AIRBORNE
Infantry and weapons delivered to a battlefi eld by parachute and glider. The Soviet Union was a pioneer in airborne warfare, experimenting as early as 1922 with both parachutists and gliders. It trained so many youths in sports jump and glider clubs of the Komsomol and Osoaviakhim that by 1940 over one million citizens had received some airborne training. The Red Army Air Force (VVS) also made advances in development of advance gliders and other specialized aircraft. This lead in airborne tactics and resources was squandered during the late 1930s purge of VVS top commands. An effort was made to reorganize in the late spring of 1941, but it came too late to affect the outcome of the opening battles of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in mid-1941. Preoccupied with defending against deep German penetrations during BARBAROSSA, the Red Army did not attempt strategic airborne operations. The Red Army and VVS had experimented with prototype fl ying tanks that were intended to accompany infantry into deep battle operations. That experiment stopped in early 1942 as more basic combat demands took priority in planning, production, and battlefi eld execution. Facing catastrophic manpower losses, the Red Army abandoned its prewar plans to form airborne tank, artillery, and infantry corps. Instead, it reorganized
15
Airborne
all airborne forces on a brigade-level. The Stavka thereafter mostly used airborne troops as light or regular infantry in desperate ground fi ghting, with only small drops conducted near Kiev and Odessa. Surviving gliders were used to resupply pockets of regulars trapped behind German lines. In that respect, the German and Soviet airborne experience was similar. A Soviet corps-level airborne operation was assayed during a Red Army counteroffensive at Viazma in February–March, 1942. It formed part of the Rzhev-V iazma strategic operation ( January 8–April 20, 1942). In the Demiansk offensive operation that spring, over 7,000 Soviet paratroopers died. They landed well enough behind German lines, but were overpowered when left without suffi cient follow-on support. From 1942 the V VS employed its glider fl eet mainly to resupply partisans in German rear areas and to fl y in demolition specialists and explosives to assist partisans carrying out sabotage missions. NKVD men were also parachuted or glided behind German lines with instructions to establish tight central control over the partisans. Some Red Army airborne were employed in local attacks in the Crimea in 1943, during advances that retook part of the peninsula and surrounding Black Sea region. But most airborne were converted into rifl e divisions and thrown into hard fi ghting as regular infantry. Another large Soviet airborne operation was tried at Kanev on September 24, 1943. Having broken up the prewar airborne divisions, the Stavka deployed a scratch corps of ill-trained or even untrained recruits. Some were making their fi rst jump of any kind right into combat, over the Dnieper River at night. They were simply ordered into transport aircraft and told to jump. The operation failed with extremely heavy losses. The fi asco contributed directly to Soviet failure in the larger Battle of the Dnieper (1943), and Stalin forbade future night jumps. The most successful Soviet airborne assaults of the war came at its end, against the Japanese during the Manchurian offensive operation of August 1945. In that operation all three Red Army Fronts engaged against the Japanese employed airborne troops in, by then, well-practiced deep insertions. German military observers in the Soviet Union in the 1920s were intrigued by Soviet airborne experiments, although senior offi cers in the Reichswehr were not. Germany built some secret airborne capability in the 1920s and speeded the program in the early 1930s. The Luftwaffe worked openly on an airborne capability from 1938, once Adolf Hitler backed the project. A full airborne corps was thus in place before the war, led by Luftwaffe General Kurt Student. Limited airborne operations were planned for the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and again for the invasion of Poland in 1939. Neither plan was carried out due to settlement of the Czech crisis at the Munich Conference in September 1938 and the short duration of the FALL WEISS campaign in Poland. The corps eventually comprised one Luftwaffe division and a Heer division, seconded to the Luftwaffe. That was an unusual arrangement. In most militaries, airborne units were placed under army rather than air force control. The main aircraft employed in Luftwaffe airborne operations was the three-engine Ju-52. It could deliver Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) directly or tow them in a small specialty glider. The DFS-230 “attack glider” carried 10 Fallschirmjäger or a 2,500 lb. payload of equipment. The Luftwaffe later built the huge Me-323 Gigant (“Giant”), which could carry 200 men. Typically in
Airborne
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late-war German weapons design, that super-glider was beyond Luftwaffe logistical and transport capabilities as it needed three other planes to tow it, and the German aircraft industry had by then gone over to nearly exclusive fi ghters production. The Me-323 thus made an equivalent contribution to the German war effort as did Howard Hughes’ infamous, giant “Spruce Goose” HK-1 fl ying boat to Western Allied operations; that is, none whatever. The fi rst ever use of airborne assault troops in combat took place in Denmark on April 9, 1940, when Student’s men seized key airports by surprise. Within hours Fallschirmjäger also landed across Norway. At Dombås near Trondheim, they were defeated by the Norwegian Army after fi ve days of fi ghting. At Narvik advance Fallschirmjäger engaged in extensive fi ghting with British forces that had landed amphibiously. At the outset of FALL GELB on May 10, 1940, Fallschirmjäger parachutist and glider-borne assaults achieved notable success in Belgium, where they landed near or atop several key forts. Their most spectacular success came with capture of the key fortress at Eban Emael . In France, Fallschirmjäger took key bridges over the Meuse and other forward sites on the fi rst day, then awaited arrival of the Panzers. The most important element of their attacks was to mislead Western Allied commanders into believing the main weight of effort ( Schwerpunkt ) of the German offensive was in the north, when it actually came later through the Ardennes. Two more sets of landings were conducted on the fi rst day of the campaign in the Netherlands. One was carried out near The Hague, with the intention of seizing the airport to permit airlanding forces to fl y in. It met sharp resistance from the Dutch Army and saw huge losses of Ju-52 transports. A more successful operation led to seizure of key bridges over the Maas and several canals, allowing 9th Panzer to move quickly across country. Fallschirmjäger carried out glider attacks in Greece during the Balkan campaign (1940–1941). There followed the largest German airborne action of the war: a large-scale attack against British and Commonwealth forces on Crete (Operation MERKUR). Parachute and glider-borne assaults quickly took the main airport, but Student’s exposed and lightly armed Fallschirmjäger took 25 percent casualties and had to be heavily reinforced before the island was secured from stunned and poorly deployed, but determined, British and Greek defenders. The casualty rate among Fallschirmjäger on Crete convinced Hitler to forbid further large airborne operations. Germany only used Fallschirmjäger and glider troops afterwards for special missions such as the rescue of Mussolini (September 12, 1943). It also used gliders in very small reinforcement or espionage insertions and to deliver supplies to isolated troops on the Eastern Front. Otherwise, the Fallschirmjäger of “3rd Parachute Army” were used after Crete exclusively as light infantry in support of regular ground forces. They fought on the ground in Italy in 1943; on the Eastern Front from November 1943 to May 1944; and in Normandy, Brittany, and across the Netherlands during the second half of 1944. On several occasions, such as in Normandy and the Netherlands, Fallschirmjäger faced equally elite Western Allied paratroopers who dropped on top of them and who were also trained to fi ght as light infantry. The Germans made a successful surprise airborne assault on Tito ’s headquarters in western Bosnia in May 1944. The last signifi cant German use of
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glider troops was to land on the Vercors in southern France in an anti- Résistance operation in mid-1944. No other Axis military in Europe used gliders. Axis commanders also used the elite Italian airborne Folgore (“Lightning” ) Division mainly on the ground. It suffered massive casualties at El Alamein in 1942. The San Marco Marines of the Regia Marina also had a parachute unit, the Battaglione Nuotatori. Only the Japanese developed airborne capabilities among other Axis forces. These saw limited action from mid-1942 due to low numbers and because Japan quickly went over to a strict defensive posture around its Pacifi c perimeter. Before that, the Imperial Japanese Army drew upon German experience and advisers to train a limited number of men in parachute attack. Its “Raiding Group” (teishin dan) comprised 2 parachute regiments of 600 men each. They had organic transport and were complemented by an attached glider regiment. The Imperial Japanese Navy separately trained two battalions of Rikusentai from the Yokosuka base. These airborne marines were deployed on Celebes and Sumatra during the invasion of the Dutch East Indies in early 1942, and later on Timor. As Japan moved into a wholly defensive posture in 1943, the Yokosuka regiments were employed as airborne troops only in local raids and other small-scale special operations. They were largely wiped out fi ghting as regular light infantry in defense of Saipan in 1944. The British responded to early German success by rapidly organizing their own airborne and airlanding units. The most basic early problem Britain faced was limited strategic options. From June 1940, Britain was especially strained—to the defensive limit, but not beyond—by Italy’s entry into the war and the consequent opening of new East African and Mediterranean fronts. Proposals to develop an offensive airborne capability initially met determined institutional opposition from RAF Bomber Command and from the British Army, which protested against releasing scarce aircraft and elite recruits to airborne training units. However, airborne operations fi t well the Chiefs of Staff strategy and the prime minister’s strong preference for peripheral assaults around the edges of the Nazi empire. Rather than division-scale drops in support of conventional ground forces, which were no longer engaged on the continent in any case, the fi rst British airborne operations were conceived as commando-style raids. The fi rst raid dropped British paratroopers into Italy in February 1941. Other small-scale raids saw drops into France, but the British also took a very different lesson from defending against the Fallschirmjäger assault on Crete than did the Germans after carrying out that operation. Where Hitler was most and adversely impressed by high Fallschirmjäger casualties, the British viewed Crete as a successful airborne assault that took an important military objective. From late 1941, therefore, British airborne capability preparation was elevated to division-level, and planning resumed for future large-scale operations. Starting from scratch, the RAF and British Army had to design and produce specialist aircraft for airborne operations. The British did not have resources to spare at fi rst. Hence, they initially relied on an inadequate aircraft adaptation: drop holes were simply cut in the fl oor of two-engine Whitley medium bombers, then of two-engine Albemarle medium bombers. Once heavy bombers became available in large numbers, the British switched to four-engine Stirling and Halifax aircraft for their airborne deliveries. When American C-47 Dakotas became
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available through Lend-Lease , the British switched to that highly capable and purpose-built airborne delivery aircraft. The C-47 was slow and unarmored, but it was a highly reliable transport for airborne troops heading to drops zones. And it allowed men to jump from a side door designed to accommodate fast drops with bulky equipment. British wooden glider types also evolved until, in combination, the Hotspur, Horsa, and Hamilcar far exceeded the lift capabilities of the small German DFS-230. Where the early Hotspur carried just 8 men, the Horsa carried 32. The still larger Hamilcar achieved a carrying capacity of 40 parachutists or seven tons of equipment, jeeps, or even a light tank. Over 4,000 of the two larger glider types were built. A powered version of the 40-seat Hamilcar was designed for the Pacifi c War but never went into action. The fi rst effort to carry out a large-scale airborne assault out came with Operation TORCH, the Western Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942. British 1st Airborne Division next jumped into Sicily in 1943 during Operation HUSKY, fl ying from North African bases. British 1st Airborne was joined in the order of battle by 6th Airborne and dropped into hard fi ghting in Normandy at the outset of OVERLORD late on June 5, 1944, and into D-Day (June 6, 1944). British airborne jumped into total disaster around Arnhem during MARKET GARDEN that September. The experience shattered an entire airborne division and badly shook command confi dence in the practice of exposing paratroopers and lightly armed glider troops deep behind enemy lines. It should be noted that British airborne divisions were multinational. Dropping or airlanding alongside British troops in Normandy and again in the Netherlands were paratroopers of several nationalities, including a Polish Parachute Brigade and a battalion of Canadians with the Red Devils of 6th Airborne. Free French also served. The British also recruited a brigade of paratroopers from the Indian Army and another of Gurkhas from Nepal. Chindit glider airlandings were carried out in Burma with the aid of the U.S. Army Air Force in March 1944. The 50th Indian Parachute Brigade was used on the ground as light infantry, not as airborne, during the Imphal campaign . The Gurkha airborne brigade dropped near Rangoon in May 1945. The United States began development of a large-scale airborne capability in 1941. Until then its only operational airborne unit was the 501st Parachute Battalion. By the end of 1944 the U.S. Army trained and fi elded fi ve full airborne divisions. Each had an authorized complement of 8,505 men, comprising a parachute regiment and two glider regiments. U.S. airborne troops dropped in front of the fi rst assault waves that carried out HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily. They were heavily engaged in perimeter defense against German and Italian counterattacks. General George S. Patton then called upon 2,000 more to jump as critical reinforcements behind the American invasion beach. A terrible friendly fi re incident led USN and U.S. Army anti-aircraft gunners to shoot down 10 percent of the reinforcements, with signifi cant loss of both aircraft and lives. But the airborne troops who landed were crucial to holding off a German armored counterattack that pressed hard against the narrow beachhead. Two U.S. airborne divisions jumped or glided into the Côtentin peninsula in Normandy on D-Day: the 82nd “All American” and 101st “Screaming Eagles” landed behind UTAH and OMAHA beaches. They were
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nearly all badly scattered and dispersed and took high casualties as they engaged in hard fi ghting over the fi rst week of the Normandy campaign , including against veteran Fallschirmjäger deployed as light infantry in the Côtentin peninsula hedgerow country (bocage). The same American divisions made a second combat jump into the Netherlands during MARKET GARDEN. They were deployed on the ground as emergency, veteran infantry during the opening confusion of the Wehrmacht’s Ardennes offensive in December 1944. They were critical in disrupting the German drive toward Antwerp, with the 101st notably holding out at Bastogne after becoming completely surrounded. N one of the fi ve U.S. airborne divisions fi elded during the war had organic air transport. They were delivered to their drop zones by USAAF C-47 Dakotas or in towed-gliders, notably the Waco CG-4A. U.S. 13th and 17th Divisions completed training stateside and were deployed to the ETO before the end of 1944. The 11th Division was sent to the Pacifi c, where it carried out several combat drops on Luzon in late 1944. The four American airborne divisions in the ETO were expanded to an offi cial complement of 12,979 men each in December 1944. That was only a paper reform that had little or no impact on airborne operations. The last Western airborne operation of the European war was a joint combat jump made by British 6th Division and American 17th Division across the Rhine on March 23, 1945, in Operation VARSITY. Despite the fact that other American ground forces and elements of French 1st Army were already over the Rhine farther south, VARSITY was carried off as planned. Regardless of exhaustive advance preparation by Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, the jumps incurred heavy casualties among the airborne component. See also Air Commando; recoilless guns; Otto Skorzeny; Slovak Uprising; WESERÜBUNG .
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