THE RULE OF LGOPs

(LGOP = Little Groups of Paratroopers)

After the demise of the best Airborne plan, a most terrifying effect occurs on the battlefield. This effect is known as the rule of the LGOPs. This is, in its purest form, small groups of pissed-off 19-year-old American Paratroopers. They are well-trained, armed-to-the-teeth and lack serious adult supervision. They collectively remember the Commander's intent as "March to the sound of the guns and kill anyone who is not dressed like you..."

...or something like that. Happily they go about the day's work........

"Show me a man who will jump out of an airplane, and I'll show you a man who'll fight."

--General James M. Gavin

"American Parachutists...devils in baggy pants...are less than 100 meters from my outpost line. I can't sleep at night; they pop up from nowhere and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems like the black-hearted devils are everywhere..."

(An entry in a German officer's diary found after the Battle of Anzio)

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKDPX8PEiVk&feature=related

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"Individuals had to be capable of fighting at once against any opposition they met on landing. Although every effort was being made to develop the communications and techniques to permit battalions, companies, and platoons to organize promptly, we had to train our individuals to fight for hours and days, if necessary, without being part of a formal organization. Equipment had to be lightweight and readily transportable....Since the beginning of recorded history, Soldiers have been drilled repetively to de-emphasize their individual behavioral traits and force them to adapt to larger combat formations. Perhaps the greatest efficiency in transforming each individual, squad, platoon, and so forth into a cog in a larger machine was demonstrated in the armies of Frederick the Great, and although machine weapons had changed all this, between World War I and World War II countless hours were spent on wheeling about and moving squads to the right and to the left, as though they were preparing to fight the wars of a century ago.

All this had to be discarded as we sought to train the Paratroopers to the highest peak of individual pride and skill. It was at this time that the use of nameplates was adopted, the purpose being to emphasize the importance of an individual's personality and reputation. To the Soldiers of another generation, it seemed to suggest too little discipline and too much initiative given to individual Soldiers. We were willing to take a chance that this would not have a disrupting effect on larger formations. It did not, and there were many occasions in combat when the Paratroop officers, and NCOs effectively took over the command of larger formations of other units. Aside from the impact of this type of training on the Airborne formations themselves, it had a tremendous significance to the Army as a whole. The morale of the Airborne units soared, especially after their first combat, when they could see for themselves the results of their training".

Are you of the "another generation" ilk? Wedded to obsolete traditions? Who says we have to use D & C to instill fighting discipline in Soldiers?Why not in the field like Gavin did? Learning SERE skills? The usmc didn't even put nametapes on its individual member BDUs (camies) until after the Gulf War TV coverage embarassed them into it. How about this for 19th century robotics?

Think about it.

"Zero defects" mentalities do not inspire the men to give their best, we must create an atmosphere where subordinates can use their personality and initiative to get the mission done. Mission-type orders not robotics. To win on the future, non-linear urbanized battlefield, where we had only just arrived within hours by AIR will require the Soldiership like that of Chamberlain and his men on Little Round top. These men must be able to communicate freely and truthfully without concern over their ego, peer status or career concerns.

"The Mongols, a classic example of an ancient force that fought according to cyberwar principles, were organized more like a network than a hierarchy. More recently, a relatively minor military power that defeated a great modern power--the combined forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong--operated in many respects more like a network than an institution; it even extended political- support networks abroad. In both cases, the Mongols and the Vietnamese, their defeated opponents were large institutions whose forces were designed to fight set-piece attritional battles.

To this may be added a further set of observations drawn from current events. Most adversaries that the United States and its allies face in the realm of low-intensity conflict, such as international terrorists, guerrilla insurgents, drug smuggling cartels, ethnic factions, as well as racial and tribal gangs, are all organized like networks (although their leadership may be quite hierarchical). Perhaps a reason that military (and police) institutions have difficulty engaging in low-intensity conflicts is because they are not meant to be fought by institutions. The lesson: Institutions can be defeated by networks, and it may take networks to counter networks. The future may belong to whoever masters the network form."

"Cyberwar is coming" (Scroll down to Selection 3) by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt International Policy Department RAND

[Editor's note: These guys are right on target at the source of our temporary foreign policy "loss" in Vietnam 1975-1991(?). However, war is not just a lethal sporting contest among combatants, its about whose IDEAS will dominate, in the case of FREEDOM, in the end the truth has won out over communism. However, if the forces of freedom were more open-minded and "networked" like the John Paul Vann did until he died stopping the 1972 NVA invasion or the enemy in general did, we could have won the struggle sooner on the battlefield and not just wait for cultural changes to do it for us. The men who fought in Vietnam need to know that their sacrifices did count-just ask the people of Thailand. But if we are to learn from our war there, we must not make excuses that the politicians "did this or that" when there is plenty to do at our own level within the military to network and "out guerrilla the guerilla".]

A noted Army writer and tactician responds:

"Mike:
It's interesting that the two great Army developments of WWII were Armored warfare and Airborne warfare. (We'll leave aside marines and SOF for the moment.) A field-trained individual who can play LGOP really works well.

I sure do agree that all of that D & C and similar obsolete stuff serves little purpose. Guess it makes someone feel good..."

"Gavin was such a good Soldier. Thx Mike."

An Army weapons analyst and Lieutenant Colonel writes:

"Most of the Airborne troops were very well trained infantry, first. They already went through the "depersonalizing and rebuilding" process so that they would be competent 'cogs of the machine.' Then, and only then, were they given special training to bring them to a higher level.

On another level, the Airborne WANTED to mirror a straight infantry division, with infantry regiments, divisional artillery, etc., etc. Their challenge was not only the lack of adequate communication, but the technical inability to to be consistently dropped in a cohesive formation at a specified drop zone. In practice, they were scattered and lost all over the battlefield and fought in little groupings of individuals and squads that wandered about until blundering and melding into ad hoc platoons and companies. Fortunately, such confused wandering also wreaked confusion upon the enemy, with reports and sightings coming in from EVERYWHERE!! This alone tied down considerable enemy forces, in addition to the troopers' sniping, ambushing, and other interdictions. Then, once the ground effort (which the Airborne drop was supporting) broke through for a linkup, all was forgotten in the glow of a successful operation (the ground effort)".

http://imabbs.army.mil/cmh-pg/104-13.htm

Airborne operations

www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/abnops/tabb.htm

North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, and Eindhoven and Nijmegen

www.pim.nl/mg/pega1.htm

www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/4602/kreta.htm

Crete

With today's technology jump delivery is very precise and Drop Zone selection can be done instantly from space and the air recon means. Crete was a costly victory for the Germans because of the "Ultra Secret" (German codes broken to reveal all classified messages) told the Allies exactly where their DZ and drop times were....yet the Allies were still pushed to the sea. It was still a victory and proof deep Airborne operations can work in spite of no amphibious forces around to help. If you click on the hypelink above or here on Crete, you'll see the Royal Navy sank the amphibious forces that the Allied Commander defending the island thought were necessary to win. He was wrong. Years later, on Grenada the same thing happened, the enemy expected sea attack from marines, but instead, the Rangers and 82^nd Airborne came from long away and caught them by surprise. The invasion of Panama was a "deep" Airborne operation that worked as was The Russian seizure of Afghanistan and Czechloslavakia, though in the latter, ground forces were en route for link-up.

Had the British jumped south of Arnhem bridge, instead of 8 miles away at a 1 mph foot-slog, the entire battle would have been an undeniable Allied "deep" Airborne victory. Dien Bien Phu was a poorly selected firebase in the low ground, many other poorly defended positions have been over-ran that were established by ground and sea transport, also. In the Second Indo-China war, the U.S. set up better defended fire bases that were kept going by airdrop, most notably Khe Sanh. Deep airdrops of combat power can work, its what you do afterwords on the ground that is the key. If you sit still, the enemy is likely to gain the initiative whether you walked, flew or motored there. After the Paratrooper lands he must be MORE MOBILE than any enemy and that can be done by speed-marching, solving the Soldier's load, human powered vehicles and airdropped armor.

We are pushing hard for light Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV) like the M113A3 Gavin and the M8 Ridgway Armored Gun System to be organic to the Airborne so it can fight actions like a Bostogne successfully and not end up like a 1943 "Cisterna" or 1993 "Somalia".

Good point about WWI: the U.S. Army Air Service was doing "Close Air Support" to sweep the enemy during the 1918 offensives under the leadership of General Billy Mitchell personally directing the battles from SPAD XVI aircraft long before the usmc boasted "it invented CAS in the 1920s". By the end of the war, we were combining arms as we would have to do again in WWII.

"On the next day, before dawn, Pershing's main attack hit the Germans along the southern edge of the Saint-Mihiel salient while French Colonial troops under his command and the United States 4^th Division pushed eastward from the salient's western edge. Overhead, our planes gave close air support and bombed and strafed supply installations and troop columns in the rear of the German lines. French tanks manned by Americans supported the infantry assaults. The United States Army's first modern battle had begun."

Fighting Generals by Curt Anders, 1965, G.P. Putnam & Sons, NY

"Mike-
Interesting site. Thanks for showing me. Please keep me in mind for future areas of similar style. Although why anyone would want to jump out of a functional aircraft is still a mystery to me-"

God's design of the creation could easily be studied to find the principle of air resistance in action to gently descend from the air to the ground: leaves falling from a tree are a good example. It is believed that Chinese acrobats used parachute-like devices as long ago as 1306. The principle was recognized by several writers, and Leonardo da Vinci proposed the basic idea for parachutes in 1495. Leonardo da Vinci sketched a man-sized parachute with a man in mind to be lowered by it, even though no one had ever flown. He visualized it as a tool to escape from tall buildings and structures in event of fire. The dimensions he calculated as necessary to safely land a person 300 years before one was ever used are very close to the ones used today.

The first person to demonstrate the parachute in action was Louis-Sébastien Lenormand of France--in 1783 he jumped from a tower with two parasols. A few years later other French aeronauts jumped from balloons. André-Jacques Garnerin was the first to use a parachute regularly. He made a number of exhibition jumps, including one of about 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) in England in 1802.

In 1785, a French balloonist named Pierre Blanchard used a pet dog for his first idea of a parachute and dropped the dog several hundred feet, the dog ran off with the parachute and was never seen again.

In the 1800s, acrobats were dropping from balloons that resembled a parachute and a trapeze, they did this to liven up their act, because balloons got boring after awhile and they needed something else to keep the crowds interest, people watched mostly hoping to see a fatality.

The parachutes were rigid with stiffening rods to maintain there shape and tied to the bottom of the balloons, when it came time to jump a helper would cut the rope and they would ascend in their particular contraption.

It was an era of do it yourself designs some worked and some didn't. The ones that didn't were the unlucky ones (this could be considered an understatement).

One of the first parachutes was invented in 1837 by a man named Robert Cocking. Cocking developed a parachute like an upside umbrella, he felt being upside down it would control oscillations ( to bad he didn't know about an apex hole) He demonstrated in 1837 in england suspended from a balloon named Nassau, and piloted by Charles Green, who cut him loose.

The canopy was covered with linen and used stiffeners made of thin metal tubes to retain it's shape, the only trouble was it weighed 223 pounds . It worked fine at first, but the stiffening tubes started to give way , then a hole developed in the canopy, then it collapsed (it was the first parachute fatality).

After that England's interest in parachutes declined, but continued in America and Europe.

In 1884 the Baldwin Brothers developed a parachute similar to the one used today, it had no stiffeners, just a fabric canopy that was folded and stuffed into a soft container. The canopy was not attached to to the jumpers but to the balloons rigging and a harness was worn by the jumpers and attached to the chute, it was several years in development before they had a full size model and was first tested from 3000 ft, instead of being guinea pigs they used sand bags instead for the first drop, the parachute worked perfectly and they considered it a success.

They decided to demonstrate it publicly, and sold tickets for the event at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California on January 30, 1887. Thomas Baldwin the younger brother got elected for the task, the brothers took the balloon to 5,000 ft. before a sellout crowd.

Tom jumped and the chute worked perfectly opened within five seconds and he drifted slowly to the ground, and landed safely.

This do-it-yourself design also applied to airplanes with a lot of fatal results.

The Wright brothers finally got one to fly and it has been the "skies the limit" (Pilot, Engine, Airframe--PEA) every since, until the planes crash.

Now the interest in (and need for) parachutes really "took off".

Early parachutes were made of canvas, and later of silk. The first successful descent from an airplane was made by Capt. Albert Berry of the United States Army in 1912. In World War I, parachutes were used by observers to escape from captive balloons but were considered impractical for airplanes. Only in the last stage of the war were they finally used in aircraft.

In April 1914 Charles Broadwick invented the back pack container, his design resembled a sleeveless coat, the canopy and suspension lines were stowed on the back, the apex was attached to a static line on the back with a breakaway tie and a static line that could be hooked anywhere available, it similar to the design used today.

He demonstrated it to the army just a few months before WW 1, with his adopted daughter Tiny, then twenty years old. She had been jumping since she was fifteen years old.

She jumped from a Curtis biplane and used the risers to steer to a perfect landing. After that jump she was never seen again.

This amazed the General and his staff. The Generals report to the Army was great, but they ignored it, and later American pilots flew into combat without parachutes because the Generals thought they would abandon their planes at the very slightest chance of trouble, hence no parachutes.

During the war only Germans provided parachutes for their pilots, it was a canopy and suspension lines stored in a container. When it came time to depart the aircraft, they lifted the container from under the seat, stood on the seat and tossed the container over the side, then followed it, a little crude but it worked and all the other pilots envied them, especially since they had to ride theirs down in flames.

From the book, Into The Valley, by Col. Charles H. Young:

1918: Isolated French raids in WW I during which two-man demolition teams parachuted behind German lines to destroy communications.

1918, July-October: Small-scale Allied airborne resupply during the Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns.

Colonel Billy Mitchell attempted to get parachutes for his aviators, without success, but the Army did conduct some tests, and they were still testing when the war ended in 1918. But Colonel Mitchell thought of others ways to use parachutes. To him goes the distinction of suggesting the first Airborne parachute assault forces.

The idea of parachutes for military personnel to employ for 3D maneuver was first suggested by the late Colonel William (Billy) Mitchell, U.S. Army Air Corps during WWI even before they had chutes for American flyers!

His idea was to assign infantrymen to the Air Force and to jump them behind the enemy to cut them off and use the air force to protect them, but his idea was not used.

This is a letter I found in a book written by Colonel Billy Mitchell about his meeting with Gen. Pershing:

"I proposed to him that in the spring of 1919, when I would have a great force of bombardment planes, he should assign one of the infantry divisions permanently to the Air Force, preferably the 1^st division; that we would arm the men with a great number of machine guns and train them to go over the front in our large airplanes, which would carry ten or fifteen Soldiers. We could equip each man with a parachute, so when we desired to make a rear attack on the enemy, we could carry these men over the lines and drop them off at a prearranged strong point, fortify it, and we could supply them by aircraft with food and ammunition. Our low flying attack aviation would then cover every road in the vicinity, both day and night, so as to prevent the Germans falling on them before they could thoroughly organize the position. Then we could attack the Germans from the rear, aided by an attack from our Army from the front, and support the maneuver with our great Air Force."

The war ended twenty five days after the meeting. The idea came from the mind of a visionary who wouldn't live to see his ideas come into being. But he was proven right.

Recent reports indicate the ITALIANS actually dropped Paratroopers in WWI! The first use of Paratroops goes back to WWI when Italian officers landed behind Austrian lines for reconnaisance.

Colonel Young continues:

1928: Italian pilots dropped supplies by parachute to the dirigible Italia, stranded at the North Pole.

1929-30: Italian paratroopers made mass jumps in North Africa.

1931: The U.S. Army Air Corps flew a field artillery battery complete with equipment to Panama as a demonstration of "hemispheric defense." Two years later, in keeping with U.S. tacticians' preference for airlanding rather than parachute delivery during this period, the maneuver was repeated in Panama, but with a full battalion. Then, in maneuvers near Fort DuPont, Delaware, AAC Capt. George C. Kenney "astounded his colleagues" by airlanding an infantry detachment behind "enemy" lines.

1933, 18 August: Soviet demonstration, Moscow; 46 paratroops jumped from two large bombers, and also dropped a small combat tank by parachute.

1935, 1 March: During Soviet airborne maneuvers at Kiev, two battalions of infantry were dropped; three 18-passenger gliders were also landed on these maneuvers. Gliders had been towed 1,170 miles-in triple-tow. All pilots involved were women.

1936, September-October: Soviet mass drop of 1,200 paratroops at Minsk, while 5,200 paratroops jumped in maneuvers at Moscow.

1938, 7 October: Germans airlanded a complete infantry regiment of 2,800 men in a wheat field near Freiwaldau, Silesia.

The American Army didn't completely abandon development of the parachute, and in 1919 a board was established at McCook Field to determine which type of parachute was suitable for American aviators. The board was headed by Maj. E.L. Huffman, who sent letters to known jumpers in the country to demonstrate equipment and techniques that might be purchased by the government. One of the respondents was a circus performer known as "Sky High" Irvin, who had been jumping since the age of sixteen and had logged numerous jumps over the years. He presented the first free-fall parachute, a concept that required the jumper to manually release the canopy with a rip cord instead of a static line. The Irvin model used a harness instead of a coat. The canopy was thirty two feet in diameter, with twenty four suspension lines. Instead of being extracted by a static line, the canopy was deployed by a pilot chute that sprang from the container when the jumper pulled the rip cord.

Until this time, it was believed that free falls couldn't be tolerated by human beings, who would either be immobilized by the force of the airflow or by fear of the situation. Irvan proved them wrong by making a delayed-opening jump from 1,500 feet, which convinced the board to sign a contract with him for 300 parachutes. By 1922 a parachute was a required part of the uniform of the military and airmail pilots, and the design remained unchanged for the next fifty years.

The first nation to form a real Paratroop unit was Italy, which makes sense if they had dropped Paratroopers in WWI. The Initial collective drop was made at Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan, on 6 November 1927 from CA-73 troop carrters of the Regfa Aerornautica. The Italians used the Salvator static-line parachute and used no reserve, a policy decision that must have seemed mistaken to the unit's General Gutdoni as he fell to his death a year later, hls Salvator streaming above htm m the dreaded "Roman candle" In the late 1930s, the Italians raised complete parachute battalions, and these later expanded into the Folgore and Nembo Divsions, destined to fight with distinction but never to partake in full-scale Airborne operations during WWII.

During the 1930s the Russians and Germans started using Airborne troops. The Russians even had bombers and gliders to deliver tanks and "people pods" on the wings of early aircraft to deliver Airborne troops.

The Russians formed Airborne units in 1935 and the Germans in 1937. The French also started in 1937, however the French were defeated before they could use them.

VIDEO: Paratroops in WW2 Europe & North Africa

Paratroopers

Part 1: German Airborne successes in Norway, Holland, Belgium

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrg4pCZAfu4

Part 2: British Paratroops created by Churchill, Corinth canal attack by German Paras

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z_C4Wiypgc

Part 3: Germans attack Crete continued, American and British Airbornes drop on North Africa and Sicily

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bl_bVQ5bjk

Part 4: Russian Airborne used extensively, Italian fighting German Paras bitterly resist allies, American Airborne saves beach head at Salerno

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqCd4r1apXk

Part 5: Monte Cassino, D-Day, wrongly implies heavy equipment did not arrive when most did by glider including Tetrarch light tanks and Bren gun APCs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxvT0cF0OXk

Part 6: Arnhem bridge operation, incorrectly states "armored" jeeps were lost, Battle of the Bulge

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7hxl2ur3kY

Part 7 Battle of the Bulge, Operation Varsity

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJ4HztWi_s

The success of the German Paratroopers in Holland, Belgium and Crete caused the United States to form an Airborne unit.

The first thing the United States did was to design a chute that could be used for military jumps since most chutes were only used by stunt jumpers.

The "AIR CORPS TEST CENTER" was commission to design and develop a chute for mass military jumps. They designed what was then called the T-4 and was the first chute to have four risers so it could be steered. They also developed the reserve parachute, something only the U.S. Airborne had. No other nation, at that time, used reserves.

German Fallschirmjaeger parachutes were hooked to a single "D" ring and hooked to the harness behind their head. The jumpers were unable to steer them and they landed where ever the wind took them, and contributed to many casualties and battlefield losses.

In April 1940, following the controversies, the War Department approved plans for the formation of a test platoon of Airborne Infantry to form, equip, and train under the direction and control of the Army's Infantry Board. In June, the Commandant of the Infantry School was directed to organize a test platoon of volunteers from Fort Benning's 29^th Infantry Regiment. Later that year, the 2^nd Infantry Division was directed to conduct the necessary tests to develop reference data and operational procedures for air-transported troops.

In July 1940, the task of organizing the platoon began. First Lieutenant William T. Ryder from the 29^th Infantry Regiment volunteered and was designated the test platoon's Platoon Leader and Lieutenant James A. Bassett was designated Assistant Platoon Leader. Based on high standards of health and rugged physical characteristics, forty-eight enlisted men were selected from a pool of 200 volunteers. Quickly thereafter, the platoon moved into tents near Lawson Field, and an abandoned hanger was obtained for use as a training hall and for parachute packing.

Lieutenant Colonel William C. Lee, a staff officer for the Chief of Infantry, was intently interested in the test platoon. He recommended that the men be moved to the Safe Parachute Company at Hightstown, NJ for training on the parachute drop towers used during the New York World's Fair. Eighteen days after organization, the platoon was moved to New Jersey and trained for one week on the 250-foot free towers.

The training was particularly effective. When a drop from the tower was compared to a drop from an airplane, it was found that the added realism was otherwise impossible to duplicate. The drop also proved to the troopers that their parachutes would function safely. The Army was so impressed with the tower drops that two were purchased and erected at Fort Benning on what is now Eubanks Field. Later, two more were added. Three of the original four towers are still in use training Paratroopers at Fort Benning. PLF training was often conducted by the volunteers jumping from PT platforms and from the back of moving 2 1/2 ton trucks to allow the trainees to experience the shock of landing.

Less than forty-five days after organization, the first jump from an aircraft in flight by members of the test platoon was made from a Douglas B-18 over Lawson Field on 16 August, 1940. Before the drop, the test platoon held a lottery to determine who would follow Lieutenant Ryder out of the airplane and Private William N. (Red) King became the first enlisted man to make an official jump as a Paratrooper in the United States Army. On 29 August, at Lawson Field, the platoon made the first platoon mass jump held in the United States.

The first parachute combat unit to be organized was the 501^st Parachute Battalion. It was commanded by Major William M. Miley, later a Major General and Commander of the 17^th Airborne Division, and the original test platoon members formed the battalion cadre. The Civilian Conservation Corps cleared new jump areas and three new training buildings were erected. Several B-18 and C-39 aircraft were provided for training. The traditional Paratrooper cry "GERONIMO!" was originated in the 501^st by Private Aubrey Eberhart to prove to a friend that he had full control of his faculties when he jumped. It was from a western movie they had seen the night before, so on a dare PVT Eberhart yelled the Indian warriors name so all could hear. That cry was adopted by the 501^st and has been often used by Paratroopers since then.

The 502^nd Parachute Infantry Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William C. Lee with men from the 501^st as cadre, was activated on 1 July, 1941. The 502^nd was far below strength, and 172 prospective troopers from the 9^th Infantry Division at Fort Bragg, NC were needed. The response to Lieutenant Colonel Lee's call for volunteers was startling: more than 400 men volunteered, including many noncommissioned officers who were willing to take a reduction in rank ("take a bust") to transfer to the new battalion.

Airborne experimentation of another type was initiated on 10 October, 1941 when the Army's first Glider Infantry battalion was activated. This unit was officially designated as the 88^th Glider Infantry Battalion and was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Elbridge G. Chapman, Jr. Lieutenant Colonel Chapman later became a Major General and commanded the 13^th Airborne Division.

As more Airborne units were activated, it became apparent that a centralized training facility should be established. Consequently, the facility was organized at Fort Benning on 15 May, 1942. Since that date, the U.S. Army Parachute School has been known by a variety of names: The Airborne School (1 January, 1946); Airborne Army Aviation Section, The Infantry School (1 November, 1946); Airborne Department, The Infantry School (February, 1955); Airborne-Air Mobility Department (February, 1956); Airborne Department (August 1964); Airborne-Air Mobility Department (October, 1974); Airborne Department (October, 1976); 4^th Airborne Training Battalion, The School Brigade (January, 1982); 1^st Battalion (Abn), 507^TH Parachute Infantry, The School Brigade (October, 1985); and the 1^st Battalion (Abn), 507^TH Infantry, 11^th Infantry Regiment (July, 1991).

The first Airborne Regiment, the 501^st was formed in April of 1941 and the first U.S. Army jump school was started at Ft. Benning, GA. The idea for the 250 foot towers came from Coney Island, N.Y. They were built for the 1940 World's Fair, and are still there today. The rest were put together from scratch. With the advent of World War Two, the United States Armed Forces foresaw a need for highly mobile units that the Allies could quickly insert into the theater of battle. An experiment began at Fort Benning, Georgia where a group of volunteers began jumping out of "perfectly good aircraft" while in flight. Thus was born the American Paratroopers. Following great debate and an arduous command decision, the United States Army began forming Airborne units for combat. On 14 March 1941, Company "A", 504^th Parachute Battalion was constituted and then activated on 5 October 1941 at Fort Benning, Georgia.

The 504^th moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for training in February 1942, and became part of one of the Army's first Parachute Infantry Regiments. The 503^rd and 504^th Parachute Infantry Battalions were joined together to form the 503^rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, with the 504^th being renamed Company "D", 503^rd Parachute Infantry on 24 February 1942.

Although several types of headgear insignia have been worn by parachute and glider organizations since 1942, an insignia peculiar to the Airborne was not authorized until 1949 and did not appear in Army Regulations until 1956. The authorization was first mentioned in AR 670-5 (dated 20 September, 1956), which stated, "Airborne insignia may be worn when prescribed by commander...The insignia consists of a white parachute and glider on blue disk with a red border approximately 2 1/4 inches in diameter overall."

In December, 1943, the all black "555^th Parachute Infantry Company (Colored)", later redesignated Company A, 555^th Parachute Infantry Battalion (and remembered by many as the "Triple Nickel"), arrived at Fort Benning for Airborne training. This training event marked a significant milestone for black Americans in the combat arms. The first troops in the unit were volunteers from the all-black 92^nd Infantry Division stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. After proving their skills, the battalion was not sent overseas, but was deployed to the western United States for "Operation Firefly," dropping in to fight forest fires set by Japanese incendiary balloons in the Pacific Northwest. During this mission, the 555^th earned the nickname the "Smoke Jumpers." In 1948, after full integration of the Armed Forces was finally effected, black Americans were finally given their full rights as American combat Paratroopers and made their first combat jump while attached to the 187^th Regimental Combat Team during the Korean War.

As an independent battalion, the 503^rd sailed to Scotland in June 1942, becoming the first American parachute unit to go overseas in World War Two. It was attached to the British 1^st Airborne Division for training. The training included mass tactical jumps from C-47 aircraft at 350 feet, extensive night training, and speed marching for 10 miles to and from the training area daily; and on one occasion, 32 miles in 11 hours. On 2 November, as the 503^rd was staging for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, it was reorganized and redesignated as Company "D", 509^th Parachute Infantry. On this momentous day, as C-47's flew over the English countryside, the 509^th Paratrooper was born.

The first U.S. Army Airborne Divisions were created on August 15 1942. The 82^nd and the 101^st. Then came the 11^th, 13^th and 17^th Airborne Divisions. The following listing/descriptions takes this history to the present day. An "AIRBORNE" operation defined here as either airdropping with parachutes and/or airlanding from fixed-wing aircraft into "drop zones" or "assault zones".

Worldwide the beret of the Paratroops is bordeaux-red. This goes back to 1944 when a British Paratrooper suffered a head injury through a jumping accident. When he put his olive-green beret onto his head it changed with the colour of his blood into bordeaux-red. It was then decided that the colour should be changed into bordeaux-red because of the fact that Paratroopers have to get along with extreme dangers. Over the years more and more armies in the world copied these berets and so did the Bundeswehr in 1970. The U.S. Army Airborne wears a maroon red beret.

Gavin's paratroopers in WW2 were handicapped by civilian DC-3s that couldn't carry an intact platoon of men and easily caught fire without armor or self-sealing fuel tanks resulting in preventable losses of the 22 it did carry. Unable to carry intact towed guns much less parachute dropping ground vehicles, this forced DC-3s to tow gliders that could carry either a towed gun or a jeep---but not both. This meant open area landing zones had to be secured for the gliders to roll to a stop. Without armament, the DC-3s were vulnerable to enemy fighter planes so Gavin revolutionized airborne operations by night jumps which also protected the planes from anti-aircraft fires. To overcome the confusion of being in the dark, Gavin had his men memorize terrain features and sand table rehearse plans and contingency plans and be self-reliant and able to take the initiative in non-linear battlefield situations not be lemming marines. He created pathfinders to mark drop zones in the dark to improve assembly on top of objectives so they didn't have to walk far. Studying the German's troubles jumping from the very small JU-52 jump door, he exploited the large C-47 jump doors by having every Para jump complete weapons and equipment and minimize separate container drops to just 75mm pack howitzers in pieces but roped together for fast reassembly. Because supplies could only be dropped through small fuselage openings or underwing shackles, they were spread out all over and difficult to recover from open areas where the enemy could fire, and paras lacked vehicles with armor protection.

All of these conditions are not true today so there is no excuse why the U.S. Airborne is still handicapped! The current U.S. Airborne is a disgrace to the memory of the Airborne forefathers sitting on laurels bought and paid for by others and accepting self-serving handicaps that don't exist.

GPS insures that t-tail aircraft not only drop EXACTLY where we intend, but tell paras on ground exactly where they are. No need for rolling open fields for gliders to roll, a single nitrogen inerted fuel tank C-17 t-tail ramp aircraft can drop 80 tons on supplies on pallets, and M113 Gavin light tracked armored fighting vehicles can be on these pallets to not only recover the supplies with forklifts but also transport para infantry and anti-tank weapons ready-to-fire on the vehicle not towed---at 60 mph under armor protection. Air refueling enables fighters to escort our t-tail transports but our transport aircraft could and should be armed with their own air-to-air missiles and radar-guided cannon to swat SAMs in self-defense. Delayed opening timer parachutes with small drogue chutes would enable every para to jump if needed from high altitudes around 10, 000 feet above enemy air defense and have his main chute open at low altitude for a normal jump. Furthermore, with M113 Gavins paras need not land on top of heavily defended objectives but can take them by surprise from indirect drop zones. An American Airborne that foot-slogs or rides in road-bound, wheeled trucks when it has the most airlift of any force in human history---more than enough to have hundreds of amphibious, cross-country-mobile light tracked AFVs in use---is a disgrace.

All of the handicaps of the WW2 Airborne are solved, we just need people with 21st century minds in today's Airborne who want to execute 3D maneuver warfare as a Gavin "Sky Cavalry" not sit on their asses and do seize & hold re-enactments pretending they are crippled when its all in their minds.

Furthermore, reading the war diaries of the British light troops surrounded near Arnhem below:

www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/war.htm

Its increasingly clear that 3D maneuver troops must have a "hard shell" in the form of their own light tracked armored fighting vehicles (LTAFVs) so enemy high explosive pounding of them will not attrit them to where they cannot hold a position. These light tracked AFVs should also have back hoes attachments so overhead cover fighting positions and hull-down vehicle positions can be created to bolster the baseline vehicle armor. LTAFV armored mobility also insures airdropped supplies---however they are scattered---can be recovered so even though the 3D force is in a non-linear situation with enemy all around, their fighting strength can be perpetuated indefinitely til the heavier 2D forces link up or they themselves implode the enemy resistance by their own maneuver actions.

The other handicap light troops have against heavier enemy troops is that they don't have the supplies to artillery duel with them to keep them from laying down mortar, rocket and artillery pressures upon them since the latter has home field advantage of greater supplies in hand. The air-mechanized light force needs to never be outgunned and LTAFVs enable this because they can self-propel in a ready-to-fire manner tube and rocket/missile artillery that can through clever design keep the enemy's artillery shut down. Also notice how CAS fighter-bombers when overhead silence enemy guns---the AMS force should have its own "hip-pocket" air force of fighter-in-a-box (FINAB) aircraft in ISO container BATTLEBOXes delivered by KIWI pod aircraft right there on the scene operating from their airhead to do CAS as well as interdict enemy fighter-bombers and pesky UAVs from surveilling overhead to help target for the enemy.

Grenada 1983: Rangers jump under 500 feet to take Point Salines airfield

Date: 8 November 1942
Unit: 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion (PIB)
Operation: Torch
Troopers: 556
Country: Algeria
Dropzone: Tafaraquoi, La Senia
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Day Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump after long-range deployment from England.

The training paid off when the 509^th spearheaded the Allied invasion of North Africa. The longest Airborne operation in history occurred 8 November 1942. After a C-47 flight of over 1600 miles from England, the battalion seized Tafarquoi Airport in Oran, Algeria by parachute assault. On the night of Saturday, November 7th, 1942, just eleven months to the day, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 556 Paratroopers of the 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Edson Duncan Raff, took off from England to jump into French Northwest Africa in the initial step to liberate Europe from German occupation. The battalion's mission was to seize two French airfields at Tafaraqoui and LaSenia to deny their use by enemy fighters. Operation Torch, as the amphibious landing in North Africa was codenamed, was an unusually complex military operation. Without any secure bases in the operational area, Allied forces had to deploy from bases in England and travel a great distance to the landing areas. In the Airborne plan of Operation Torch, the 39 x C-47 aircraft of the Paratroop Task Force, commanded by Colonel William C. Bentley, flew 1500 miles over the mountains of Spain, across the western Mediterranean Sea, to arrive badly scattered over the North African coast west of Oran, Algeria, at dawn on November 8th. Nearly out of gas, several aircraft landed in the desert without dropping their Paratroopers, several aircraft were shot down by enemy fighters, several planeloads jumped early and were captured in Spanish Morrocco, while the main force with Lieutenant Colonel Raff also jumped early some 35 miles east of the objective airfields. Although he broke several ribs in a hard landing, Lieutenant Colonel Raff continued to lead his Paratroopers toward their objectives. After a full day and a night forced march, a company of weary Paratroopers reached the airfield at Tafaraoui on the morning of November 9th. Both airfields had already been captured by Allied amphibious forces.

Date: 15 November 1942
Unit: 509^th PIB
Operation: Torch
Troopers: 350
Country: Algeria
Dropzone: Youks les Bains
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Day Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump

Date: 24 December 1942--
Unit: 509^th PIB, Hdqt's. Co. Two French Paratroopers-
Troopers: 32 -
Country: Tunisia
Dropzone: El Djem
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Day Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump

Date: 9 July 1943
Unit: 504^th Parachute Infantry Regiment 3^rd Battalion (Jumped first); 505^th Regimental Combat Team (RCT), Includes: 505^th PIR, 456^th PFA & Co. B, 307^th Engr.
Operation: Husky I
Troopers: 3,406
Country: Italy
Dropzone: Gela, Sicily
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump, wing shackle bundle drops, Gliders

Date: 10 July 1943
Unit: 504^th Regimental Combat Team (RCT), Includes: 504^th PIR, 1^st & 2^nd Btn.; 376^th PFA & Co.A, 307^th Engr.
Operation: Husky II
Troopers: 2,304
Country: Italy
Dropzone: Gela, Sicily
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump, wing shackle bundle drops, Gliders

Date: 5 September 1943
Unit: 503^th PIR and 2/4^th Australian Infantry Force
Troopers: 1,700
Country: New Guinea
Dropzone: Nadzab, Markham Valley
Aircraft: C-47, A-20s (smokescreens)
Type Air delivery: Day Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump, wing shackle bundle drops

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuz0TpzqwWY

First American airborne operation in the Pacific took place at Nadzab, New Guinea. The American 503^rd PIR dropped from 85 x C-47s of the 374^th and 375^th Troop Carrier Groups, 54^th TC Wing, in a mission to secure the airfield at Nadzab and prepare it for airlanding the Australian 7^th Division, which was to then push toward Lae from the west and link up with Allied amphibious invasion forces moving in from the east. The same aircraft that carried in the 503^rd and some Australian artillerymen who were hastily trained as parachutists, also airlifted 420 planeloads of infantry Soldiers by 11 September. The paradrop, which took place in daylight as General MacArthur circled above in a B-17 observation bomber, was well coordinated, accurate, and effective. Along with several key Troop Carrier maneuvers in the States during the summer and late fall, strong support by General Ridgway, and in conjunction with the soon-to-follow emergency missions at the Salerno beachhead, this mission contributed to a renewed commitment to Airborne-Troop carrier by American military leaders.

1^st R.A.R's lineal history goes back to the 65^th Battalion, 2^nd Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F.), engaged in the fight against the Japanese. That unit was a part of the Australian 7^th Division A.I.F. In 1943 a U.S. unit was to jump on a Japanese fortified area in New Guinea, elements of the 7^th Australian Division, A.I.F were hastily chosen to jump with them in the form of and Australian Artillery Section of 2 x 25 Pounders, from the ranks of the 7^th Australian Division, A.I.F. came a Section of 2/4^th Artillery Battery under command of Lt Pearson. The 33 men in the Section had two days hasty Parachute Training prior to the big day, at which time 2 of the originals were injured and ruled out. They were replaced on the day by two that had not jumped at all. On the Big Day, 5 September 1943, The U.S. 503^rd Parachute Infantry Regiment (P.I.R) went through the door over NADZAB in New Guinea, the 2/4^th Artillery Section went out the door with them. The jump master considered they were not trained well enough and thus made them jump without side arms. Their side arms/small arms went out the door in a panier, after hitting the Landing Zone, they had one of their guns up and firing within 2 hours of the jump. Those gunners of the 7^th Australian Division, A.I.F., didn't know then that they were setting the pace for another Australian Unit to join with the 503^rd, some 22 years later on another foreign airstrip when 1^st R.A.R. whose lineal history goes back to the 7^th Australian Division, A.I.F., were to join with the Sons of the 503^rd P.I.R. at Bien Hoa, Vietnam.

Airlift historian and Vietnam C-130 combat veteran, Sam McGowan writes:

"...the Airborne assault on Nadzab, an airstrip in the Markham Valley in Papau New Guinea in the fall of 1943. If there is a single World War II battle that deserves to be studied by modern advocates of Airborne and Airland operations, Nadzab is it.

The attack on Nadzab was planned and executed by the air staff of the Fifth Air Force, the air element of the Southwestern Pacific Command of General Douglas MacArthur. Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney, the Fifth Air Force commander, conceived the attack as a means of catching the Japanese forces at Lae in a pinch between Airborne and Airlifted troops attacking from the northwest and infantry attacking up along the Huon Peninsula (sometimes called the Lae Peninsula) from the southeast. Nadzab was the fruition of a plan Kenney conceived in early 1943 after American and Australian troops, many of whom had been airlifted across the Owen Stanley Mountains, defeated the Japanese force at Buna, a village southeast of Lae. Kenney conceived an Airborne attack at a time when he had no Airborne forces at his disposal. During a visit to the United States in the spring of 1943 Kenney requested the assignment of an Airborne Division to his command. Instead of a Division he got a Regiment, the 503^rd Parachute Infantry (the 11^th Airborne Division arrived in the Pacific in time for the invasion of the Philippines.)

During the interim prior to the arrival of the first American Paratroops in the Southwest Pacific, Kenney ordered the construction of a secret advanced airfield on the north slopes of the Owen Stanleys less than a hundred miles south of Lae. The new field, at a village known as Tsili-Tsili (and pronounced Silly-Silly) was constructed entirely by airlift. Engineers and construction materials were flown into an existing strip at Marlinan, about four miles from the new site. (The Marlinan strip was not suitable for use by fighters, but it was suitable for C-47s.) Originally the engineers planned to use jeeps and trailers to transport materials between the two bases, until someone came up with the idea of sawing Army trucks in half and transporting the halves in C-47s, then reassembling them in the field. It was not until the base was ready for fighters that it was detected by the Japanese. An attack caught a formation of C-47s as they were approaching to land. At least one transport was shot-down before U.S. fighters broke up the attack.

The Nadzab attack was planned as a two-fold operation. American Paratroops airlifted from Port Moresby would jump onto an existing, but lightly defended, airstrip and secure the field while the C-47s returned to Marlinan to pick up/airland Australian infantry who had been prepositioned there by airlift in anticipation of the operation.

On the morning of the attack the drop formation of some 90 x C-47s from the 374^th, 317^th and 375^th Troop Carrier Groups took off from Seven Mile Aerodrome at Port Moresby and assembled over the field. While the C-47s were assembling into drop formation, then heading out for the drop zone at Nadzab three groups of powerfully armed B-25 strafers were taking off from other airfields in the area. Though factory produced versions of the B-25 gunships would later serve in the Pacific, the airplanes at Nadzab were mostly conventional B-25 medium bombers that had been converted in the field into forward-firing gunships. The bombardier's position was removed from the airplane and the nose was filled with a battery of eight .50-caliber machineguns while additional guns were installed in pods mounted on the sides and bottom of the bombers, giving each B-25 a battery of 12-14 .50-caliber Heavy Machine Guns firing forward along the longitudional axis of the airplane. In addition to the machineguns, each B-25 carried a bomb-bay full of small parachute-fragmentation bombs, bombs that floated to earth beneath parachutes to detonate right above the ground, spraying fragments in every direction.

Minutes before the C-47s arrived over the Nadzab drop zone, a very large force (as many as 90 ships) of B-25 gunships hit the airfield. After strafing the drop zone, the B-25s dropped their loads of parafrag bombs. As the last B-25 left the field a flight of A-20s came over and dispensed a cloud of smoke around the DZ to conceal the troopers from the enemy postions in the trees. Above the airstrip a flight of three VIP-carrying B-17s observed the operation. General Kenney was in one airplane, General Douglas MacArthur (who was erroneously referred to by some of his men as "Dougout Dug") was in another. A fighter cover of P-38s and P-39s kept the Japanese fighters at bay.

The Paratroopers landed under the concealment of the smoke without taking a single casualty from enemy fire. Within minutes after they were on the ground, the Japanese on the airfield surrendered with very little resistance. The Paratroops hurriedly secured the airfield perimeter and prepared the airstrip for the arrival of troop carrying C-47s that began arriving in the afternoon. As the C-47s arrived, the Australian infantry assembled and, along with the American Paratroops, began attacking toward Lae.

Now that, folks, is how an Airborne operation is supposed to work, as conceived by General Billy Mitchell and further developed in the minds of men like Kenney, who had served as an observer in Europe in 1940. The Airborne attack was swift and sure, and it followed behind a massive aerial attack by heavily armed fixed-wing gunships who literally swept the area with heavy machinegun fire. The Allies had previously achieved aerial superiority, the gunships suppressed the fire of the Japanese troops who were in the vicinity of the previously determined-to-be lightly defended area and the troops jumped onto a DZ where they met little resistance.

I might also add that the operation was planned and executed, not by a massive staff in Washington, at Fort Bragg and at Scott or Eglin, but by a commander and staff in the field who knew the area and the military situation, and who tailored their operation for the conditions. In fact, the whole thing was carried out by a single command that included heavy bombers, medium bombers, fighters and transports as well as Airborne forces and infantry. And it worked.

The U.S. Army Paratroopers of the 1/503^rd PIR roar over the smoke in C-47s and jump in at an incredibly low 250 feet! The airfield is taken over quickly with light casualties as the Kenney/MacArthur, Air/Ground team began their amazing run of spectacular victories against the Japanese without the thousands of friendly casualties the frontalist approach used by the Navy/mc in the North Pacific received.

"Eight hours to Glory" by legendary artist Jim Dietz shows the 505^th PIR getting ready for the Salerno jump

Date: 13 September 1943
Unit: 504^th Regimental Combat Team (RCT) Includes: 504^th PIR, 376^th PFA & Co. "A" 307^th Eng.
Operation: Avalanche
Troopers: 1,300
Country: Italy
Dropzone: Paestum, Salerno
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump

Date: 14 September 1943
Unit: 505^th Regimental Combat Team (RCT). Includes: 505^th PIR, 456^th PFA & Co.B 370^th Engr.
Operation: Avalanche
Troopers: 2,105
Country: Italy
Dropzone: Salerno, Paestum
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump

Salerno was one of the bloodier, more critical operations of the Second World War. For a time the action hung in the balance as strong enemy counterattacks smashed and threatened the very existence of the initial beachhead. This was the opening struggle of the long and bitter Italian campaign. The Fifth Army held the beachhead at Salerno for four days but were danger of losing it to advancing German assaults and needed assistance quick. The only choice was to utilize the 504^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which had been performing mock assaults, in an effort to provide relief to the dwindling forces of the Fifth Army.

On September 13, 1943 1^st and 2^nd Battalions were alerted that they would be performing a parachute assault. "Another dry run", was the cynical comment of most men. Nevertheless, each man gave his equipment a last minute check - just in case. Early chow was eaten and immediately afterward the troops fell in at their bivouac areas in the appointed plane loading formations; then marched to the battered and roofless hangars where they picked up their chutes.

The first troopers to board planes were the Pathfinders of the 504^th who would be establishing and mark the drop zone which was located in the middle of the Fifth Army. These men devised a plan to mark the drop zone with a flaming "T" using sand and gasoline.

While the Pathfinders were on their way to the fight, the rest of 1^st and 2^nd Battalion were hard at work. Officers were checking maps and information to decipher the best course of action to help save the Fifth Army and save the beachhead. Noncommissioned officers had Soldiers hard at work issuing parachutes, performing maintenance checks on weapons, and starting to load planes. None of these paratroopers knew the location of this jump or what type of fighting was expected. It was not until the men were seated in the planes that the mission was disclosed. In probably the quickest briefing of any comparable operation of the war, men of the 504^th were informed that the Fifth Army beachhead in Italy was in grave danger of being breached and that the 504^th was to jump behind friendly lines in the vicinity of the threatened breakthrough in order to stem the German advance.

Under the cover of darkness the planes left for the beachhead. Flying in a column formation they passed over the clearly marked DZ and unloaded their much needed support. With the exception of eight planes which failed to navigate properly to the DZ, but whose planeloads were subsequently accounted for, there was little difficulty or confusion experienced in completing the operation. The regiment assembled quickly and moved to the sounds of cannon and small arms fire within the hour. Later checks revealed that, amazingly, only 75 men had suffered injuries as a result of the jump. In exactly eight hours the 504^th had been notified of its mission, briefed, loaded into planes, jumped on its assigned drop zone, and committed against the enemy.

By dawn the regiment was firmly emplaced in a defensive sector three miles from Paestum and Southwest of Albanella. The days of the 14th and 15th of September were spent in anticipation of a tank attack that threatened from the Calore River region to the North. The 2^nd Battalion assisted in the repulsing of one tank attack across the Sele River while E Company, on a reconnaissance in force of the same area, encountered scattered and small elements of the enemy. The regimental recon platoon patrolled the area several miles to the front and battalions also sent out reconnaissance and combat patrols of their own with particular emphasis on the Altavilla sector. Hostile artillery fire was spasmodic and largely interdictory in character. Air activity was confined principally to friendly craft, though the enemy in groups of two and three would occasionally make an appearance over 504^th positions only to be driven off by intense fire from supporting anti-aircraft units. On the morning of the 16th, the regiment marched four miles to occupy the town of Albanella, where at noon, Colonel Tucker issued to the battalion commanders the order to seize and hold the high ground surmounting Altavilla. The area in the region of Altavilla for several years had been a firing range for a German artillery school; consequently there was no problem of range, deflection, or prepared concentrations that the enemy had not solved long before the advent of the Americans. Needless to say, hostile artillery and mortar fire was extremely accurate and capable of pinpointing with lethal concentrations such vital features as wells, trails, and draws. During the three days that the 504^th occupied the several hills behind Altavilla, approximately 30 paratroopers died, 150 were wounded, and one man was missing in action.

The days that followed were, in the words of General Mark Clark, Commander of the 5^th Army, "responsible for saving the Salerno beachhead." They included repelling tank attacks and small enemy forces. As the 504^th took the high ground at Altavilla, the enemy counterattacked, and on the night of the 17th, it became evident that help had to be secured if the 504^th, now completely cut off from friendly forces, was to hold these key positions so necessary for the security of the beachhead. The Commander of 6^th Corps, General Dawley, suggested the unit withdraw. Epitomizing the determined spirit of the Regiment, Colonel Tucker vehemently replied, "Retreat, Hell! -- Send me my other battalion!" The 3^rd Battalion then rejoined the 504^th, the enemy was repulsed, and the Salerno beachhead was saved. This, the first contact with the enemy for men of the 504^th since Sicily and the first time that the regiment had been committed as a unit in any single tactical operation, was a battle that turned the tide of the German onslaught on the Salerno beachhead and frustrated their attempts to contain the Fifth Army within the confines of the coastal plain reaching as far as Altavilla. On 1 October 1943, the 504^th became the first infantry unit to enter Naples and 3^rd Battalion became the first U.S. parachute unit to receive a Presidential Unit Citation as a result of the fierce fighting.

The 504^th fought hard in all battles they encountered in Italy. Nothing reflected this more than a diary entry of a German officer found at Anzio. The passage read:

American parachutists...devils in baggy pants...are less than 100 meters from my outpost line. I can't sleep at night; they pop up from nowhere and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems like the black-hearted devils are everywhere...To this day the paratroopers of the 504^th PIR are still known as "The Devils".

Date: 14 September 1943
Unit: 509^th PIB
Operation: Avalanche
Troopers: 640
Country: Italy
Dropzone: Avellino
Aircraft: C-47s
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump

Date: March 5-May 17 1944
Unit: Chindits and 1^st USAAF Air Commandos
Operation: Thursday
Troopers: 15, 000 men
Country: Burma
Landing Zones: "Broadway" and "Pacadilly"
Aircraft: C-47s, Waco gliders
Type Air delivery: Night Daylight glider assaults and resupply landings with mini-bulldozers to clear landing strips for C-47s to airland troops, pack mules, pack howitzers

Legendary British Major General Orde Wingate

In preparation for Wingate's Burma operations, to begin in early 1944, a special AAF unit which came to be known as the 1^st Air Commando Group was formed lead by Colonel Phil Cochrane...

Colonel Phil Cochrane and a Paratrooper

and went into training for purposes of flying Wingate's troops into battle, evacuating the wounded, providing airsupply and direct air support.

This elite unit included contingents of Troop Carrier, Fighter, Medium Bomber, and Reconnaissance outfits, and totaled more than 500 men. Aircraft in the Group included C-47s, P-51s, B-25s, observation aircraft, and CG-4A Waco gliders. After Stilwell's offensive had penetrated well into Burma in February 1944 and were reinforced by the American regiment that came to be known as Merrill's Marauders, Wingate got his orders, which included the establishment of his forces in Burma to cut the supply lines of Japanese forces opposing Stilwell's units. Wingate's plan called for a forced march by one of his brigades through jungle terrain deep behind enemy lines, to be resupplied nightly by 1^st Air Commandos. Next, beginning in early March, came the transport by glider of two of his brigades up to 165 miles behind enemy lines, where they would quickly carve out airheads, build up their forces, and set out to complete their primary tasks. Wingate's forces, trained as guerrillas and known as the Chindits, included British, Gurkha, Burmese, Indian, and Nigerian troops. The Troop Carrier operation, which began on 5 March, authorized overloads for the Wacos (4,500 lbs payload rather than the standard 3,750 lbs). Eighty gliders were to fly double-tow for more than 250 miles and then make a night landing at a large clearing near the village of Indaw. A total of 34 x C-47s and CG-4As took off and climbed to 8,000 ft., a feat that took some 80 minutes at full throttle on double-tow. Due primarily to overloading, most gliders broke loose, and only 31 made it to the LZ. Casualties were heavy among those who made it to the target: 31 men dead, 30 seriously injured. No resistance was encountered upon landing. The mission, preceded by a Pathfinder unit, delivered 539 men, along with 65,972 lbs of cargo and three mules. Glider-borne engineers cleared and leveled the field and by nightfall had built a runway 5,000 ft. long and 300 ft. wide. During this same night the first C-47s landed, delivering 500 more Soldiers, ammunition, and supplies; by 11 March, more than 9,000 Chindits had been flown into this airstrip. On the night that C-47s began landing at the first airfield, 12 more CG-4As-on single tow-were delivered to a nearby location, and within two days engineers there had built a new 3,000 ft. strip. During the next two months, the 1^st Air Commando Group flew 96 more glider sorties-most at night. Glider snatches were also performed, and most of those took place at night as well. Northern Burmese objectives were secured by Stilwell's forces near the end of August 1944, and up until that time, the Troop Carrier crews continued to fly airsupply missions to the Chindits and others in the Allied offensive in Burma.

To read more about the amazing CHINDITS:

VIDEO! on the CHINDITS

Part 1

Japanese masters at jungle warfare bicycle infiltrate and outflank British taking Malaya/Singapore, demoralized in restive India, Wavell calls for maverick Wingate who lead Israeli Special Night Squads and Gideon Force to victoria in Ethiopia, he creates long-range penetration groups resupplied by air to out-junglefight the Japanese, attacking their supply lines

Part 2

300 man columns with 100 mules, RAF radiomen with each column to insure resupply, 90 day operations, 2 columns sent south to divert Japs, 5 columns under Wingate head east to cut rail lines, bad weather prevented resupply so columns went without food for 10 days, men got sick, had to eat their pack mules, need for SERE skills to gather food and lightweight rations or rice seems evident, seriously wounded men shot when should have been air-evaced by STOL grasshopper planes, 1, 000 men out of 3, 000 died, of 2, 000 survivors, 600 were unable to return to duty, wily Winston Churchill has Wingate accompany him to Canada to get Americans and Canadians to create their own Special Forces, 1^st Air Commandos created to better support CHINDITS and American Galahad penetration force that became Merill's Marauders now the Army's 75^th Rangers

Part 3

Colonel Phil Cochrane's Air Commandos well-equipped with P-51 fighter-bombers, C-47s and 100 x Waco gliders to infiltrate without having to march in, gliders carrying tiny tracked bulldozers to improve landing areas so C-47s could airland with mules and the rest of the men

Part 4

Operation Thursday: multiple CHINDIT brigades in strong points deep inside Jap-held Burma, Wingate liases with his brigade commanders by STOL grasshopper but switches to a longer-range B-25 bomber to return to headquarters that crashes, killing him. Cochrane's fighter-bombers offer maneuver air support to help ward off Jap attacks

Part 5

Air resupply and CASEVAC by Sunderland seaplanes on the river, CHINDITs ordered to take Mogang to assist Stillwell's taking of Mytykinkya town after taking the airfield, Slim's 14^th Army with Bren gun carriers and light and medium tanks repulses Jap offensive, Stillwell and CHINDITs link-up and latter are flown back to India, Ledo road connected to Burma road to resupply China, Japs in retreat, CHINDITs disbanded and stupid idea that resources would have been better used with Slim's predictable advance is non-sense, without Stillwell and CHINDITS UNHINGING the Japs from the inside-out, Slim wouldn't have got anywhere

A good Hollywood depiction of CBI Paratroop/Glider Airborne operations, see Errol Flynn's 1945 movie, "Objective Burma" which features actual combat footage including a CG-4A glider snatch at the end!

1944: D-Day

VIDEO ONLINE FOR FREE:

www.cinemanow.com/TitleDetail.aspx?titleID=26509&grpID=435&device=0&cpt=0

Geronimo: The U.S. Airborne in World War II

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Synopsis: The United States Airborne played a major role in the success of Allied operations throughout World War II. From their first jumps in North Africa and Sicily, to the massive drops in Normandy and Holland, the Airborne was an important part of Allied military strategy. Initially conceived as an assault force able to parachute behind enemy lines, to seize and hold strategic areas until ground forces could link up with them, the AIrborne unites were used in many different ways. From dropping in to capture key positions behind enemy lines in Normandy and Holland, to fighting as tough ground forces at Anzio and the Battle of the Bulge, the Airborne was ready for anything. Elite, confident, and ready for action, the men of the United States Airborne were the best trained and best conditioned fighting force of the war. These men represented the finest combat troops America had to offer and they proved it in the face of unbelievable odds and under the most extreme conditions.

This Documentary is THEIR story. Told entirely through veteran and historian interviews and supported by rare archival footage, this set features the stories and experiences of the paratroopers in their own words, creating a uniquely personal perspective of the United States Airborne forces during World War II.

MPAA Rating: NR
Length: 2hr. 43min

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The "Red Devils" of the 508^th storm from the sky and knock out German anti-aircraft guns for the gliders to land safely...

Date: 6 June 1944
Unit: 82^nd Airborne Division (507^th, 508^th) 505^th RCT, Includes: 505^th Parachute Infantry Reg., Co. B/307^th Engineer Battlion & 456^th Parachute Field Artillery Batalion. 28 Pathfinders, 504^th PIR, (7 returned).
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump, wing shackle bundle drops, Gliders

Operation: Titanic (Dropping of parachute dummies, "Oscar").
Operation: Overlord
Troopers: 6,418
Country: France
Dropzone: Normandy
Aircraft: C-47

"We Were a Band of Brothers" by John D. Shaw, depicting the famed men of Easy Company, 2/506^th PIR preparing for the fateful jump into Normandy on the 'night of nights'. After nearly 2 years in the planning and creation, Ghost Wings and Liberty Studios have had the honor of having the participation of over 14 original veterans of Easy Company in personally signing these lithographs. Each of these distinguished "Band of Brothers" participated in the D-Day jump on June 6, 1944, and continued on to make military history, immortalized in Steven Ambrose's bestseller and the award-winning HBO miniseries.

Date: 6 June 1944
Unit: 101^st Airborne Division [326^th, 377^th, 501^st, 502^nd, 506^th]
Operation: Titanic (Dropping of parachute dummies, "Oscar").
Operation: Overlord
Troopers: 6,638
Country: France
Dropzone: Normandy
Aircraft: C-47
Type Air delivery: Night Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump, wing shackle bundle drops, Gliders

www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Lewis/Lewis.asp

Jedburgh Team Operations in Support of the 12^th Army Group, August 1944

Excerpts from Dr. S. J. Lewis' U.S. Army study on the activities of a number of Jedburgh teams operating in northern France during the last year of the war addresses this often-overlooked aspect of the war in Europe.

In the summer of 1944, Allied special operations teams known as Jedburghs parachuted into occupied Europe to cooperate with resistance groups behind German lines and to aid in the advance of Allied ground forces. Each of the ninety-nine Jedburgh teams consisted of three specially trained volunteers. Clandestine operations of the kind that the Jedburghs conducted often have been recounted in memoirs and novels, but only a portion of the actual operational records have been declassified. The Jeds, as they called themselves, were but one group charged with clandestine work. Individual agents, inter-Allied missions, Special Air Service (SAS) troops, and other such organizations will only be included in this study when they specifically influenced Jedburgh operations.

This study examines the operations of the eleven Jedburgh teams dropped into northern France during the summer of 1944, with particular emphasis on the degree to which they assisted in the advance of the 12^th Army Group from Normandy to the German border. The treatment of these Jedburgh teams will be arranged chronologically, by date of insertion. The area of operations covered by these teams reached from the Belgian border in the north, south to Nancy. Jedburgh operations south of Nancy lie beyond the scope of this study. The operational records of the eleven northern teams form the core of the documentation for this study, although a good deal of the story told here has been gleaned from other sources, memoirs and interviews with Jedburgh veterans (see map 1). Regrettably, the records of the Special Forces Headquarters (SFHQ), the organization with General Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), that provided operational command and control for Jedburgh teams, remain classified and, therefore, were not available for use in this study.

The sun was setting on 7 July 1944 at Harrington Air Base some fifty miles north of London. Captain Bill Dreux, a thirty-one year old lawyer from New Orleans, like his two partners, was weighted down by a .45-caliber pistol, carbine, ammo, binoculars, money belt, escape kit, flashlight, tobacco, and map case and could barely move. Over all this equipment, each man wore a camouflaged body-length smock. Dreux felt wrapped like a mummy and had trouble getting out of the station wagon. Finally, after the driver had assisted each out of the vehicle, the three tightly wrapped men waddled slowly in short, jerky steps toward a black-painted B-24 Liberator. The absurdity of the situation was not lost on the bomber's U.S. Army Air Corps crew, who succumbed to laughter. After a last cigarette, Bill Dreux, his partners, and the crew scaled the B-24 and took off for Brittany. Dreux and his two colleagues were Jedburghs. [1]

Jedburghs were volunteers specially trained to conduct guerrilla warfare in conjunction with the French Resistance in support of the Allied invasion of France. Bill Dreux and his two partners survived their mission. Their story has already been told, however, and with some skill, in one of the few published Jedburgh memoirs. This paper will examine the role of the eleven Jedburgh teams parachuted into northern France in the summer of 1944 whose story has not been told (see map 2). These eleven teams, like Dreux's, worked mostly with French teenagers and the few Frenchmen not drafted into German labor organizations or prisoners of war in Germany. Many Jedburgh teams had difficulty radioing London, and some that did contact London doubted that their reports were acted upon. After the Jedburgh operations in France concluded, the teams' after-action reports reflected a sense, not of failure, but rather of frustration. The teams felt they could have been used more effectively. The major reason for this frustration was a professional officer corps unfamiliar with, the capabilities of unconventional warfare and the multiplicity of secret organizations (several of them new) competing for recognition, personnel, funds, and missions.

Following the fall of France, in July 1940, the Chamberlain cabinet, in one of its last acts, created the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Independent of other British intelligence services, its charter was suitably unique: to foster sabotage activity in Axis-occupied countries. Two offices in the War Office and one in the Foreign Office had been studying the subject since 1938, and they combined to form SOE2. Although SOE ran intelligence circuits, it was independent of the Secret (or Special) Intelligence Service (SIS), which today is known as MI 63. In similar fashion, the Special Air Service Regiment remained independent of SOE and SIS. David Stirling, who created the SAS in 1941, summarized his organization's purpose as follows:

.... firstly, raids in depth behind the enemy lines, attacking HQ nerve centres, landing grounds, supply lines and so on; and, secondly, the mounting of sustained strategic offensive activity from secret bases within hostile territory and, if the opportunity existed, recruiting, training, arming and coordinating local guerrilla elements.4

MAP 2. Jedburgh teams deployed to northern France.

The United States approached World War II without a strategic intelligence organization. It first created the Committee of Information, a conspicuous failure that soon became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Its director, William ("Wild Bill") Donovan, allowed it to duplicate the functions and methods of the British intelligence organizations, to which it was closely tied. But whereas the British effort was marked by independent competing organs, Donovan attempted to unify the many facets of the secret world in his neophyte OSS. Following September 1942, the OSS special operations branch joined the SOE London Group to create a combined office known as SOE/SO on Baker Street in London. [5]

SOE's first director, Dr. Hugh Dalton, explained his organization's purpose as follows:

We have got to organize movements in enemy-occupied territory comparable to the Sinn Fein movement in Ireland, to the Chinese Guerillas now operating against Japan, to the Spanish Irregulars who played a notable part in Wellington's campaign or-one might as well admit it-to the organizations which the nazis themselves have developed so remarkably in almost every country in the world. This "democratic international" must use many different methods, including industrial and military sabotage, labour agitation and strikes, continuous propaganda, terrorist acts against traitors and German leaders, boycotts and riots.[6]

One of the most important personalities in SOE was Sir Colin McV. Gubbins, who eventually became its executive director. Born in Japan in 1896, Gubbins was a slight Scot who had served in the artillery on the Western Front in World War I, in Ireland during "the Troubles," and in northern Russia during the Russian Civil War. In 1939, in the War Office's small unconventional war section, he wrote two short pamphlets: "The Art of Guerilla Warfare" and "Partisan Leaders' Handbook."[6]

He created the "Independent Companies" (later renamed commandos) and successfully led several of them in Norway in 1940. May 1942 found him a brigadier general with the title of military deputy to head of SOE. [7]

In May 1942, SOE entered into talks involving its support of a future Allied invasion of northwestern Europe. The British Chiefs of Staff foresaw SOE activity occurring in two phases. In the first phase (cooperation during the initial invasion), SOE would organize and arm resistance forces and "take action against the enemy's rail and signal communications, air personnel, etc." During the second phase, after the landing, SOE would provide guides for British conventional units, guards for important locations, labor parties, and organized "raiding parties capable of penetrating behind German lines."[9]

Brigadier Gubbins and SOE developed the Jedburgh concept from these discussions with one paper, drafted by Peter Wilkinson, summarizing its activities as follows:

As and when the invasion commences, SOE will drop additional small teams of French speaking personnel carrying arms for some forty men each. The role of these teams will be to make contact with local authorities or existing SOE organizations, to distribute the arms, to start off the action of the patriots, and, most particularly, to arrange by W/T [wireless telegraphy] communication the dropping points and reception committees for further arms and equipment on the normal SOE system. Each Team will consist of one British Officer, one W/T operator with set and possibly one guide.[10]

On 6 July, Gubbins (recently promoted to major general) briefly explained the project to the head of the SOE security section, requesting a code name for teams "to raise and arm the civilian population to carry out guerrilla activities against the enemy's lines of communication."[11] The following day, the security section issued the project the code name "Jedburgh", after a small town on the Scots-English border.[12]

The Jedburgh project evolved along with the changing Allied invasion plans of the Continent. Later in the month, SOE resolved that seventy Jedburgh teams would be required, with the British and Americans each providing thirty-five. In August 1942, the British Chiefs of Staff informed SOE that there was no longer a requirement for Jedburgh teams to provide guides and labor or raiding parties, effectively eliminating phase two of the original proposal. On 24 December 1942, a meeting at General Headquarters, Home Forces, determined that Jedburghs would all be uniformed soldiers and that one of the two officers in each team should be of the nationality of the country to which the team would deploy. This signified that the project would require Belgian, Dutch, and French Soldiers. Furthermore, Jedburgh teams would be dropped to secure areas, where SOE agents would receive them. Each team would be given one or more military tasks to perform in their area. In addition, since it would take at least seventy-two hours to deploy a team and have them operational, Jedburgh teams would not be used to assist the tactical plans of conventional ground forces. Finally, SOE would provide twelve Jedburgh teams to further examine the concept's possibilities and limitations during Exercise Spartan from 3-11 March 1943.[13]

Exercise Spartan simulated an Allied breakout from the initial invasion lodgement area. SOE's Jedburgh teams attempted to assist the British Second Army advance, with the 8^th Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the role of local resistance groups. SOE also used this opportunity to test the insertion of individual agents behind enemy lines and the role of SOE staff officers at army and corps headquarters. Each of these parties communicated via an SOE radio base in Scotland. Following the exercise, SOE concluded that Jedburgh teams should be inserted at least forty miles behind enemy lines to conduct small-scale guerrilla operations against enemy lines of communication. The exercise also demonstrated that each army and army group headquarters- required an SOE liaison and signals detachment. SOE also concluded that it should maintain a small detachment with the Supreme Headquarters.[14]

SOE and OSS, after compiling the Spartan lessons learned, both began the process of moving similar position papers through the British and American hierarchies, seeking approval, support, and personnel. On 19 July 1943, Lieutenant General Frederick R. Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, recommended that the SOE proposals be approved. To his understanding, SOE would provide small staffs and signal detachments to each army and army group headquarters (and the Supreme Allied Commander's headquarters) "for controlling resistance groups." [15] Jedburgh teams would constitute a strategic reserve in England until D Day "to provide, if necessary, suitable leadership and equipment for those resistance groups found to be in need of them." [16] Two days later, the British Chiefs of Staff approved the SOE proposal, with the Americans following suit on 24 August 1943. By October, SOE and OSS each agreed to provide sufficient personnel to field 35 Jedburgh teams plus 15 reserve teams-a total of 300 men in 100 teams.[17]

SHAEF created a special forces (SF) detachment for each army and army group headquarters to coordinate these operations with the field army. These detachments linked the field headquarters with SOE/SO. Each detachment fielded about twelve officers and twenty men. The senior OSS officer with the U.S. Third Army described the organization as follows: "The SF Detachment was an orthodox military staff organized to provide the Commanding General of the Army a direct means to exercise control over the organized resistance elements and to use these elements in connection with military operations." [18] The detachments, however, had no means of directly contacting those organized resistance groups and Jedburgh teams other than through SOE/SO. That organization summarized agent and resistance group reports and dispatched those summaries to the SF detachments.[19]

To integrate this effort with the Allied invasion of France, SOE/SO on 1 May 1944 became the Special Forces Headquarters responsible to SHAEF's G3 Branch. Although SOE had several sections running circuits in France, the most important were RF Section (circuits supporting General Charles de Gaulle) and F Section (which operated non-Gaullist circuits). De Gaulle's government in exile still remained at arm's length, but on occasion, its intelligence branch, Bureau Central de Renseignements et l'Action (BCRA), cooperated with SOE/SO. One such occasion was a 25 January 1944 London meeting to discuss the reception of Jedburgh teams in France. SOE, OSS, and the BCRA agreed to finance a mission for BCRA and F Section to establish reception committees and safe houses for Jedburgh teams. Through herculean efforts, de Gaulle's government managed to largely unify the many diverse French resistance groups, in March 1944 announcing the creation of the Forces Francaises de l'Interieur (FFI). The FFI included the Communist Franc Tireurs et Partisans (FTP-French leftist resistance organization), the largest and most active resistance organization. It remained difficult, however, for the many diverse French resistance organizations to cooperate without considering postwar political dilemmas.[20]

In July 1944, SHAEF directed de Gaulle's subordinate and personal friend, Pierre Koenig,[21] commander of the FFI, to gradually assume command over SFHQ operations in France. The transfer did not occur until 21 August. In any case, this was largely a political and cosmetic measure, because Koenig's deputies from SOE and OSS maintained the mechanisms of command, communication, and supply (see figure 1).[22] Most of the eleven Jedburgh teams examined here operated in eastern France, known as Region C to the FFI, commanded by District Military Representative "Planete." Region C consisted of the Ardennes, Marne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Vosges, Bas-Rhin, and Haute-Rhin Departments. This had been a difficult area in which to operate from the beginning, but in August 1944, it became even more difficult, as the Vichy police, the Milice, and its supporters fled east with the remnants of the defeated German Army.[23]

In mid-September 1943, with the Allied invasion of France just around the corner, no Jedburgh force existed. Over the next three months, SOE and OSS each recruited officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) with French language skills-all volunteers. The NCOs would serve as radio operators, the officers as either Jedburghs or staff officers of the SF detachments. Little is known of the SOE selection process, but the OSS qualifications for Jedburgh officers were as follows:

Officers recruited as leaders and seconds in command should be picked for qualities of leadership and daring, ability to speak and understand French, and all-around physical condition. They should be experienced in handling men, preferably in an active theater of operations, and be prepared to be parachuted in uniform behind enemy lines and operate on their own for some time. They must have had at least basic military training and preferably have aptitude for small arms weapons.[24]

Qualifications for the NCO radio operators were less stringent, requiring only a working knowledge of French and the ability to attain a speed of fifteen words per minute before leaving the United States. They, too, had to be in top physical condition. It would appear that the screening procedures were quite rigorous: of the fifty-five officers selected for further Jedburgh training in Great Britain, only thirty-five became Jedburghs. This signified that the OSS was forced to secure additional volunteers from U.S. Army units in Great Britain. Several of those volunteers did not join their colleagues until February, a good month after basic training had already begun.

Although SOE and OSS were theoretically coequals in SOE /SO (and later in SFHQ), SOE remained dominant. SOE provided the training sites and most of the instructors. The American volunteers arrived in Great Britain in late December 1943, with the officers spending two weeks going through psychological tests near Peterfield, south of London. The officers then split into three groups and rotated through the Special Training Schools (STS) No. 6 at Walsingham, No. 45 at Fairford, and No. 40 at Gumley Hall. The sixty-two American NCOs attended, the SOE communications school at Henley-on-Thames. Like the officers, however, they also underwent the ubiquitous psychological tests and practiced marksmanship, self-defense (taught by former members of the Shanghai Police), and physical training. In late January, all the Americans attended the Ringway parachute school, a three-day course, where they trained on parachuting through the small hole (joe hole) of an RAF bomber.[26]

Lieutenant Colonel Frank V. Spooner of the British Army established the Jedburgh training school at Milton Hall, a large estate four miles from Peterborough, England. Operational training for the Jedburghs began there in February 1944, emphasizing guerrilla warfare tactics and skills: demolitions, use of enemy weapons, map reading, night navigation, agent circuit operations, intelligence, sabotage, escape and evasion, counterespionage, ambushes, security, the use of couriers, and hand-to-hand combat. Almost all Jedburghs practiced French, Morse code, and long marches. The Jedburghs also received briefings on the history and organization of the resistance in France and other European countries. The final seventy French volunteers did not arrive at Milton Hall until March 1944, after SOE/SO had conducted a recruitment drive through the Middle East. From 31 May to 8 June, many Jedburgh teams participated in Lash, the last large-scale exercise. In Leicestershire's Charnwood Forest, the teams rehearsed receiving orders, linking up with resistance groups, and later leading attacks against targets designated by radio message. SOE/SO, or, SFHQ as it was now known, expressed pleasure with the exercise, although the simulated guerrillas had been observed moving during daylight in large groups. SFHQ concluded that the guerrillas should have approached their targets in smaller bands. In the, category of "minor criticisms," the guerrilla groups had received vague orders, which led to confusion. In addition, the groups had difficulty with their escape and evasion techniques.[27]

The Jedburghs formed their own teams in March and April, between the large-scale training exercises. In early April, Lieutenant Colonel George Richard Musgrave, British Army, became the new commandant at Milton Hall. By April, training was by and large complete, and on 2 May 1944, fifteen Jedburgh teams sailed for North Africa in preparation for insertion into southern France from Algiers. The teams remaining at Milton Hall continued to train while awaiting their alert or warning order. As a rule, upon receipt of their alert order, the team would be isolated and driven to a London safe house, where SFHQ representatives from SOE's country sections briefed the officers on the particulars of the mission, local conditions, and background information. Although most Jedburghs entered France wearing military uniforms, several teams were informed at the briefing that they would be parachuted into France in civilian clothes. Needless to say, if they were caught wearing civilian clothes, the Germans would treat them as spies. From there, the team was usually driven to Harrington or Tempsford Air Bases to await a flight that same evening. Other air bases were occasionally used, but Harrington fielded the modified blackpainted bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force's 801^st (Provisional) Bomb Group (Heavy), while the RAFs 38^th Group flew out of Tempsford. SFHQ maintained its supply and packing area (known as Area H) some thirty-five miles from Harrington near the village of Holme. Many of the Jedburghs heard of the D Day invasion while on Exercise Lash in Leicestershire. There was a general sense of disappointment upon the realization that they would be deployed not before, but after, the invasion. By the end of June, SFHQ had dispatched thirteen Jedburgh teams to France (six from England and seven from North Africa). At the end of July, the number of teams in France increased to twenty-five, although none had been dropped north of the Seine River. [28]

The Jedburgh concept had evolved considerably from Gubbins' original 1942 proposal. The number of teams mushroomed from 70 to 100, of which 93 would deploy to France and another 6 to Holland in support of Operation Market-Garden. From being a British force, the Jedburghs became an international one including Americans, French, Belgians, and Dutch. Basically, they constituted an, unconventional warfare reserve in theater to provide leadership, organization, training, weapons, supplies, and communication links to FFI resistance groups. They would, be inserted at least forty miles behind enemy lines and hence would not usually be in a position to provide tactical assistance to conventional forces. The teams would conduct unconventional warfare against German lines of communication, but not until told to do so by SFHQ. When Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan approved the Jedburgh concept in 1943, it was with the understanding that the special forces detachments at army and army group headquarters would control the organized resistance groups behind German lines. Furthermore, he believed it was the job of his army commander to exercise that control. How suitable, however, were the senior army officers for directing unconventional warfare behind enemy lines?

Modern professional officer corps, as a rule, have very little interest in unconventional warfare. That was certainly the case for the senior commanders and staff officers of World War II, trained in the branch schools and staff colleges of the 1920s and 1930s. Robin Brook, senior SOE adviser to SHAEF, observed that the regular officers he served with had little knowledge of or interest in unconventional warfare.[29] The SF detachments began to see similar patterns upon taking the field in France. As early as 12 July, when the commanders of the 10^th and 11^th SF Detachments met, one observed: "It appears from his experience and ours here that Armies working-under Army Groups are not very strategically minded".[30] The first response of the U.S. Third Army upon breaking-out of the Normandy bridgehead was to disarm the FFL. It took a directive from the 12^th Army Group to establish that the FFI were allies and not enemies.[31] Basically, there was little interest in SF detachments or what was happening 160 kilometers in the enemy's rear. To complicate the situation further, the SF detachments could only contact Jedburgh teams and resistance groups through SFHQ. Another possible cloud on the horizon was the efficiency of communications between resistance groups, SFHQ, and the SF detachments. With more and more Allied special operations teams and resistance groups operating behind German lines, would SFHQ be capable of receiving and analyzing the increasing radio traffic and giving the SF detachments sufficient information to act upon?

Jedburgh teams were but one special operations instrument available to SHAEF in the summer of 1944. Current military doctrine emphasizes a rational construct of Special Operations Forces, an umbrella concept encompassing numerous organizations and functions ranging from psychological warfare and civil affairs all the way to elite special forces teams conducting direct-action missions deep behind enemy lines. In 1944, however, there was no such concept. Theoretically, SHAEF and its SFHQ provided the umbrella to encompass the many special-operations type forces. But as we have seen, the Allied special operations effort was marked by different organizations competing for funds, personnel, and missions. Although pledged to support SHAEF in the invasion of western Europe a number of organizations remained independent, the most conspicuous being British Intelligence and the Special Air Service Regiment. A number of Jedburgh teams in the field, when confronted with a mission beyond their means, specifically requested reinforcement by SAS parties. Unfortunately, SFHQ did not control the operational use of those forces. The modern concept of "deconfliction" (ensuring that simultaneous special or intelligence operations do not conflict or compromise each other) did not exist.

The experience and skills of FFI groups (and SOE agents inserted to work with the resistance) varied considerably. Some groups were rather familiar with the reception procedures (flashlight identification signals and two lines of bonfires) and had even used the procedures once or twice. Other groups would form their first reception committee to meet a Jedburgh team. A coded BBC message (known as a blind transmission broadcast) informed each FFI group of the impending arrival of a Jedburgh team. Some Jedburghs trained to receive a small aircraft in the field to evacuate the severely wounded. Jedburghs, however, were expected to remain in the field until they linked up with advancing Allied ground forces. This event was called being "overrun" and required no special procedures other than a Jedburgh showing his SFHQ dentification paper. The Jedburghs who would parachute into northern France followed the progress of Operation Overlord in the newspapers and BBC newscasts. Until they received their warning order and briefing in London, however, they did not know where they would be inserted. Of the 12^th Army Group and its operations, they knew next to nothing.

The Allied invasion, of Normandy on 6 June 1944 succeeded at all points, and Allied control of the sea and air ensured the rapid buildup of follow-on forces. The German High Command erroneously believed the main invasion would come farther north, in the Calais area. This misconception, along with Allied air interdiction, slowed the arrival of German reinforcements. The feared German counterattack never took place. Instead, a battle of attrition developed a battle the Germans could not afford to fight. The strain on the German Army began to show by 13 June, when the U.S. VII Corps stretched the German line to the breaking point, severing the Cotentin Peninsula on 18 June and advancing north to capture the port of Cherbourg. The Allied armies in Normandy continued, to grow in strength and experience as they wore down the Germans, who still ably defended the difficult Bocage terrain. On 18 July, the U.S. First Army captured St. Lo, while the British Second Army engaged most of the German armored divisions near Caen. What was needed was one powerf