Axis operations Several groups within the German armed forces attempted to raise their own paratroop formations, resulting in confusion. As a result,
Luftwaffe General
Kurt Student was put in overall command of developing a paratrooper force to be known as the . During the invasions of Norway and Denmark in
Operation Weserübung, the Luftwaffe dropped paratroopers on several locations. In Denmark, a small unit dropped on the Masnedøfort on the small island of
Masnedø to seize the
Storstrøm Bridge linking the islands of
Falster and
Zealand. A paratroop detachment also dropped at the airfield of
Aalborg which was crucial for the Luftwaffe for operations over Norway. In Norway, a company of paratroopers dropped at Oslo's undefended airstrip. Over the course of the morning and early afternoon of 9 April 1940, the Germans flew in sufficient reinforcements to move into the capital in the afternoon, but by that time the Norwegian government had fled. In the
Battle of France, members of the
Brandenburg Regiment landed by
Fieseler Fi 156 Storch light reconnaissance planes on the bridges immediately to the south of the
10th Panzer Division's route of march through the southern
Ardennes. In Belgium, a small group of German glider-borne troops landed on top of the Belgian fortress of
Eben Emael on the morning of 10 May 1940, and disabled the majority of its artillery. The fort held on for another day before surrendering. This opened up Belgium to attack by
German Army Group B. The Dutch were exposed to the first large scale airborne attack in history. During the
invasion of the Netherlands, the Germans threw into battle almost their entire
Luftlandekorps, an airborne assault army corps that consisted of one parachute division and one division of airlanding troops plus the necessary transport capacity. The existence of this formation had been carefully kept secret until then. Two simultaneous airborne operations were launched. German paratroopers
landed at three airfields near
The Hague, hoping to seize the Dutch government. From one of these airfields, they were driven out after the first wave of reinforcements, brought in by
Ju 52s, was annihilated by anti-aircraft fire and fierce resistance by some remaining Dutch defenders. As a result, numerous crashed and burning aircraft blocked the runway, preventing further reinforcements from landing. This was one of the few occasions where an airfield captured by paratroops has been recaptured. The other two airfields were recaptured as well. Simultaneously, the Germans dropped small packets of paratroopers to seize the crucial bridges that led directly across the Netherlands and into the heart of the country. They opened the way for the 9th Panzer Division. Within a day, the Dutch position became hopeless. Nevertheless, Dutch forces inflicted high losses on German transportation aircraft. Moreover, 1200 German elite troops from the
Luftlandekorps taken prisoner around The Hague, were shipped to England just before the capitulation of the Dutch armed forces. The
Fallschirmjägers' greatest victory and greatest losses occurred during the
Battle of Crete. Signals intelligence, in the form of
Ultra, enabled the British to wait on each German drop zone, yet despite compromised secrecy, surviving German paratroops and airlanded mountain troops pushed the Commonwealth forces off the island in part by unexpected fire support from
their light 75 mm guns, though seaborne reinforcements were destroyed by the Royal Navy. However, the losses were so great that
Adolf Hitler forbade their use in such operations in the future. He felt that the main strength of the paratroopers was novelty, and now that the British had clearly figured out how to defend against them, there was no real point to using them any more. One notable exception was the use of airborne forces in special operations. On 12 September 1943,
Otto Skorzeny led a daring
glider-based assault on the Gran Sasso Hotel, high in the
Apennines mountains, and rescued
Benito Mussolini from house arrest with very few shots being fired. On 25 May 1944, paratroopers were dropped as part of a
failed attempt to capture
Josip Broz Tito, the head of the
Yugoslav Partisans and later postwar leader of Yugoslavia. Before the
Pacific War began, the
Imperial Japanese Army formed
Teishin Dan ("Raiding Brigades") and the
Imperial Japanese Navy trained
marine (Rikusentai) paratroopers. They used paratroops in several battles in the
Dutch East Indies campaign of 1941–1942.
Rikusentai airborne troops were first dropped at the
Battle of Manado,
Celebes in January 1942, and then near
Usua, during the
Timor campaign, in February 1942.
Teishin made a jump at the
Battle of Palembang, on
Sumatra in February 1942. Japanese airborne units suffered heavy casualties during the Dutch East Indies campaign, and were rarely used as parachute troops afterward. On 6 December 1944, a 750-strong detachment from
Teishin Shudan ("Raiding Division") and the
Takachiho special forces unit, attacked U.S. airbases in the
Burauen area on
Leyte, in the
Philippines. The force destroyed some planes and inflicted casualties, but was eventually wiped out. Japan built a combat strike force of 825 gliders but never committed it to battle.
Allied operations and
Princess Elizabeth talking to paratroopers in preparation of
D-Day, 19 May 1944 Ironically, the battle that ended Germany's paratrooper operations had the opposite effect on the Allies. Convinced of the effectiveness of airborne assaults after Crete, the Allies hurried to train and organize their own airborne units. The British established No.1 Parachute Training School at
RAF Ringway near
Manchester, which trained all 60,000 European
paratroopers recruited by the
Allies during World War II. An Airlanding School was also set up in
New Delhi,
India, in October/November 1941, at the then-Welllingdon Airport (now the defunct
Safdarjang Airport) to train paratroopers for the
British Indian Army which had been authorised to raise an airborne-capable formation earlier, resulting in the formation of the
50th Indian Parachute Brigade. The Indian airborne forces expanded during the war to the point that an airborne corps was planned bringing together the
2nd Indian Airborne Division and the
British 6th Airborne Division, but the war ended before it could materialize. A fundamental decision was whether to create small airborne units to be used in specific
coup-de-main type operations, or to organize entire airborne divisions for larger operations. Many of the early successful airborne operations were small, carried out by a few units, such as seizing a bridge. After seeing success of other units and observing
smokejumper training methods on how training can be done in June 1940, General
William C. Lee of the U.S. Army established the Army's first airborne division. The 101st would be reorganized into the
101st Airborne Division. , inside an RAF Dakota (C-47) during the flight to
Arnhem, 17 September 1944 The Allies eventually formed two British and five American divisions: the British
1st and 6th Airborne Divisions, and the U.S.
11th,
13th,
17th,
82nd, and
101st Airborne Divisions. By 1944, the British divisions were grouped into the
1st Airborne Corps under
Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, while the American divisions in the European Theatre (the 17th, 82nd, and 101st) were organized into the
XVIII Airborne Corps under
Major General Matthew Ridgway. Both corps fell under the
First Allied Airborne Army under U.S.
Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton. The first U.S. airborne operation was by the
509th Parachute Infantry Battalion in November 1942, as part of
Operation Torch in North Africa. The U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions saw the most action in the
European Theater, with the former in
Sicily and Italy in 1943, and both in
Normandy and
the Netherlands in 1944. The
517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team was the principal force in Operation Dragoon in Southern France. The 17th Airborne Division deployed to England in 1944 but did not see combat until the
Battle of the Bulge in January 1945 where they, along with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were deployed as ground troops. The U.S. 11th and 13th Airborne Divisions were held in reserve in the United States until 1944 when the 11th Airborne Division was deployed to the Pacific, but mostly used as ground troops or for smaller airborne operations. The 13th Airborne Division was deployed to France in January 1945 but never saw combat as a unit.
Soviet operations The Soviets mounted only one large-scale airborne operation in World War II, despite their early leadership in the field in the 1930s. Russia also pioneered the development of combat gliders, but used them only for cargo during the war. Axis air superiority early in the conflict limited the ability of the Soviets to mount such operations, whilst later in the conflict ongoing shortages of materiel, including silk for parachutes, was also a problem. Nonetheless, the Soviets maintained their doctrinal belief in the effectiveness of airborne forces, as part of their concept of
"deep battle", throughout the war. The largest drop during the war was corps-sized (the
Vyazma airborne Operation, the
4th Airborne Corps). It was unsuccessful. Airborne formations were used as elite infantry units however, and played a critical role in several battles. For example, at the
Battle of Kursk, the Guards Airborne defended the eastern shoulder of the southern penetration and was critical to holding back the German penetration. The Soviets sent at least one team of observers to the British and American airborne planning for D-Day, but did not reciprocate the liaison.
Early commando raids Operation Colossus: Raid on the Tragino Aqueduct Britain's first airborne assault took place on 10 February 1941, when 'X' Troop, No 11 Special Air Service Battalion (which was formed from No 2 Commando and subsequently became 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment) dropped into southern Italy from converted
Whitley bombers flying from
Malta and demolished a span of the aqueduct near Tragino in a daring night raid named
Operation Colossus.
Operation Squatter: Raid on Axis airfields in Libya 54 effectives of 'L' Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade (largely drawn from the disbanded
Layforce) mounted a night parachute insertion onto two drop zones in Bir Temrad, North Africa on the night of 16/17 November 1941 in preparation for a stealthy attack on the
forward airfields of Gambut and
Tmimi in order to destroy the Axis fighter force on the ground before the start of
Operation Crusader, a major offensive by the
British Eighth Army.
Operation Biting: The Bruneval raid A
Würzburg radar site on the coast of France was attacked by a company of 120 British paratroopers from 2 Battalion, Parachute Regiment, commanded by Major
John Frost, in
Operation Biting on 27 February 1942. The key electronic components of the system were dismantled by an English radar mechanic and brought back to Britain for examination so that countermeasures could be devised. The result was a British victory. Of the 120 paratroopers who dropped in the dead of night, there were two killed, six wounded, and six captured.
Mediterranean Operation Mercury: Crete This was the last large-scale airborne assault by Hitler and the Germans. The German paratroopers had such a high casualty rate that Hitler forbade any further large-scale airborne attacks. The Allies, on the other hand, were very impressed by the potential of paratroopers, and started to build their own airborne divisions.
Operation Torch: North Africa The first United States airborne combat mission occurred during Operation Torch in North Africa on 8 November 1942. 531 men of the 2nd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment flew over at night from Britain, over Spain, intending to drop near
Oran and capture two airfields. Navigation errors, communications problems, and bad weather scattered the forces. Seven of the 39 C-47s landed far from Oran from
Gibraltar to
Tunisia, and only ten actually delivered their troops by parachute drop. The remainder off-loaded after 28 C-47 troop carriers, short on fuel, landed on the Sebkra d'Oran dry lake, and marched overland to their objectives. One week later, after repacking their own chutes, 304 men of the battalion conducted a second combat jump on 15 November 1942 to secure the airfield at Youk-les-Bains near the Tunisian border. From this base, the battalion conducted combined operations with various French forces against the German Afrika Korps in Tunisia. A unit of French Algerian infantry, the 3rd Regiment of Zouaves, was present at Youk-les-Bains and awarded the American paratroopers their own regimental crest as a gesture of respect. This badge was awarded to the battalion commander on 15 November 1942 by the 3rd Zouaves' regimental commander, and is worn today by all members of the 509th Infantry.
Operation Husky: Sicily As part of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of the island of Sicily, four airborne operations (two British and two American) were carried out, landing during the nights of 9 and 10 July 1943. The American paratroopers were from the 82nd Airborne Division, mainly
Colonel James Gavin's
505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team (consisting of the 3rd Battalion of the
504th PIR, Company 'B' of the
307th Airborne Engineer Battalion and the
456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, with other supporting units), making their first combat jump. Strong winds encountered en route blew the dropping aircraft off course and scattered them widely. The result was that around half the paratroopers failed to make it to their rallying points. The British airborne troops from the 1st Airborne Division were
glider infantry of the
1st Airlanding Brigade, commanded by
Brigadier Philip Hicks, and they fared little better. Only 12 out of 137 gliders in
Operation Ladbroke landed on target, with more than half landing in the sea. Nevertheless, the scattered airborne troops maximised their opportunities, attacking patrols and creating confusion wherever possible. On the night of 11 July, a reinforcement drop of the 82nd, consisting of the 504th Parachute Regimental Combat Team (composed of the 1st and 2nd Battalions, the
376th Parachute Field Artillery and Company 'A' of the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion), under Colonel
Reuben Tucker, behind American lines at Farello airfield resulted in heavy
friendly fire casualties when, despite forewarnings, Allied anti-aircraft fire both ashore and aboard
U.S Navy ships shot down 23 of the transports as they flew over the beachhead. Despite a catastrophic loss of gliders and troops loads at sea, the British 1st Airlanding Brigade captured the Ponte Grande bridge south of
Syracuse. Before the German counterattack, the beach landings took place unopposed and the 1st Airlanding Brigade was relieved by the
British 5th Infantry Division as it swept inland towards
Catania and
Messina. On the evening of 13 July 1943, more than 112 aircraft carrying 1,856 men and 16 gliders with 77 artillerymen and ten
6 pounder guns, took off from North Africa in
Operation Fustian. The initial target of the
British 1st Parachute Brigade, under Brigadier
Gerald Lathbury, was to capture the Primosole bridge and the high ground around it, providing a pathway for the
Eighth Army, but heavy
anti-aircraft fire shot down many of the
Dakotas before they reached their target. Only 295 officers and men were dropped close enough to carry out the assault. They captured the bridge, but the
German 4th Parachute Regiment recaptured it. They held the high ground until relieved by the
50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division of the Eighth Army, which re-took the bridge at dawn on 16 July. The Allied commanders were forced to reassess the use of airborne forces after the many misdrops and the deadly friendly fire incident.
Swing Board and the Knollwood Maneuver General
Dwight D. Eisenhower reviewed the airborne role in Operation Husky and concluded that large-scale formations were too difficult to control in combat to be practical. Lieutenant General
Lesley J. McNair, the overall commander of
Army Ground Forces, had similar misgivings: once an airborne supporter, he had been greatly disappointed by the performance of airborne units in North Africa and more recently Sicily. However, other high-ranking officers, including the
Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, believed otherwise. Marshall persuaded Eisenhower to set up a review board and to withhold judgement until the outcome of a large-scale maneuver, planned for December 1943, could be assessed. McNair ordered 11th Airborne Division commander Major general
Joseph May Swing to form a committee—the Swing Board—composed of air force, parachute, glider infantry and artillery officers, whose arrangements for the maneuver would effectively decide the fate of divisional-sized airborne forces. As the 11th Airborne Division was in reserve in the United States and had not yet been earmarked for combat, the Swing Board selected it as the test formation. The maneuver would additionally provide the 11th Airborne and its individual units with further training, as had occurred several months previously in an earlier large-scale exercise conducted by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The 11th Airborne, as the attacking force, was assigned the objective of capturing
Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield near
Fort Bragg in
North Carolina. The force defending the airfield and its environs was a combat team composed of elements of the 17th Airborne Division and a battalion from the
541st Parachute Infantry Regiment. The entire operation was observed by McNair, who would ultimately have a significant say in deciding the fate of the parachute infantry divisions. The Knollwood Maneuver took place on the night of 7 December 1943, with the 11th Airborne Division being airlifted to thirteen separate objectives by 200 C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft and 234
Waco CG-4A gliders. The transport aircraft were divided into four groups, two of which carried paratroopers while the other two towed gliders. Each group took off from a different airfield in the Carolinas. The four groups deployed a total of 4,800 troops in the first wave. Eighty-five percent were delivered to their targets without navigational error,
Italy Italy agreed to an armistice with the Allies on 3 September 1943, with the stipulation that the Allies would provide military support to Italy in defending
Rome from German occupation. Operation Giant II was a planned drop of one regiment of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division northwest of Rome, to assist four Italian divisions in seizing the Italian capital. An airborne assault plan to seize crossings of the
Volturno river during the
Allied invasion of Italy, called Operation Giant, was abandoned in favor of the Rome mission. However, doubts about the willingness and capability of Italian forces to cooperate, and the distance of the mission far beyond support by the Allied military, resulted in the
82nd Airborne artillery commander,
Brigadier General Maxwell Taylor (future commander of the 101st Airborne Division), being sent on a personal reconnaissance mission to Rome to assess the prospects of success. His report via radio on 8 September caused the operation to be postponed (and canceled the next day) as troop carriers loaded with two battalions of the 504th PIR were warming up for takeoff. With Giant II cancelled, Operation Giant I was reactivated to drop two battalions of the 504th PIR at
Capua on 13 September. However, significant German counterattacks, beginning on 12 September, resulted in a shrinking of the American perimeter and threatened destruction of the Salerno
beachhead. As a result, Giant I was cancelled and the 504th PIR instead dropped into the beachhead on the night of 13 September using
transponding radar beacons as a guide. The next night the 505th PIR was also dropped into the beachhead as reinforcement. In all, 3,500 paratroopers made the most concentrated mass night drop in history, providing the model for the
American airborne landings in Normandy in June 1944. An additional drop on the night of 14–15 September of the 509th PIB to destroy a key bridge at
Avellino, to disrupt German motorized movements, was badly dispersed and failed to destroy the bridge before the Germans withdrew to the north. In April 1945,
Operation Herring, an Italian
commando-style airborne drop aimed at disrupting German rear area communications and movement over key areas in
Northern Italy, took place. However the Italian troops were not dropped as a unit, but as a series of small (8–10 man) groups. Another operation,
Operation Potato, was mounted by men drawn from the Folgore and Nembo divisions, operating with British equipment and under British command as No. 1 Italian Special Air Service Regiment. The men dropped in small groups from American C-47s and carried out a successful railway sabotage operation in northern Italy.
Western Europe The Allies had learned better tactics and logistics from their earlier airborne drops, and these lessons were applied for the assaults along the
Western Front.
Operation Neptune speaks with American paratroopers of the
502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment,
101st Airborne Division on the evening of 5 June 1944. One of the most famous of airborne operations was Operation Neptune, the assault of Normandy, part of Operation Overlord of the
Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. The task of the airborne forces was to secure the flanks and approaches of the landing beaches in Normandy. The British
glider transported troops and paratroopers of the 6th Airborne Division, which secured the eastern flank during
Operation Tonga. This operation included the
capture of the Caen canal and Orne river bridges, and the attack on the
Merville gun battery. The American glider and parachute infantry of the 82nd (Operation Detroit) and 101st Airborne Divisions (Operation Chicago), though widely scattered by poor weather and poorly marked landing zones in the American airborne landings in Normandy, secured the western flank of
U.S. VII Corps with heavy casualties. All together, airborne casualties in Normandy on D-Day totaled around 2,300. inspects men of the 7th Battalion,
King's Own Scottish Borderers, 1st Airborne Division, in the
North Midlands, 1944.
Operation Dingson (5–18 June 1944) was conducted by about 178 Free French paratroops of the 4th Special Air Service (SAS), commanded by Colonel Pierre-Louis Bourgoin, who jumped into German-occupied France near Vannes,
Morbihan, southern
Brittany, in
Plumelec, at 1130 on the night of 5 June and Saint-Marcel (8–18 June). At this time, there was approximately 100,000 German troops and artillery preparing to move to the Normandy landing areas. Immediately upon landing, 18 Free French went into action near Plumelec against German troops (Vlassov's army). The Free French established a base at Saint-Marcel and began to arm and equip local resistance fighters, operating with up to 3,000
Maquis. However, their base was heavily attacked by a German paratroop division on 18 June, and the men were forced to disperse. Captain Pierre Marienne with 17 of his companions (six paratroopers, eight resistance fighters and three farmers) died a few weeks later in Kerihuel, Plumelec, at dawn of 12 July. The Dingson team was joined by the men who had just completed
Operation Cooney. Dingson was conducted alongside
Operation Samwest and
Operation Lost as part of Overlord. In Operation Dingson 35A, on 5 August 1944, 10 Waco CG-4A gliders towed by aircraft of 298 Squadron and 644 Squadron transported Free French SAS men and armed jeeps to Brittany near Vannes (
Locoal-Mendon), each glider carrying three Free French troopers and a jeep. One glider was lost with the death of the British pilot. The SAS teams remained behind enemy lines until the Allies arrived.
Operation Dragoon: Southern France On 15 August 1944, airborne units of the
6th Army Group provisional airborne division, commanded by U.S. Major General
Robert T. Frederick, opened
Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France, with a dawn assault. Called the "
1st Airborne Task Force", the force was composed of the 1st Special Services Forces,
British 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade, the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, the 509th and
551st Parachute Infantry Battalions, the glider-borne
550th Airborne Infantry Battalion, and supporting units. Nearly 400 aircraft delivered 5,600 paratroopers and 150 guns to three drops zones surrounding
Le Muy, between
Fréjus and
Cannes, in phase 1,
Operation Albatross. Once they had captured their initial targets, they were reinforced by 2,600 soldiers and critical equipment carried in 408 gliders daylight missions code-named
Operation Bluebird, phase 2, simultaneous with the beach landings, and
Operation Dove, phase 3. A second daylight parachute drop,
Operation Canary, dropped 736 men of the 551st PIB with nearly 100% effectiveness late on the afternoon of 15 August. The airborne objective was to capture the area, destroy all enemy positions and hold the ground until the
U.S. Seventh Army came ashore.
Operation Market Garden: "A Bridge Too Far" in September 1944. Operation Market Garden of September 1944, involved 35,000 airborne troops dropped up to behind German lines in an attempt to capture a series of bridges over the
Maas,
Waal and
Rhine Rivers, in an attempt to outflank German fortifications and penetrate into Germany. The operation was hastily planned and many key planning tasks were inadequately completed. Three complete airborne divisions executed Operation Market, the airborne phase. These were the British 1st Airborne Division, the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, as well as the
Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. All units were landed or dropped at various points along Highway 69 ("Hell's Highway") in order to create a "carpet" over which the
British XXX Corps could rapidly advance in Operation Garden, the land phase. It was a daylight assault, with little initial opposition, and most units achieved high accuracy on drop and landing zones. In the end, after strong German counterattacks, the overall plan failed: the British 1st Airborne Division was all but destroyed at Arnhem, and the final Rhine bridge remained in German hands.
Operation Repulse: re-supply of Bastogne Operation Repulse, which took place in Bastogne on 23, 24, 26 and 27 December 1944, as part of the Battle of the Bulge, glider pilots, although flying directly through enemy fire, were able to land, delivering the badly needed ammunition, gasoline and medical supplies that enabled defenders against the German offensive to persevere and secure the ultimate victory.
Operation Varsity: The Rhine Crossing Operation Varsity was a daylight assault conducted by two airborne divisions, the British 6th Airborne Division and the U.S. 17th Airborne Division, both of which were part of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps. Conducted as a part of
Operation Plunder, the operation took place on 24 March 1945 in aid of an attempt by the Anglo-Canadian
21st Army Group to cross the
Rhine River. Having learnt from the heavy casualties inflicted upon the airborne formations in Operation Market Garden, the two airborne divisions were dropped several thousand yards forward of friendly positions, and only some thirteen hours after Operation Plunder had begun and Allied ground forces had already crossed the Rhine. There was heavy resistance in some of the areas that the airborne troops landed in, with casualties actually statistically heavier than those incurred during Operation Market Garden. The British
military historian Max Hastings has labelled the operation both costly and unnecessary, writing that "Operation Varsity was a folly for which more than a thousand men paid for with their lives ..."
Pacific Theater The following airborne operations against the Japanese are famous.
New Guinea transport planes, silhouetted against clouds of smoke created to provide cover, drop a
battalion of the
U.S. 503d Parachute Regiment and elements of the Australian Army's 2/4th Field Regiment at
Nadzab,
New Guinea, during the
Battle of Lae. A battalion dropped minutes earlier is landing in the foreground. In September 1943, in
New Guinea, the U.S. Army's
503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment and elements of the Australian Army's 2/4th Field Regiment made a highly successful, unopposed
landing at Nadzab, during the
Salamaua-Lae campaign. This was the first Allied airborne assault in the Pacific Theater. In July 1944, the 503rd jumped again, onto
Noemfoor Island, off
Dutch New Guinea, in the
Battle of Noemfoor.
Philippines The honors for recapturing the Rock went to the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team of Lieutenant Colonel
George M. Jones and elements of Major General
Roscoe B. Woodruff's 24th Infantry Division, the same units which undertook the
capture of Mindoro island. The U.S. 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment's most famous operation was a
landing on Corregidor ("The Rock") in February 1945, during the
Philippines campaign of 1944–45. The U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division saw a great deal of action in the Philippines as a ground unit. The
511th Parachute Infantry Regiment made the division's first jump near
Tagaytay Ridge on 3 February 1945, meeting no resistance at the drop zone. Elements of the division also jumped to liberate 2,000 Allied civilians interned at
Los Baños, 23 February 1945. The final operation of the division was conducted on 23 June 1945, in conjunction with an advance by U.S. ground forces in northern Luzon. A task force from the 11th was formed and jumped on
Camalaniugan Airfield, south of
Aparri.
Burma A large British force, known as the
Chindits, operated behind Japanese lines during 1944. In
Operation Thursday, most of the units were flown into landing grounds which had been seized by glider infantry transported by the American First Air Commando Group, commencing on 5 March. Aircraft continued to land reinforcements at captured or hastily constructed landing strips until monsoon rains made them unusable. Small detachments were subsequently landed by parachute. The operation eventually wound down in July, with the exhausted Chindits making their way overland to link up with advancing American and Chinese forces. For
Operation Dracula, an ad hoc parachute battalion group made up of personnel from the 153 and 154 (Gurkha) Parachute Battalions of the
Indian Army secured Japanese coastal defences, which enabled the seaborne assault by the
26th Indian Infantry Division to attain its objectives with a minimum of casualties and time. == Ecuadorian–Peruvian War ==