withdrew, and the beachhead was never threatened again.²⁸

As in previous operations, airborne division organic fire-support assets proved insufficient; 155mm heavy artillery temporarily brought over from regular infantry divisions was crucial to success in Southern Italy. Nevertheless, the quick insertion of airborne troops significantly impacted the Salerno beachhead. Airborne officers, of course, felt they were decisive in the Allied victory. More important was the realization that, after being committed two hundred miles away within twelve hours of notification, airborne troops had demonstrated an essential capability as a mobile striking force “that no high commander could overlook in the future.” Throughout the Mediterranean campaign, airborne units had shown their suitability for seizing key terrain and disrupting enemy reserves. Because of an emphasis on flexibility in training at all levels, the 82nd’s action at Salerno demonstrated that paratroopers could also rapidly reinforce a threatened operation, thus strengthening the idea that parachute-delivered forces could be valuable in the future.²⁹

When the Wehrmacht launched its offensive into the Ardennes forest fifteen months later, in December 1944, the XVIII Airborne Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway—promoted from division to corps command—sat in reserve for the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces. Eisenhower tasked this force with countering the advancing German onslaught in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The airborne reserve, under the circumstances, had neither the time, transports, nor favorable weather to make a parachute assault to reinforce the beleaguered Allied line. Instead, they would become “truckborne” infantry, making a tailgate jump from the army’s standard 2.5-ton trucks. (Later, the image of valiant paratroopers unprepared for the weather, scrounging ammunition on their way into battle, would be etched into the collective national memory thanks to the 1949 film Battleground and the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers.) The Germans were pushing toward the Belgian town of Bastogne with one reinforced division, while significantly larger German forces bypassed the town and continued toward the Meuse River. Plugging the gap and responding to the German attack toward Bastogne was crucial.³⁰

In northeast France, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were in varying states of readiness. Neither division was prepared to go into combat on such short notice. Just one month earlier, Ridgway had informed his two subordinate division commanders—Gavin and Taylor—that their units would have until February 15, 1945, to reconstitute, with the caveat that “there is no guarantee that [the time] may not be shortened.” Many units had turned in their weapons for much-needed maintenance. The paratroopers of both divisions moved out in disarray, with some in summer-weight uniforms they had worn in Holland, some in dress uniform, and some in winter coats recently received. The lack of winter clothing was not new; Taylor had raised this concern to Ridgway as early as November 7. And commanders were worried about replacements entering combat so quickly after minimal training and integration. Bill Guarnere of the 506th PIR remarked later, “It made you nervous to have so many replacements going in. A lot of the original company was gone, and you have no idea what these new kids are going to do.” Rumors abounded as well. Pvt. Vincent Speranza, a replacement in the 501st PIR, remembered that “all kinds of wild theories flew about. Eisenhower had been captured, and we had to rescue him. We were being moved up to be the first ones in Berlin. The Germans had surrendered, and we were to escort all the prisoners back to France.”³¹

When the XVIII Airborne was alerted, Ridgway and most of his staff were in England learning to work together and preparing Maj. Gen. William Miley’s green 17th Airborne Division for combat. Ridgway gathered his staff and got on what turned out to be the last C-47 flying across the Channel before the weather set in and prevented further flights and resupply. As soon as the weather allowed, Miley’s division would follow, to buttress Patton’s Third Army forces.

Acting as the corps commander in Ridgway’s absence, Gavin moved his 82nd first, followed by the 101st. Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe was in command of the latter division, as Taylor was in Washington discussing with General Marshall the best ways to organize and employ the airborne division for the war in Europe. As Gavin planned defensive positions with the First Army’s Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges, he decided to push the 82nd farther, to Werbomont, and have the 101st stop at Bastogne. The Screaming Eagles arrived just eight hours ahead of the Germans. This decision to defend Bastogne was made in haste, owing to geographic circumstances, but had lasting effects on the popular legacies of both units. Even while the two airborne divisions were moving toward the salient, Ridgway had arrived in France and followed the last units out of their bivouac areas. Meanwhile, tanks from the 10th Armored Division raced north to Bastogne to reinforce the 9th Armored Division elements already on site.³²

On the northern edge of the enemy thrust, the 82nd Airborne Division endured, in Ridgway’s words, “less publicized, but equally as severe” fighting as what would be faced by its sister division at Bastogne. In the initial action, the division deployed its constituent regiments to defensive positions at the many crossroads near Werbomont, outside of mutually supporting distance. Until the 30th Infantry Division and elements of the 7th Armored Division joined Ridgway’s corps, there was little choice, and still, the division performed well. Gavin’s leadership helped keep morale up when the weather seemed to doom all hope of survival; one trooper related a chance encounter with Gavin on patrol in which he told the general he was having a difficult time keeping his feet dry. Gavin “took off his overshoes and gave them to me,” the trooper said. Despite having fractured two vertebrae in the parachute assault into Holland, Gavin shared his men’s hardships—visiting men in their foxholes throughout the winter—and his men revered him for that.³³

Gavin was not the only story of toughness in the Bulge. Two soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division helped create a legend that bolstered the division’s pride for decades. Pfc. Thomas Martin and Pfc. Vernon Haught were members of the 325th Glider Infantry near St. Vith, Belgium. On the morning of December 23, 1944, a tank destroyer from another unit approached Martin’s foxhole, looking for the front line. Martin boldly told the crew, “Buddy, just pull your vehicle behind me. I am the 82nd Airborne, and this is as far as the bastards are going!” This boast became famous, though it was sometimes misattributed to Haught because of the iconic photo of Haught from the battle. The two stories merged, and the quote and image were used on a reenlistment poster. Martin and Haught embodied the gritty, cocky attitude shared by many in airborne units. Their steadfast defense at St. Vith highlighted the tenacity and bravery of the 82nd Airborne Division in the face of fierce German attacks. The episode embodied the airborne spirit that swelled division pride.³⁴

Upon entering the line, Ridgway and the XVIII Airborne Corps assumed command of the 30th Infantry and 3rd Armored Divisions. During the operation, Ridgway commanded six subordinate divisions at one point, and his corps played an instrumental role in halting the German advance by preventing the enemy from turning the First Army’s flank. The entry of his corps into the line provided much-needed optimism for Lt. Gen. Hodges and the First Army staff. Ridgway was an intense, charismatic leader—bold and aggressive—who led from the front like Gavin. He and Gavin both believed they should launch an attack immediately after they learned the German disposition. “It seemed most important to plan an attack the moment the German penetration was checked,” Ridgway wrote. On December 19, the 82nd mounted an attack alongside tanks from the 7th Armored Division. The bold, aggressive action taken by the 82nd steadied the front and began to return the initiative to the Allies.³⁵

In Bastogne, the 101st joined with about a division’s worth of other American forces and fell under Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton’s VIII Corps. Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division, the Combat Command Reserve of the 9th Armored Division, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and two 155mm artillery battalions—the 755th and the African American 969th from VIII Corps—strengthened their defense. Also included were scattered elements of the 106th and 28th Infantry Divisions organized into a makeshift unit called Team SNAFU. The 101st had beaten the Germans to the town, and McAuliffe deployed his infantry regiments to defend the primary approaches and sent men from Lt. Col. Julian Ewell’s 501st Parachute Infantry to “develop the situation” by reconnoitering forward. McAuliffe likewise organized the limited number of tanks and tank destroyers into a mobile reserve force, ready to reinforce hard-hit portions of the defense as needed.³⁶

After deploying reconnaissance patrols, Ewell’s men encountered exhausted German advance elements on December 19. The fresh, motivated Americans in control of the town provided a stark contrast to the tired, ill-supplied Germans who thought their numerical advantages should have been sufficient to sweep aside the American defenders. Instead, the Germans only managed to encircle the defenders of Bastogne on December 20 as the German advance continued to push west on both sides of the town. American paratroopers, trained to operate behind enemy lines without heavy support, did not allow the uncertainty of the situation to faze them. With artillery and armor support this time, the 12th Army Group commander Omar N. Bradley was sure of their ability to defend the critical road junction. “I was confident that the 101st could hold with the aid of those tankers from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions,” Bradley wrote later. When a German messenger came to McAuliffe’s command post with a note demanding surrender, McAuliffe sent back simply, “Nuts!” as his reply. This rhetoric came at the urging of his division operations officer, Lt. Col. Harry W. O. Kinnard, who recommended that McAuliffe’s first reaction (he reportedly said “Aw nuts” when reading the German note) was sufficient. Nevertheless, the defenders’ relief became a priority for Bradley: “They could hold out I thought at least until Patton’s Third Army broke through to relieve them. The relief of Bastogne was to be the priority objective in Patton’s flanking attack.”³⁷

The 101st held Bastogne, outnumbered and surrounded, for five days before Patton’s Third Army, led by Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams’s 37th Tank Battalion of the 4th Armored Division, broke the German siege. Contrary to popular memory, the 101st was never alone. Newspaper reports covered the siege and subsequent breakthroughs in detail, helping tell the story of the 101st Airborne Division’s heroics and Patton’s breakthrough while often ignoring the efforts of other units during “the Bulge,” much to the chagrin of the supreme commander, Gen. Eisenhower. Reports in the New York Times continued to reinforce the unlikely heroism of the 101st—including a story that the division did not need rescuing. Even Eisenhower acknowledged the speed and impressiveness with which the two airborne divisions moved. “The momentum of the thrust was further reduced by the arrival of two airborne divisions moved from reserve in the Reims area on 18th December,” he wrote to the Combined Chiefs of Staff; “one of these (reinforced by armor), although under constant attack and completely surrounded for five days, held the important road center at Bastogne.” These newspaper stories did much of the heavy lifting in developing the legend of the 101st Airborne Division and its stand in the Ardennes.³⁸

The 101st’s staunch defense and McAuliffe’s refusal are critical components of unit, army, and national memory. Missing the first week at Bastogne was one of Maxwell Taylor’s two significant disappointments of the war. However, he consoled himself in the knowledge that it gave “McAuliffe a chance to become a world figure.” The ability of beleaguered but determined paratroopers to defend against a mechanized onslaught helped portray airborne forces as effective against all types of enemy units while contributing to mythology about their capability. What the broad legend fails to encapsulate, however, is the amount of support given to the 101st by non-airborne elements, especially tanks and heavy artillery. Besides emphasizing the capability of airborne units to move quickly in crises, the fight at Bastogne reinforced the requirement that airborne units be equipped much like standard infantry divisions and the role of tank support. “Somehow we airborne foot soldiers seemed to bring out the best in the armor and they seemed to bring out the best in us,” Kinnard remembered. Against an enemy mechanized force, friendly armor and tank destroyers were instrumental to success. “There were a lot of tanks just scattered around. They were doing most of the shooting,” according to Lt. Eugene Drance. Despite the combat record of airborne units, their élan, and their stubbornness, the fight in the Ardennes displayed how minimally equipped light infantry depended on armor and artillery.³⁹

The actions on the Salerno beachhead and the bolstering of Allied lines in the Ardennes offered crucial lessons about rapid reinforcement, flexibility, and leadership. The airborne troops displayed a penchant for flexibility and innovation throughout these battles, while leaders showcased courage and care for their men. Despite lacking tactical mobility once on the battlefield, airborne units had immense operational reach. Their expeditionary design emphasized lightness and air transportability, making them as suitable for sea or land movement as by air, ideal for a quick-response role. Adapting to changing situations is critical for success in any unit. This adaptability was a deliberately cultivated skill during stateside training for airborne units. By stressing streamlined units and readiness to move at a moment’s notice, leaders created a dynamic rapid-response force that instilled an expeditionary mindset.⁴⁰

Adaptation

Much like coping with problems of equipment shortages and a lack of aircraft in training, the ability to adapt and improvise in combat proved key to overall mission completion. For airborne forces in Europe, challenges included their paltry ground mobility, lack of firepower, and the unsuitability of glider transports. Airborne unit organization, equipment, and training stressed lightness and air transportability— organizational choices that reflected a flexible, self-reliant mindset that stressed decentralized leadership, as airborne troops needed to fight rapid wars of movement. However, these decisions made the airborne division, in some circumstances, highly immobile and very vulnerable. Follow-on forces were presumed to bring heavier weapons and transportation, yet the light airborne divisions often fought longer than the doctrinal seventy-two hours after they landed. Airborne divisions were counted on to fight like infantry divisions yet contained far fewer transportation and fire-support assets.⁴¹

Higher headquarters organized and attached elements to airborne divisions throughout the war, allowing them similar capabilities as regular infantry divisions. Airborne small-unit tactics were always meant to be the same as those of the regular infantry—airborne infantry units are, after all, staffed by infantrymen—but problems arose with sustained combat. The postwar General Board found that the insufficient personnel, transportation, and firepower “placed an extremely heavy burden on the airborne division” and contributed to the inability of these divisions to sustain themselves for more than a few days without support. The structure and assigned firepower for the divisions were inadequate for the time they spent committed to combat. The airborne division was too light. It contained too few howitzers, too few trucks, and no tanks or tank destroyers.⁴²

The 82nd did not gain organic parachute-delivered artillery until Ridgway created a parachute field artillery battalion at the army’s behest a month before departing the United States. Before the advent of parachute-delivered artillery units, howitzers were meant to arrive by glider. Most airborne division artillery consisted of 75mm “pack” howitzers, so named because their original design was for mountain operations—a cannon that could be disassembled for transport on multiple pack animals. Thanks to the ability to disassemble the guns, they were ideally suited for a piecemeal parachute drop. Airborne divisions had no assigned 155mm artillery, whereas regular infantry divisions had twelve of the larger howitzers. Airborne divisions also had only twelve 105mm artillery pieces, while regular infantry divisions had fifty-four. According to Maj. Edwin Sayre, “Airborne troops are not capable of sustained action unless quickly reinforced by artillery comparable to that of the enemy.” Ridgway remembered that in Normandy it was not until his division contacted conventional units and gained the use of their artillery that they “could get on apace with our basic mission.” Further, airborne divisions had twice the number of M1919 .30-caliber machine guns rather than heavier M2 .50-caliber machine guns, owing to a lack of transportation to carry the 128-pound behemoth known as “Ma Deuce.” The lack of heavy machine guns hampered the airborne division’s ability to sustain a fight against armored vehicles and led to an increased reliance on attached tank and tank destroyer units.⁴³

Fire-support capability was an enormous and distinct advantage for American forces throughout the war and became, over time, the best in the world. The capability of American artillery in a firepower-centric army, coupled with the lack of fire support organic to airborne divisions, made external fire support a constant demand for airborne units. In North Africa, attached French artillery assisted Raff’s force in accomplishing its missions. Taylor remembered during operations in Sicily that his “light airborne artillery was reinforced by the attachment of the 155mm howitzer battalion of the 9th Division commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel W. C. Westmoreland, whose surehanded manner of command led to the entry of his name in a little black book I carried to record the names of exceptional young officers for future reference.” In his post-Sicily analysis, Maj. Gen. Joseph M. Swing asserted that with increased artillery and transportation, the airborne divisions were suitable for extended action akin to standard infantry divisions. At the same time, Gavin realized there was no need to alter the force structure for units to make them airborne, so long as adequate air transport was available to fly them to the objective. Airborne units could have used air-transportable, heavier artillery and vehicles, but the technology did not support such advances at the time.⁴⁴

Organizational issues arose as well. The entire force structure was heavily streamlined to maximize air transportability, which was key in crafting an expeditionary mindset but provided problems when the airborne fought as regular infantry for extended periods. In addition to a lack of firepower division-wide, each rifle parachute platoon had just two rifle squads. Moreover, the original table of organization and equipment (TO&E) had each airborne division organized with two glider infantry regiments and one parachute infantry regiment. Following the Normandy campaign, in which gliders exhibited significant vulnerabilities, the TO&E was formally changed to one glider and two parachute regiments. In the 11th Airborne Division, where there remained two glider regiments and one parachute regiment, the division commander trained his units to use both means of arrival. Maj. Gen. Swing learned early that glider operations were useless in a jungle environment. He trained all glidermen as qualified parachutists, turning his three infantry regiments into “para-glider” units in a harbinger of changes after the war.⁴⁵

Ridgway corresponded with Marshall consistently in regard to the overall size of airborne divisions throughout the war, lamenting that the original streamlined authorization was insufficient for more than three days in combat. In Normandy and Holland, the 82nd and 101st unofficially operated with 13,000 to 14,000 men across four infantry regiments; in Ridgway’s belief, the airborne division organization needed to be officially and permanently increased to the size of a standard infantry division. When Taylor was back in Washington in December 1944, he discussed this issue with Marshall. The army’s chief of staff listened and granted an increase in airborne division strength. Airborne officers learned to solve operational problems by altering force structures to match reality.⁴⁶

Glider operations represented another source of frustration and learning for airborne leaders. Speaking well after the war, Taylor lamented that the glider was the worst way to arrive on the battlefield. Early airborne theorists foresaw parachute troops as an arrowhead to clear the way for gliders intended to deliver massed combat power and heavier equipment behind enemy lines. Nevertheless, glider operations never came into their own, despite the robust effort. A shortage of equipment precluded the airborne command’s ability to prepare an adequate number of pilots and men; hence there was a two-platoon and two-battalion table of organization in glider infantry regiments. Furthermore, while the original division organization contained two glider regiments, a lack of shipping space on the cargo vessels headed to North Africa necessitated that the 82nd Airborne Division leave the 326th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) in the United States. Gavin’s 505th PIR joined the division as its replacement.⁴⁷

Significant cultural issues caused problems as well. Glider infantrymen were nonvolunteer personnel, looked down on by the all-volunteer parachutists for their lack of jump wings. They flew in big, slow, lumbering, unpowered aircraft that were easy targets for enemy antiaircraft gunners. And the gliders were fragile. Glider pilots also notoriously shirked ground duties, as the army failed to assign them tasks as part of a unit upon landing. Glider infantry regiments had one fewer platoon per company and one fewer battalion per regiment than standard or parachute infantry regiments. For Normandy, the divisions handled the problem by splitting the two battalions of the 401st GIR between them, giving the 325th and 327th GIRs a third battalion each. However, the ability of glider-delivered field artillery and antiaircraft units to provide larger amounts of firepower was essential to success throughout the war. Antiaircraft units such as the 80th Airborne Anti-Aircraft Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division were routinely employed in an antitank role, especially after the Allies achieved air superiority.⁴⁸

Normandy was the first action in which glider infantry regiments were committed to combat via glider assault. Gavin credited the aerial resupply via parachute and glider on D+1 as “decisive in enabling the 82nd Airborne Division to hold its airhead until it could make contact with the amphibious landing force.” (Like a beachhead, an airhead is the portion of territory under the invading unit’s control that can receive more personnel and equipment, in this case by air.) However, the 325th GIR suffered sixteen men killed and seventy-four injured during the landings alone. Fifty-five percent of the 82nd’s Horsa gliders were demolished, and 10 percent of personnel riding in them were injured, compared to 6 percent of CG-4A glider riders. The Horsa, developed in the United Kingdom, was twenty feet longer and carried up to twenty-eight troops, compared to the thirteen-troop capacity of the American-built CG-4 Waco. And as was the case for the parachute troopers, inadequate transport-pilot training resulted in increased casualty rates. Teddy H. Sanford, commanding the 1st Battalion, 325th GIR, in Normandy, commented that rather than coming in slow from a high enough altitude to make a proper approach, the pilots “had no opportunity for selection of the field, or to turn to make any approach to it. It was just cut loose and land, which put a great many of our gliders into the trees and resulted in rather high casualties.” In Normandy, 6.8 percent of the troops committed by glider necessitated evacuation to England, as opposed to 3.8 percent of those committed by parachute. This discrepancy helped Ridgway, Taylor, and Eisenhower lobby Marshall for increased pay for glider infantrymen, which was equalized with parachute pay in July 1944.⁴⁹

Poor glider landings in the 101st Airborne Division resulted in the loss of their assistant division commander, Brig. Gen. Don F. Pratt, on the morning of D-Day. While the 82nd sent most of the 325th by glider, the 101st’s 327th GIR arrived by seaborne landing, owing to a shortage of gliders. Ninety percent of the four thousand troops inserted by gliders arrived safely, but more than 50 percent of the equipment delivered by gliders was destroyed. Members of the 82nd, for example, recovered only eight of sixteen 57mm antitank guns of the 80th Airborne Anti-Aircraft Battalion and few of the jeeps earmarked to tow the weapons around, meaning that often paratroopers were pulling them by hand. Normally assigned to antiaircraft duties, the 80th was outfitted with antitank guns to provide an extra punch for the lightly armed airborne division. Undoubtedly, the ability to deliver equipment via glider was instrumental in giving airborne units a fighting chance in Normandy before they linked up with seaborne forces, armor, and heavier artillery. Accordingly, the idealized image of the glider remained. Glider-delivered 75mm artillery, 57mm antitank guns, and transportation to haul them around the battlefield were critical to the units’ successes. Gliders “carried 95 howitzers and anti-tank guns, 290 vehicles, 238 tons of cargo, and 4,021 men into Normandy” across five separate missions on June 6 and 7, 1944. Nevertheless, because of the rate at which gliders crashed and the casualties incurred, gliders remained subordinated to parachute operations. Ninety-seven percent of the gliders used in Normandy were never recovered.⁵⁰

Glider operations improved throughout the war. During Operation Market Garden—the ill-fated Allied attempt to cross the Rhine through Holland in the fall of 1944—gliders were not part of the initial assault on September 17. Market Garden called for an airborne assault on three critical bridge crossings by three Allied airborne divisions (Operation Market). This was followed by an armored thrust along a two-lane road to push into Germany (Operation Garden). The American 101st landed near Eindhoven, the 82nd farther north at Nijmegen, and the British 1st Airborne Division landed even farther north on top of the remnants of a German SS Panzer division at Arnhem. The British division landed too far from its objective, while the ground force moved too slowly to reach the furthest committed airborne elements before their destruction. After the initial parachute assault, 1,890 gliders flew into Holland over the ensuing seven days with reinforcements and resupply. Of that number, 1,530 landed without incident on or near their assigned landing zones, compared with 293 that did not, while 67 were unaccounted for—a marked improvement from Normandy. Even better, the Americans recovered 95.9 percent of glider-delivered resupply, compared to 41.4 percent of that delivered by parachute. Glider-borne resupply also played a vital role in Bastogne, delivering 139,281 pounds of cargo on December 26 and 27. Among the gliders’ most precious cargo in the Ardennes were desperately needed surgical teams for the more than four hundred casualties that required care after most of the 101st’s medical personnel were captured before the encirclement of the division.⁵¹

During Operation Varsity on March 24, 1945, the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment’s 906 gliders began landing at 10:30 a.m. The overall mission of Operation Varsity was to secure a crossing over the Rhine near Wesel, Germany, as the airborne component of Operation Plunder. The mission was so successful that Gavin called it “the highest state of development attained by troop-carrier and airborne units.” Of 572 gliders launched on Varsity’s D-Day, only 50 were destroyed, and the rest delivered 3,492 men, 202 jeeps, 94 trailers, and various amounts of munitions and artillery. Only 83 gliders landed outside the landing zone, and the 194th Glider Infantry assembled at 75 percent strength by noon. The regiment accomplished its mission to hold crossings over the Issel River, and the division achieved all its objectives by nightfall. Gliders were also used as medical evacuation for the first time in the European Theater. Mimicking a technique used in India and Burma, Lt. Col. Robert Burquist, chief surgeon for IX Troop Carrier Command, had gliders converted into air ambulances with medical personnel on board. Two of these retrofitted gliders landed beside the First Army’s field hospital on the east bank of the Rhine and loaded casualties. Minutes later, the tow planes returned, landed, and pulled the gliders back into the air. The gliders delivered thirty-six urgent casualties to the 44th Evacuation Hospital in France, a feat that almost compared to modern aeromedical evacuation techniques.⁵²

What to do with glider pilots once on the ground, however, presented a problem. In Normandy, Maj. Mark Alexander—the 505th PIR’s executive officer—organized sixty pilots at the 82nd Airborne’s division command post into a local security element defending the headquarters position, but this was far from standard procedure. Glider pilots in Holland sneaked off to Brussels and were charged with desertion, though the charges were later dropped. Ridgway thought that pilots should fly gliders and remain assigned to troop carrier units, while Gavin believed the pilots needed to be part of the airborne units and take ground combat training to be more useful. In Operation Varsity, glider pilots formed ad hoc units and performed well defending key terrain before being shuttled back across the Rhine.⁵³

Aside from these critical moments, the glider was of secondary importance throughout the war. Gliders presented a tempting option to deliver massed combat power into an airhead but proved inadequate as soon as better airdrop capabilities and aircraft became available. The glider was imperfect, as it delivered larger—but not large enough—equipment, and the gliders themselves were often destroyed after a single combat deployment. However, the benefits of landing heavier antitank weapons, artillery, and transportation assets were evident, despite the loss of equipment and men. According to the postwar general board that studied their employment, airborne divisions must have “adequate artillery, adequate anti-tank means, adequate mobility, and adequate supply means for heavy and sustained fighting.” The infantrymen riding inside gliders did not require specialized training like the paratroopers. The postwar General Board saw promise in the potential of improved gliders to “permit more rapid and orderly build-up on the ground,” yet also—in 1945—considered the role that helicopters would play as “a better substitute” in the future. Helicopters were a natural evolution from gliders in their ability to deliver units together—rather than piecemeal via parachute—and the lack of a need for specialized training. Following Swing’s example and the postwar board’s recommendation, the army designated all units in airborne divisions as airborne rather than parachute or glider. The venerable old glider had one final training maneuver in 1949 but was officially made obsolete by the Joint Airborne Troop Board in 1953.⁵⁴

During the war, airborne units earned an outsize reputation both inside and beyond the army. They performed well but did so while draining “a tremendous amount of talent at the cost of other units,” according to Maxwell Taylor. “We were knee-deep in able young soldiers who could have been squad leaders, senior noncoms, platoon leaders, and company officers” in regular units. Regardless, the airborne’s performance impressed Marshall so much that all four options given to Douglas MacArthur for his use as replacement commanders (in case of casualties or ineffectiveness) in the Pacific were airborne officers: Taylor, McAuliffe, Gavin, and Robert T. Frederick; the latter had commanded the First Airborne Task Force in Southern France. The postwar General Board noted that “in all operations, the airborne divisions displayed superior fighting qualities. Constituted entirely from volunteers, selected for initiative and aggressiveness, these units accomplished the most difficult of missions with distinction.” When they were left on the line for too long, the performance of airborne divisions deteriorated, yet when bolstered by adequate attachments to approximate the composition and firepower of a standard infantry division, airborne units “were uniformly excellent.”⁵⁵

The 101st Airborne Division spearheaded American forces into Hitler’s Alpine redoubt in Bavaria, quickly occupying the spiritual seat of National Socialist power in Berchtesgaden. Likewise, the 82nd Airborne Division was sent to Berlin for a most visible occupation duty, with Gavin as the senior American in the city. While on occupation duty, Gavin created a special honor guard of highly decorated six-foot-tall combat veterans organized into one company that hosted General Patton. Patton called these men “the finest honor guard I have ever seen,” and the 82nd’s nickname as “America’s Guard of Honor” was born. In Frankfurt, the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment drew distinguished occupation duty—protecting General Eisenhower’s home and headquarters until November 1946. In the Pacific, the first combat unit on Japanese soil was a battalion of the 188th Glider Infantry Regiment from the 11th Airborne Division.⁵⁶

An airborne division was the natural choice to march in the victory parade scheduled for January 1946 in New York City. Initial army plans called for the inactivation of the 82nd in favor of the 101st, in order to include the Screaming Eagles’ participation in the parade. However, Ridgway, Eisenhower, and the Army Ground Forces commander Jacob Devers wrote to recommend that the 82nd be retained, arguing that this was because of its longer, superior record, which included service in World War I. Plans changed after multiple strong endorsements in the press appeared in favor of keeping the 82nd on active duty. Gavin had weaponized his cozy relationship with the various journalists he encountered throughout the war, and their media blitz in support of the 82nd played a role in its retention on active duty and Gavin’s overall stature. On January 12, 1946, Maj. Gen. James M. Gavin led his division down Fifth Avenue in a ticker-tape parade. Most of those marching were replacements, although many division veterans, including those wounded in action, were in attendance along the march route. That day’s parade included the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the army’s only all-Black parachute unit—a critical visible step toward army-wide integration.⁵⁷

Decentralization and individuality were essential traits in early operations in Sicily and Normandy. The experience of reinforcing the beachhead at Salerno and the Allied line in the Ardennes forest validated the requirement that airborne units maintain an expeditionary ethos and ability to improvise, which provided the impetus for later rapid-response forces. Meanwhile, solving tactical mobility and heavy-fire-support problems, alongside the complications of glider operations, reinforced the belief in adaptable thinking. The development of an airborne mindset was not only beneficial internally to airborne units but had external, lasting implications for the entire army. How airborne units fought and how they solved problems during World War II undergirded how their leaders approached issues later in their careers. Airborne officers learned valuable lessons about solving problems through organizational change, the efficacy of decentralized operations, the promise of tactical mobility, and the potential for airborne units to serve in a vital rapid-response capacity.