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Casualties of the division KIA in The Netherlands or buried at Margraten
History
In February 1942 four parachute
infantry regiments (PIRs) were created and consolidated with already
existing parachute battalions. The following month the assets of this
provisional parachute group were reorganized as the Airborne Command to
oversee the training of the parachute regiments and the 88th Infantry
Airborne Battalion. Col. Lee moved his new command to Fort Bragg, North
Carolina. The next logical step for airborne supporters was the
formation of an airborne division. Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, Chief of
Army Ground Forces (AGF), however, had a reputation for disliking
"specialty units". He believed that such training sometimes overlooked
general skills that were necessary in a good soldier. In the end,
however, the Airborne Command leadership was able to convince the AGF of
the need to field two such divisions.
McNair, interested in flexibility and
economy, directed that the divisions would be formed using available
assets. A triangular division, the 82d, would be reorganized and the
necessary parachute regiments added to form the two divisions which
would total approximately 8,500 men each. Half of the men would remain
in the 82d, and the other half would fill the 101st Division, which at
the time was basically a paper organization.
With the 101st designated as an
airborne division, all that remained was to train its soldiers to
qualify for their new mission. In October 1942 the division moved to
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and joined by the 502d PIR, began its
training under the Airborne Command.
By the spring of 1943 the division was
ready to face its first test in local maneuvers. Immediately following
these maneuvers, the 101st left to take part in the Tennessee maneuvers,
a larger scale operation. Preceding the exercise, on 10 June 1943, the
506th Parachute Infantry was attached to the division.
Arriving in England, the 101st was quartered in
Wiltshire and Berkshire, where it continued to train. The early months
of 1944 were a time of change for the 101st Airborne Division. In
January the 101st received its third parachute regiment, the 501st
Parachute Infantry. Brig. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, former commander of the 82d
Airborne Division Artillery, assumed command of the 101st on 14 March.
COMBAT OPERATIONS
The 101st Airborne Division first saw
combat during the Normandy invasion--6 June 1944. The division, as part
of the VII Corps assault, jumped in the dark morning before H-Hour to
seize positions west of Utah Beach. Given the mission of anchoring the
corps' southern flank, the division was also to eliminate the German's
secondary beach defenses, allowing the seaborne forces of the 4th
Infantry Division, once ashore, to continue inland. The SCREAMING EAGLES
were to capture the causeway bridges that ran behind the beach between
St. Martin-de-Varreville and Pouppeville. In the division's southern
sector, it was to seize the la Barquette lock and destroy a highway
bridge northwest of the town of Carentan and a railroad bridge further
west. At the same time elements of the division were to establish two
bridgeheads on the Douve River at le Port, northeast of Carentan.
The division had suffered considerable
personnel and equipment losses during the Normandy battles. The 101st
spent the summer replacing equipment, training new soldiers, and waiting
for its next mission. At about the same time General Eisenhower called
for a headquarters that would oversee the Allies' airborne troops. In
August 1944 he established the First Allied Airborne Army, controlling
elements of the American and British (and Polish) Armies. The new army
was put to the test in September 1944 during the Allied thrust in
northern Europe: Operation MARKET-GARDEN.
MARKET-GARDEN was planned as a two
phase operation. Operation MARKET was the airborne phase of the assault,
with Operation GARDEN being the ground attack. The paratroopers of First
Allied Airborne Army were to jump into the Netherlands and secure a
corridor from Eindhoven north to Arnhem, through which the ground forces
of the British 30 Corps could advance and push on to the IJsselmer (Zuider
Zee). The eventual goal was to cross the Rhine River and breach the
German West Wall defenses. The Dutch countryside, criss-crossed by
innumerable dikes, drainage ditches, rivers, and canals, however, would
prove difficult to traverse if the ground troops could not advance by
road. For the plan to be a success the paratroopers had to keep the
roadway open and the bridges along the route intact and secure.
D-Day was set for 17 September 1944,
and the 101st, along with the 82d Airborne Division, the British 1st
Airborne Division and 52d Lowland Division (Airportable), and the 1st
Polish Parachute Brigade were set to jump. Unlike the Normandy jumps,
this operation, by order of Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commander of the
First Allied Airborne Army, was to be carried out in daylight. Shortages
in transport planes, however, prevented the three divisions from
dropping all their troops on D-Day, and the commanders had to decide
which units would go in first. The 101st Airborne Division was to anchor
the British Airborne Corps' southern-most flank and secure a 15-mile
sector between Eindhoven and Veghel.
In early October the British moved
their 8 and 12 Corps into position along the highway, and it was thought
the 101st could be better used elsewhere. On 5 October the division
moved north to take up defensive positions in the British line, in an
area known as the island. This area, a narrow strip of land north of
Nijmegen, situated between the lower Rhine and Waal Rivers, was
subjected to numerous German attacks. The division suffered heavy
casualties in defense of this "island". Shortly after the 101st assumed
its positions in the line, the British Corps returned, without either of
its American divisions, to England. The 82d joined the 101st on the
island later in October. It was not until November that the two
divisions were released to prepare for the next airborne mission. The
101st, in late November, moved back to Mourmelon, France, for a
well-deserved rest. There the men of the 101st received replacement
equipment and new clothes and trained for the next jump. Events in the
Ardennes forest, however, interrupted their rest, and the next jump
never came.
The Germans launched their last great
offensive in Belgium on 16 December, driving west through thinly held
positions, and catching the Allies unprepared. Maj. Gen. Troy
Middleton's VIII Corps was giving way, and he desperately needed
reinforcements. The VIII Corps had its headquarters in Bastogne, a city
at the center of the highway system spanning the southern portion of the
Ardennes.
The 101st Airborne Division, travelling
by truck, reached Bastogne on 18 December, and McAuliffe met with
General Middleton, who had received orders to pull the VIII Corps
headquarters out of the city. When Middleton left the following morning
he gave McAuliffe only one order, "Hold Bastogne."
The Germans first attempt to break the
defenses at Bastogne came in the 501st's sector at Neffe. The
paratroopers, however, held their line against repeated attacks, and the
enemy attention eventually turned to another section of the perimeter,
further south. On the 21st German soldiers probed the line at Marvie, in
the 327th's sector. The enemy penetrated the glider regiment's defenses,
which rallied and repelled the assault. After continued skirmishes, four
German soldiers approached the 327th's defenses on 22 December carrying
a flag of truce. The Germans brought an ultimatum for the Allied
commander of Bastogne to surrender within two hours or face annihilation
from a massed German artillery bombardment. McAuliffe's now famous
response "NUTS!" provided a boost to the sagging morale of the
Americans.
On 18 January the 101st moved to the
Alsace region as part of the Seventh Army line, holding defensive
positions through late February. The 101st then returned to Mourmelon,
where it reverted to First Allied Airborne Army control. On 1 March the new organizational structure for
airborne divisions reached the 101st, and the 506th PIR became an
organic element of the division. Two weeks later, General Eisenhower
visited Mourmelon and awarded the SCREAMING EAGLES the Distinguished
Unit Citation (now the Presidential Unit Citation) for its stand at
Bastogne. The division went back to training, this time for a proposed
air assault on Berlin. Instead, the division, minus the 501st PIR which
remained at Mourmelon, moved to positions near the Rhine during the
first week in April.
During the last days of the war the
101st Airborne Division was in Berchtesgaden, Adolph Hitler's vacation
retreat. The airborne soldiers spent their days hunting members of the
Nazi leadership that had gone into hiding. On 1 August the 42d Infantry
Division relieved the 101st, which moved back to France to train for a
possible airborne assault on Japan. These plans were canceled after the
Japanese surrender, and the division was inactivated 30 November 1945 in
France.
(Source and (c):
US Army)
Units
501st Parachute Infantry
Regiment
502d Parachute Infantry Regiment
506th Parachute Infantry
327th Glider Infantry Regiment
401st Glider Infantry
101st Parachute Maintenance Battalion
326th Airborne Engineer Battalion
326th Airborne Medical Company
81st Airborne Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion
101st Airborne Division Artillery
321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion
377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion
463d Parachute Field Artillery Battalion [assigned in 1 Mar 45
reorganization]
907th Glider Field Artillery Battalion
Special Troops
801st Ordnance Company
426th Quartermaster Company
101st Signal Company
Military Police Platoon
Headquarters Company
Reconnaissance Platoon
Relevant websites
101st Airborne
Division Association
Trigger Time
Lone Sentry
Band-of-Brothers.nl
506th Airborne
Infantry Regiment
Casualties of the Division and
supporting units buried in Margraten or KIA in the Netherlands and
buried elsewhere.