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The History of the 101st Airborne Division is the epic story of the Division from its activation in August 1942 through the completion of Operation Desert Storm in April 1991. The Division’s progression through the sky took decades of hard work and tens of thousands of dedicated soldiers. In World War II, the 101st became the first American troops to set foot in occupied France, when, on 6 June 1944, its paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines, clearing the way for the 4th Infantry Division landing on Utah Beach. The Division would become famous for its work in Holland during Operation Market Garden, and for its successful defense of Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge. In Vietnam, the “Screaming Eagles” engaged in battle from 1965 to 1972, when they began their evolution to Air Mobile by deploying by helicopter. In the Gulf War, the Division fired the first shots of Operation Desert Storm by destroying Iraqi radar sites, and during ground war of the operation, they made the longest and largest air assault in history. In every engagement and during the training periods in between, the 101st Airborne Division has honored the words of its first commander, General William C. Lee, that it has a “rendezvous with destiny.” This book is a fitting record of that history, and of the men who are proud to be called “Screaming Eagles.”

Sujets

Histoire

Screaming Eagles

Gulf War

Military history of the United States

101st Airborne Division

Military

United States

Civil War

History

Screaming Eagles du Cap-Breton

101e division aéroportée (États-Unis)

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Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	17 mai 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781596527539
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0998€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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H ISTORY OF THE
101 ST A IRBORNE D IVISION
H ISTORY OF THE
101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION
Screaming Eagles
The First 50 Years

Edited by
C OL . R OBERT E. J ONES , USA (R ET )
Turner Publishing Company 200 4th Avenue north Suite 950 Nashville, TN 37316
www.turnerpublishing.com
Copyright 2005 by Turner Publishing Company
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-59652-746-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010926945
Printed in the United States of America.
11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
Dedicated to the memory of Major General William C. Lee, U.S. Army
General Lee, as a lieutenant colonel, was the insistent advocate who convinced the War Department that an airborne force was feasible and needed by the U.S. Army. He was and is still considered the father of the airborne.
His high standards for organization, training, equipment and people made the airborne divisions of World War II the place to be for all soldiers who sought to serve in units that were on the cutting edge of the profession of arms.
General Lee, as the first Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division, provided the leadership and drive to make the Screaming Eagles the best trained, equipped and motivated soldiers who served in World War II. He gave them a motto - Rendezvous With Destiny - that has endured through World War II, the training years at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Vietnam, and the war in the Persian Gulf
When a heart condition precluded command of the airborne assault of the 101st Airborne Division into Normandy, he presented Brigadier General Maxwell D. Taylor a superbly trained airborne division ready to embark on its first rendezvous with destiny.
Major General William C. Lee was truly the father of the airborne in the United States Army. His leadership began a fraternity of Screaming Eagles who for many years have trained hard to be ready, served in Vietnam where they never lost a battle and made military history during Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf.
The legacy, created by General Lee, now binds more than 8,000 Screaming Eagle veterans and active duty soldiers in fraternal union as members of the 101st Airborne Division Association.
The 101st Airborne Division, which was activated on 16 August 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny. -Major General William C. Lee, father of the airborne
I sent the 101st Airborne Division on so many important missions; never once did it s fighting men fail to add new luster to their reputation as one of the finest units in the Allied Forces. -General Dwight D. Eisenhower
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
ONE : World War II
TWO: The Training Years
THREE: Vietnam
FOUR: Air Assault
FIVE: Medal of Honor Recipients
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
PREFACE
There are many things about war that we are anxious to forget. We want to forget the necessary sordidness and cruelties of battle; to forget the mud and the muck and the mire; the painful days and the endless nights. We want to forget the sickening sensation of fear that comes at times to all soldiers.
War cuts down men in the prime of life. War is pain and rain and snow and cold. It is hunger and thirst and exhaustion, loneliness, separation from loved ones, and heartbreak. War should not be glorified. To attempt to do so would be the ultimate sacrilege.
But, this world is not always a flower garden - not now, never has been, nor ever will be. It is a battlefield between forces of freedom and those of slavery, between justice and injustice, and if you will, the forces of God and love against those of evil and hatred.
Sherman was not quite right when he said, War is hell, for in hell there is no compassion, no love, no generosity, no empathy for the suffering. I believe most firmly that the American serviceman (and service woman) in combat exemplifies more than any segment of our society the virtues of love, of self sacrifice, of courage and of fortitude in the face of danger and death.
The men of the 101st Airborne Division did not philosophize deeply about the causes of war. But they did know that they were fighting for a way of life they loved, and that freedom is the inherent right of all. He fought without hatred, suffered without complaint, endured without despair.
When I first joined the Screaming Eagles I found a unit of immature boys, carefree and full of mischief. But they grew in a few short years into mature soldiers who supported each other and their units with great heroism. Their trials, sacrifices and suffering have given them a bond of fellowship that will never be broken, and a spiritual depth beyond description. I am proud to have served with them. Our beloved country is far richer for the quality of citizenship these veterans of the 101st Airborne Division continue to give to the United States of America.
-Major General Francis L. Sampson, Chaplain (USA, Ret.)
INTRODUCTION
This is a book about the people, places and events which combine to tell the story of a truly great and remarkable organization, the 101st Airborne Division. It is easy to make the case that this division was destined for greatness from the very beginning. Certainly its first commander, Major General William C. Lee, felt that very strongly, when, on 19 Aug 1942, just three days after his new division was activated, he issued his General Order #5. In it, disdaining Sam Goldwyn s famous advice: Never prophesy-especially about the future, General Lee prophesied with all the-clairvoyance and wisdom of a biblical prophet. These were his words: The 101st Airborne Division, which was activated on 16 Aug 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny.
One test of a good prophesy is the amount of amendment required to make it conform to what actually occurred. So tested, Bill Lee s prophesy deserves high marks, indeed. The only change one might make, would be to add that the rendezvous of the 101st with destiny would be a continuing event, going on and on. For example, The 101st Airborne Division has an unending rendezvous with destiny.
Most assuredly, that has been the legacy of the 101st-always in the fore front; always where the stakes were highest and the going toughest, as in the night airborne assault into Normandy-into the teeth of Germany s Festung Europa (Fortress Europe), which General Eisenhower called his greatest gamble. So, too, in Holland, in the high stakes gamble of the 1st Allied Airborne Army to outflank all water obstacles short of Berlin itself, the Screaming Eagles played a key role and were highly successful in their part of a mission impossible without additional forces. Then, in their best remembered exploit, during the Battle of the Bulge, the 101st, with attached units, conducted the classic and justly famous defense of the key city of Bastogne.
After WWII, when the Army decided to keep only one airborne division, General Ridgway agonized in choosing between his old division, the 82nd Airborne Division and the 101st. Based on his analysis, and giving heavy weight to the greater number of operations of the 82nd, he recommended the 82nd be retained and the 101st deactivated. So there was a hiatus in the rendezvous until the 101st reactivation as a training division in 1948, 1950 and 1954! But the division s wartime commander, General Maxwell Taylor, then Army Chief of Staff, wanted to make the Army a more viable player in nuclear warfare, and, also, to see his old command again a part of the fighting Army. He accomplished both goals by converting the 101st to a Pentomic airborne division with an organic atomic capability in 1956.
The Pentomic 101st never had to fight an atomic war, but did play a key role in many of the civil rights disturbances of that era, before again being reorganized as a more conventional Road Airborne Division.
While the division was thus organized, its 1st Brigade deployed to Vietnam in July of 1965, one of the first brigade sized units to enter that war. After operating as a fire brigade, all over South Vietnam, it was joined by the remainder of the division, which deployed to Vietnam in December 1967, in what was then the largest, longest airlift in military history. The Screaming Eagles were just in time to take part in throttling the enemy s highly publicized TET offensive which began the following month. Operations were many and highly successful as the Screaming Eagles adapted to this strange war which tried and divided our country-a war which asked our military to fight under unwinable ground rules, subjected to a new and totally different level of news media scrutiny, and with least inconvenience to the American people.
Then in 1968, in the midst of Nevada Eagle, the largest single campaign ever fought by the 101st, on 1 Jul 1968, the division became the 101st Air Cavalry Division and a year later the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). These were far more than mere name changes, they signified that in using the third dimension to leapfrog into an enemy s rear, henceforth the division would use helicopters, not parachutes. The division proved its mastery of this new airmobile warfare throughout the remainder of its service in Vietnam, in operations like Lam Son 719 and countless others.
The Screaming Eagles was the last Army Divisi