This site is all about the Allied Airborne divisions during the second World War, with a special accent on the D-DAY, June 6th 1944 operations.Head theme:The World greatest and toughest Airborne Division THE SCREAMING EAGLES or 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION.
Their Story is central in this website, their RENDEZ VOUS WITH DESTINY,was to us the most fascinating theme of the US AIRBORNE HISTORY together with many other Airborne facts.
A hard fight had been fought on D Day by the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions—a fight that had not gone entirely according to plan and had cost heavy casualties. Not one battle but fifteen or twenty separate engagements had been fought. Both divisions had had scattered drops, with varying losses in men and materiel. Initial dispersion was further aggravated by the Normandy terrain; the hedgerows made it difficult to assemble and still more difficult to coordinate the maneuver of units. Some units were completely unaware of others, fighting only a few hundred yards away. The groups were usually mixed, and men strangers to their leaders fought for objectives to which they had not been assigned. Still, the airborne operation was in general a success. Small groups of parachutists took advantage of a surprised and temporarily disorganized enemy to seize many of the vital objectives quickly. When D Day ended, the 101st Airborne Division had accomplished the most important of its initial missions. General Taylor had estimated at noontime that, despite the errors of the drop, the tactical situation of his division was sound. The way had been cleared for the movement of the seaborne forces inland. The northern sector in the vicinity of Foucarville was securely held by the 502d Parachute Infantry. On the other hand, the forces holding the southern flank of the Corps front along the Douve north of Carentan were not as strong as intended. The le Port bridges had been taken, but the bridgehead had to be abandoned. The la Barquette lock was occupied, but precariously. Virtually isolated, with a total strength nearer three companies than three battalions, short of ammunition, and facing unexpectedly tenacious opposition, the prospects of the southern units did not appear bright. In the St. Côme-du-Mont area the enemy effectively held the 501st Parachute Infantry against the swamps in the vicinity of les Droueries and Bse. Addeville. There were no men to be spared to proceed against the railroad and highway bridges across the Douve, and the enemy was thus left strong and mobile to the southwest. Yet here, as elsewhere on D Day, the weakness of the American forces was more than offset by the almost total lack of aggressiveness on the part of the enemy. Positions which tactically should have required battalions for defense could be and were held by small improvised forces which had to worry more about cover from artillery and mortar fire than about counterattack. Probably the weakest feature of the whole situation at the close of D Day was the lack of communication. This had plagued the activities of most of the battalions during the day. At night, though it was only the southern forces that remained out of contact, the southern flank was precisely the most seriously threatened portion of the division sector . The situation of the 82d Division was more serious than that to the east. The plan by which the 82d was to have been placed in possession of both banks of the Merderet was voided by the faulty drop. Large numbers of the division were isolated west of the Merderet, unable to reach the division's planned objectives in that area. The la Fière bridgehead had been won only to be promptly lost. This was costly, for it created a tactical problem that engaged the major forces of the entire division for the next three or four days. Moreover, the expected reinforcements by sea and glider had not arrived by the end of D Day and many of the latter had been irretrievably lost in landing. General Ridgway, viewing the operation at the Merderet and lacking information about the other divisions, was naturally alarmed and took measures to consolidate his defensive base at Ste. Mère-Eglise. There was probably little optimism in the minds of most of the commanders of the 101st and 82d Divisions as D Day came to a close. Of the 6,600 men of the 101st Division dropped on the morning of D Day, only 2,500 men were working together at the end of the day. Reinforcements were needed for all of the airborne units. Such reinforcements had to come across the beach. Fortunately the seaborne landing had been relatively unopposed. The arrival of the 4th Division had freed the 101st Airborne Division of responsibility in the north and east and released a large part of this division for employment elsewhere. The rapid progress of the 4th Division on D Day promised to improve greatly the situation of the two airborne divisions.
