Pegasus Bridge attack

airborne

Pegasus Bridge: D-Day’s Textbook Mission

By Flint Whitlock

Late on the night of June 5, 1944, while American paratroopers were on their way to drop behind Utah Beach, another, smaller air armada carrying 170 British airborne troops was also dashing headlong into battle like an aerial cavalry charge towards the far eastern flank of the Normandy invasion site. Read more

airborne

Allied Storm in Southern France

By Christopher Miskimon

U.S. Army Sergeant Vere Williams listened to his instincts as his landing craft approached the beach. It was August 15, 1944, and his unit, the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Division was part of the invasion force for Operation Dragoon, the landings along France’s Mediterranean coast. Read more

Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division talk during the flight from their staging area in North Africa to drop zones on the island of Sicily.

airborne

High-Spirited Stupidity

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Paratrooper Lt. Col. Bill Yarborough was flying into hell. As he prepared to jump from a Douglas C-47 transport plane then approaching the coast of Sicily, hundreds of American antiaircraft gunners below started shooting at him. Read more

airborne

Dutch Debacle

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

 

When world war engulfed Europe for the second time in a generation, the Netherlands placed its faith in the diplomatic delusion that it could remain neutral like it had during World War I. Read more

In August 1944, the Allies followed up the massive Normandy Invasion with another in southern France known as Operation Dragoon.

airborne

Rampage on the Riviera: Operation Dragoon

By Glenn Barnette and André Bernole

Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more

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Paratrooper Brawl at Carentan

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

The two exits from the American landing zones at Utah Beach were entrusted to the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Read more

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Every man an Emperor

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Sergeant William R. Kelly crashed through the treetops, slamming to a stop when his parachute canopy caught on some branches. Read more

airborne

Deadly Dash Forward

By Gene Eric Salecker

By the time the attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II, Japan had been preparing for an all-out offensive in the Pacific for months. Read more

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A Screaming Eagle in Bastogne

By Kevin M. Hymel

“DON’T WORRY, GUYS––the Airborne is here!” shouted Private Howard Buford to the worn-out GIs he and his fellow paratroopers passed on the snowy road through Bastogne in the early hours of December 19, 1944. Read more

American paratroopers of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment descend from their Douglas C-47 transport aircraft toward the airstrip at Nadzab, New Guinea, on September 11, 1943. Another battalion is coming down in the distance behind the protective cover of a smokescreen.

airborne

Baptism for Pacific Paratroopers

By Gene E. Salecker

In March 1942, the Japanese juggernaut that had steamrolled across the Pacific during the early months of the war landed at Lae village at the southwestern corner of the Huon Peninsula of Papua New Guinea. Read more

airborne

From Doughboy to GI Helmet

By Earl Rickard

When the United States Army mobilized for defense in the fall of 1940, the peacetime draftees, National Guardsmen, reservists, and regulars carried Model 1903 Springfield rifles; the Guardsmen wore puttees; and all the soldiers covered their heads with the doughboy helmet—head-to-foot relics of World War I. Read more