17th Airborne Division (United States)

The German Armed Forces pioneered the use of large-scale airborne formations, first during the invasion of Norway and Denmark and later that year during the assaults on the Netherlands and Belgium in 1940 and later in the Battle of Crete in 1941. The Allied governments were aware of the success of these operations (but not of the heavy German casualties incurred, particularly during the assault on the Netherlands and the invasion of Crete) and decided to form their own airborne formations. This decision would eventually lead to the creation of five American and two British airborne divisions, as well as many smaller units. The 17th Airborne Division was activated on 15 April 1943 at Camp Mackall in North Carolina, under the command of the newly promoted Major General William Miley, a veteran of World War I. The division was originally composed of the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, activated on 11 January 1943 at Fort Benning, the 193rd Glider Infantry Regiment, and the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment. The official dedication ceremony for the unit took place on 1 May 1943, with thousands of civilian and military spectators, including Major General Elbridge Chapman, overall commander of Airborne Command and of all American airborne forces during World War II. , seen here as a brigadier general, commanded the 17th Airborne Division for the entirety of its activation.Once activated, the division remained in the United States for training and exercises. As the division, like all airborne units, was intended to be an elite formation, the training regime was extremely arduous. There were and towers built from which prospective airborne troops would jump off of to simulate landing by parachute, lengthy forced marches and practice jumps from transport aircraft; to pause in the doorway of an aircraft during a practice jump resulted in an automatic failure for the candidate. The resultant failure rate was accordingly high, but there was never a shortage of candidates, especially for the American divisions, as the rate of pay was much higher than that of an ordinary infantryman. The Commanding General (CG) of the U.S. 11th Airborne Division, Major General Joseph May Swing, had been temporarily assigned to act as airborne advisor to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, for the invasion of Sicily, and had observed the airborne assault, which went badly. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division had been deployed by both parachute and glider and had suffered high casualties, leading to a perception that it had failed to achieve many of its objectives. Swing Board General Eisenhower had reviewed the airborne role in Operation Husky, and had concluded that large-scale formations were too difficult to control in combat to be practical. Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces, had similar misgivings: once an airborne supporter, he had been greatly disappointed by their performance in North Africa and, more recently, Sicily. However, other high-ranking officers believed otherwise, notably the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall. He persuaded Eisenhower to set up a review board and to withhold judgement on the effectiveness of divisional-sized airborne forces until a large-scale maneuver could be tried in December. When Swing returned to the United States to resume command of the 11th Airborne Division in mid-September 1943, he had an additional role. McNair ordered him to form a committee–the Swing Board–composed of U.S. Army Air Forces, parachute and glider infantry, and artillery officers to arrange a large-scale maneuver that would effectively decide the fate of the divisional-sized airborne force. The maneuver would also provide both divisions with further airborne training, as had occurred several months previously in a large-scale maneuver undertaken by the 82nd and the 101st Airborne Divisions. Knollwood Maneuver The objective for the 11th as the attacking force was to capture Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield near Fort Bragg in North Carolina, after which the maneuver was named. The defending forces were to try to defend the airport and the surrounding area and repel the airborne assault. The entire operation would be observed by Lieutenant General McNair. His observations and reports to the U.S. War Department, and ultimately General Eisenhower, would do much to decide the success or failure of the exercise. The Knollwood Maneuver took place on the night of 7 December, with the troops of the 11th Airborne Division being delivered to thirteen separate objectives by 200 C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft and 234 Waco CG-4A gliders, with eighty-five percent of the airborne troops being delivered to their target without navigational error. The transport aircraft were divided into four groups, each taking off from a different airfield in the Carolinas, with two groups dropping paratroopers and two towing gliders, and between them deployed 4,800 airborne troops in the first wave. These airborne troops then seized the Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield from the defending troops and secured the area in which the rest of the division landed, all before daylight. Due to the success of the units of the 11th Airborne Division during the exercise, the divisional-sized airborne force was deemed to be effective and was allowed by Eisenhower to remain. ==World War II==