airborne assault

In World War II, airborne assault referred to the deployment against the enemy of specially trained troops by parachute or Gliders. The introduction of airborne assault may be dated to 1922, when Red Army troops were first deployed by parachute. Later in the decade, Italy formed a company of military parachutists. By the end of the 1920s, the Soviet Union had created a battalion. France formed two companies of Infanterie de l'Air in 1938. Curiously, the German army, the Wehrmacht, lacked enthusiasm for airborne assault. However, the air force, the Luftwaffe, acting in 1938, created the 7th Flieger Division, the largest unit of paratroopers and glider troops in any nation's army, under the command of Maj. Gen. Kurt Student. It was elements of the 7th Flieger Division that staged the first airborne assault of World War II during the invasion of Belgium and the Netherlands. This was a glider assault on Belgium's Eben Emael, a fortress that proved unassailable—except by airborne assault. The 7th Flieger Division, attached to the XI Air Corps, was deployed next against Crete in May 1941 and fought the first battle to be won by airborne troops alone. Nevertheless, the victory was purchased with losses so heavy that Adolf Hitler himself forbade further airborne assaults. His elite airborne troops were henceforth used in a ground assault role only. Despite Hitler's reservations, the British and the Americans (who had yet to enter the war) were both alarmed and impressed by Germany's execution of airborne assault. In response, Britain created the 1st Airborne Division in October 1941, which was followed in May 1943 by the 6th Airborne Division. Each of these units had two parachute brigades, a glider brigade, and divisional troops. Initially, the Royal Air Force provided transport using converted bombers. Toward the end of 1944, these were replaced by U.S.-built C-47 transports, called Dakotas by the British. In 1941, the United States began developing airborne assault as well, ultimately creating five divisions, the 11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd, and 101st. Each American division consisted of three parachute regiments and one glider regiment. The first Allied airborne assaults took place during the North African Campaigns in 1942– 43 and were carried out by the British 1st Airborne Division—initially by its 1st Parachute Brigade and then by elements of the entire division under Maj. Gen. G. F. Hopkinson. This division also participated in the Sicily Campaign and the Italian Campaign during 1943. In February 1942, a company of the British 2nd Parachute Battalion dropped into Bruneval, France, where it successfully captured a new type of German radar installation. In November of that year, a force from the 1st Airborne Division made a pair of glider landings in Norway for the purpose of sabotaging a airborne assault 5 German heavy water facility there in an effort to stem German development of an atomic weapon. The raid was unsuccessful. During November 1943, the 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade Group, commanded by British Brig. Gen. C. H. V. Pritchard, participated in Italian operations, then, through 1945, as part of the 1st Airborne Task Force, fought in southern France and Greece. The British 6th Airborne Division, under Maj. Gen. Richard Gale, joined the U.S. 82nd (Maj. Gen. Matthew Ridgway) and 101st (Maj. Gen. Maxwell Taylor) Airborne Divisions in Operation Overlord in preparation for the Normandy landings (D-day) during June 1944. After its initial drops, the 101st and 82nd Airborne fought as ground units until they were deployed, with the British 1st Airborne Division (Maj. Gen. Roy Urquhart), as the I Airborne Corps (Lt. Gen. "Boy" Browning), in Operation Market Garden (Battle of Arnhem) during September 1944. The I Airborne Corps was now part of the First Allied Airborne Army, under the overall command of Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton. The 82nd Airborne (Brig. Gen. James Gavin) and the 101st (Taylor) achieved their objectives in Market Garden, but the 1st Airborne, dropping too far from its objectives, was badly defeated and suffered severe losses. Operation Market Garden failed. Nevertheless, lessons were learned from the failure, and in March 1945, when the XVIII U.S. Airborne Corps (Ridgway), consisting of the British 6th Airborne Division and the U.S. 17th Airborne Division, participated in Operation Varsity, a Rhine crossing, steps were taken to ensure accurate drops. Both divisions quickly achieved their objectives, and the operation was a success. Operation Varsity was, however, the last major airborne assault in Europe. In the China-Burma-India theater, the Indian Army formed the 50th Indian Parachute Brigade in 1941. It fought extensively in the Burma Campaign. The 44th Indian Airborne Division (later designated the 2nd Indian Airborne Division) was created in 1944 under the command of Maj. Gen. Eric Down. The unit made only a single airborne assault, at Elephant Point, Burma, in May 1945. However, the brilliant Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate, commanding a special force of Chindits, made numerous small drops behind the Japanese lines in Burma. Also in Burma, the United States Army Air Force landed engineer squadrons (as part of the No. 1 Air Commando) by glider to build airstrips. The No. 1 Air Commando also operated P- 51 Mustang fighters and L-5 light liaison aircraft in Burma, providing close air support and casualty evacuation. In the Pacific theater, Maj. Gen. Joseph Swing commanded the 11th U.S. Airborne Division, which was the principal airborne assault unit in this theater. In February 1945, two 11th Airborne battalions dropped at Tagaytay Ridge, on Luzon in the Philippines, and, later in the month, the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment dropped on Japanese-held Corregidor. Shortly after this, the 1st Battalion 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment dropped just to the northeast of Tagaytay Ridge to make an assault on a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The unit liberated Allied prisoners held since the fall of the Philippines. Finally, in June 1944, elements of the 11th Airborne Division dropped on Luzon to cut off the Japanese withdrawal. Despite the pioneering efforts in airborne assault by Italian, Soviet, and German forces, only the British and Americans made significant use of this mode of deployment during World War II. Italy eventually constituted two parachute divisions (each very much understrength) but used them exclusively in a ground role. The Soviets carried out a few small-scale airborne operations during 1943–44 but primarily used their parachute units as ground troops. The Germans, as noted, halted airborne assault operations very early in the war. The Japanese did create airborne assault units but used them only three times, landing at Menado and Palembang in the Dutch East Indies in 1942 and against American airfields at Burauen in the Philippines during December 1944. This was the last airborne assault of the war. Further reading: Ambrose, Stephen E. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. 2d ed. New York: Simon 6 airborne assault & Schuster, 2001; Bandop, Mark A. 101st Airborne: The Screaming Eagles at Normandy. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI, 2001; Flanagan, E. M., Jr. Airborne: A Combat History of American Airborne Forces. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 2003; Quarrie, Bruce. German Airborne Divisions: Blitzkrieg 1940–41. London: Osprey, 2004; Quarrie, Bruce. German Airborne Troops, 1939–45. London: Osprey, 1983; Ruggero, Ed. Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assault into Fortress Europe, July 1943. New York: HarperCollins, 2003; Smith, Carl. U.S. Paratrooper 1941–1945: Weapons, Armor, Tactics. London: Osprey, 2000; Verier, Mike. 82nd Airborne Division: All American. Hersham, U.K.: Ian Allan, 2002; Webster, David Kenyon. Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-day and the Fall of the Third Reich. Rev. ed. New York: Delta, 2002.