Paratroopers During WW2

[DesertFox]

How would you judge paratroopers during World War II

 

I know many of the paratroopers during D-Day were dropped poorly including some dropped in the middle of the Ocean.

I also know that the British troops during Operation Market Garden missed the Arnhem bridge.

On the other side, it sounds like the German Paratrooper drops on Crete were successful

 

So how would you rate the successes and failures of Paratroopers during World War II?

[BillB]

How would you judge paratroopers during World War II

 

I know many of the paratroopers during D-Day were dropped poorly including some dropped in the middle of the Ocean.

I also know that the British troops during Operation Market Garden missed the Arnhem bridge.

On the other side, it sounds like the German Paratrooper drops on Crete were successful

 

So how would you rate the successes and failures of Paratroopers during World War II?

A bit more accurately than you, if the middle bit above is anything to go by.

 

BillB

[DesertFox]

A bit more accurately than you, if the middle bit above is anything to go by.

 

BillB

 

I am basing my knowledge on only a few sources which may be shading the truth, that is why I am asking?

[Ariete!]

1. This is a huge topic in military history. Market-Garden itself has spawned a cottage industry of publications. So you question may find a dismissive response.

 

2. Attempting a brief but hopefully non-idiotic response: WW2 was the apotheosis of airborne operations. In addition to Crete, D-Day and market garden there were important operations in Sicily, the Pacific Theater and of course the invasion of Belgium/Netherlands.

 

All the major operations were closely run affairs – very high risk. The concept that airborne works if heavier forces can link up to them quickly emerged from those experiences.

 

Post-war there were some largish operations (French in Indochina, Suez in 56, etc.) but the advent of helicopters has meant that tactical/operational vertical envelopment no longer requires people to jump out of airplanes.

 

Large, wartime jumps seem to become rarer all the time. The basic problem of lightness of equipment and difficulty of resupply have never been fully addressed, despite the advent of very large planes/parachutes.

 

3. Overall, It’s difficult to think of airborne forces in WW2 as having been as transformational as, say, large scale mechanize combined-arms operations or large scale tactical and strategic airpower or carrier task forces, etc. Ultimately, though, the fact that every army post WW2 has maintained paratroopers cannot be meaningless.

 

In a way, you can think of paratroopers in WW2 as being part of the process whereby the concept of ‘special purpose’ infantry became entrenched.

[DemolitionMan]

The drops during Market-Garden were the most accurate of all combat jumps in WW2. 90-95% troops and gliders were hitting DZs and LZs. Source: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchro...cc/torrisi.html

 

The offensives against Holland and Belgium would not have been possible without the Fallschirmjäger, and Crete demonstrated what such a dedicated and professional fighting force can achieve, however at a cost way too high. The drops during D-Day also added to the success of the landings, confusing the German rear zones and taking out strategic points. And many smaller successful operations of both sides showed that paratroopers were a useful item during WW2, although they lacked firepower badly.

[Cromwell]

I think it would be true to say that WW2 would have run its course in roughly the same manner if none of the major parachute operations had been conducted. I am not very good on the US Pacific jumps and Burma, but the key in the latter was air resuply rather than insertion. Seizing the Dutch airfields and fortresses was a great help, but decisive operations seem to be limited to Narvik and Crete, both German succeses where real shock and awe overwealmed a disoriented peacefully minded country. As a commando method the record is better. Skorzeny at Gran Sasso, SOE agents etc.

[DemolitionMan]

One more thing, I´d like to bring to your attention a collection of combat jumps during and after WW2. Especially the latter gives away the myth of no larger drops were done post-45. They are in German, but the basic information is easy to figure out even without knowledge of the language:

During WW2: http://www.whq-forum.de/invisionboard/inde...showtopic=23033

After: http://www.whq-forum.de/invisionboard/inde...showtopic=22554

Edited May 2, 2008 by DemolitionMan

[Ariete!]

All true. No-one's saying that there will never be para drops again. Jsut taht in many cases air assault substitutes for it.

 

The Para drop, post 1950s seems to get used either when the power projection is semi-strategic in distance (i.e. choppers don't range out that far), typcially with fairly sub-standard opposition, or by forces lacking sufficient helicopter lift.

 

In WW2 (to get back on tipic) paras (despite the heavy losses and mixed record) were pretty transformative at least in theory.

[Guest aevans]

A bit more accurately than you, if the middle bit above is anything to go by.

 

BillB

 

To help educate the man, instead of just disparage him, Professor, the British drop at Arnhem didn't miss the bridge, it just wasn't designed very well to secure the bridge. The British paratroopers were initially dropped approximately eight miles to the west of the bridge, with the intention that one brigade would move to and secure the bridge while another would secure the drops zone, with more troops coming in on subsequent drops to beef up security at both sites and secure communications between them. In the event, an SS Panzer corps was undergoing refit in the general vicinity and only one battalion of parachute infantry (2 Para), some engineers, and some other cats and dogs ever reached the bridge, securing only the north side of it.

[Sikkiyn]

All true. No-one's saying that there will never be para drops again. Jsut taht in many cases air assault substitutes for it.

 

The Para drop, post 1950s seems to get used either when the power projection is semi-strategic in distance (i.e. choppers don't range out that far), typcially with fairly sub-standard opposition, or by forces lacking sufficient helicopter lift.

 

In WW2 (to get back on tipic) paras (despite the heavy losses and mixed record) were pretty transformative at least in theory.

 

There have been plenty of ABN operations since WW2. A small few that come to mind.

Op Just Cause (Panama)

Op Uphold Democracy (Haitti)

OEF (75th at Op Rhino)

OIF (173rd)

 

AA/ABN have their valued roles, the question is, do this bozos in charge of planning know the difference?

[hojutsuka]

I think it would be true to say that WW2 would have run its course in roughly the same manner if none of the major parachute operations had been conducted.

The Norwegian Campaign would have failed without the airborne operations. Taking Oslo was vital, and while the capture of Fornebu airfield was technically not a parachute operation (the planes carrying the paratroopers ran into fog and turned back), it was taken by the airlanding troops that was planned to be the second wave. The airlanded troops went on to capture Oslo even though the seaborne part of the invasion was held up by the fortifications in Oslofjord that sank the new heavy cruiser Blücher.

 

Even after the initial operations, parachute operations and troops flown in by air were vital to German efforts to consolidate control over Norway and relieve the German troops that had captured Narvik (the German capture of Narvik was not a parachute or even airborne operation, but was carried out by mountain troops transported in German destroyers).

 

A German failure at Norway would have seen Norway joining the Allies, and Germany would have had a difficult time importing high quality iron ore from Sweden that was normally shipped from the Norwegian port of Narvik. This would have had a major effect on Germany's ability to fight a long war and changed the course of World War II.

 

Hojutsuka

[Guest aevans]

OEF (75th at Op Rhino)

 

A very small scale raid.

 

OIF (173rd)

 

Essentially an administrative movement using parachutes for delivery duew to airfield restrictions.

[BillB]

To help educate the man, instead of just disparage him, Professor, the British drop at Arnhem didn't miss the bridge, it just wasn't designed very well to secure the bridge. The British paratroopers were initially dropped approximately eight miles to the west of the bridge, with the intention that one brigade would move to and secure the bridge while another would secure the drops zone, with more troops coming in on subsequent drops to beef up security at both sites and secure communications between them. In the event, an SS Panzer corps was undergoing refit in the general vicinity and only one battalion of parachute infantry (2 Para), some engineers, and some other cats and dogs ever reached the bridge, securing only the north side of it.

Tell me, Chief Contrarian of the irrelevant Summa Cum Laude, did you feed the topic starter his largely duff info? If you are going to step in and "educate" folk you really ought to check the accuracy of your assertions.

 

There was only one British parachute brigade involved on the first day of MARKET, and securing the Arnhem road bridge was only one of its tasks; the others were the railway bridge, a pontoon bridge, Arnhem town hall and some high ground to the north of the town. The second brigade, only c.two-thirds of which came in on the first day was actually a glider formation and was only tasked to hold the landing area until the second lift came in on the morning of the second day. They and the second parachute brigade were thus not supposed to "beef up security at both sites" or to "secure communications between them", they were to abandon the landing area as soon as the lift was finished, the newly arrived parachute brigade to reinforce the force holding the bridges and high ground, and the glider unit set up a defensive line in the western suburbs of Arnhem. A third lift by a Polish parachute brigade was scheduled to take place south of the Arnhem road bridge, but after the link up with the armoured units coming up from the south.

 

There was no SS Panzer Korps being refitted in the general vicinty. The *remnants* of a number of units belonging to II SS Panzer Korps were scattered up to 20 miles north and east of Arnhem, most with with no motor transport at all and some with no personal equipment or weapons either, and all were in process of moving to Germany to refit. The only armour, a handful of armoured half-tracks belonging to a recce unit, were actually on board trains for the move when the landings began. Finally, there was no such thing as "2 Para" in 1944, you mean the 2nd Parachute Battalion, and only a rifle company and support company from that uint actually reached the northern end of the Arnhem road bridge, reinforced in the early hours of D+1 by half a company from the 3rd Parachute Battalion. The roughly battalion sized force that ended up holding the north end of the bridge was created by adding para engineers, airborne recce, engineer and HQ elements to that infantry core.

 

You did get the bit about the British lift not being very well designed right, though.

 

BillB

[Guest aevans]

Tell me, Chief Contrarian of the irrelevant Summa Cum Laude, did you feed the topic starter his largely duff info? If you are going to step in and "educate" folk you really ought to check the accuracy of your assertions.

 

Just going off memory from A Bridge Too Far, which ISTR last reading fifteen years ago. Mea culpa for any inacurracies, but at least I didn't blast the man because his knowledge didn't live up to some arbitrary standard of my own creation.

 

You did get the bit about the British lift not being very well designed right, though.

 

What!? You're actually agreeing in a criticism of British military efforts? Give me a sec to police my lower jaw up off of the floor...

[BillB]

I am basing my knowledge on only a few sources which may be shading the truth, that is why I am asking?

Fair one, and I ought to have put a smilie on the end of my first post as I didn't mean to come over as snotty as it appears; I plead posting at stupidly late o'clock. As a matter of interest, which of your sources refers to men being dropped into the ocean? To address your original post:

 

I know many of the paratroopers during D-Day were dropped poorly including some dropped in the middle of the Ocean.

Dropped poorly is a bit of an understatement, especially with regard to the US 82nd & 101st Airborne Divisions in the Cotentin; the British 6th Airborne Division fared a bit better on the east flank of the landing area. Despite that they nonetheless managed to achieve most of their objectives. Without the 6th Airborne blocking 21 Panzer Division's line of advance I suspect that the SWORD landings would have been in serious trouble, and I also think that the UTAH landings only got away with dithering because the US airborne guys tied up what German forces there were in the area.

 

I also know that the British troops during Operation Market Garden missed the Arnhem bridge.

As our resident contrarian anti-intellectual zealot has pointed out, they didn't really miss the bridge, they failed to get there in sufficient strength, altho they did manage to hold one end of it for longer than they were originally supposed to, IIRC. The problems lay with the planning and the first lift lacking urgency and trying to do far too much with too little.

 

On the other side, it sounds like the German Paratrooper drops on Crete were successful

Not really. The Germans on Crete were badly bitten by unsuitable operational practices that had already cost them dear and led to the failure of some aspects of their airborne attack into Holland in May 1940 - although the attack on Eben Emael was a text-book example of a surgical airbonre strike. IIRC The Germans were only saved from an even worse trouncing if not total defeat on Crete by poor Allied comms that prevented co-ordinated counter-attacks and the arrival of seaborne reinforcments.

 

So how would you rate the successes and failures of Paratroopers during World War II?

Dunno if I'd look at it quite like that. Airborne forces were an adjunct to mechanised warfare rather than an end in themselves, and their ops should be measured against that yardstick. IMO the British airborne force paid its dues in Normandy; without them to secure the eastern flank the landings could not have gone ahead, and Operation VARSITY, the airborne op in support of the Rhine Crossings in 1945 is routinely overlooked even though it was a stunning success that proved the validity and usefulness of the airborne idea. Like many things, folk tend to overlook the successes and play up the failures. Most if not all the times things went wrong were due to improper employment, usually due to a combination of shortage of resources, poor understanding and/or inter-service or other politics. Arnhem is a case in point. The ridiculously distant landing zones were due to RAF planners being allowed to put the safety of aircraft above getting the troops on the ground in the right place, the failure to put in a glider coup-de-main as in Normandy was due to a combination of overconfidence and the man in charge playing politics for reasons of personal ambition, and I think the British 1st Airborne Div got the hardest job over the two far more experienced and competent US divisions for the same reasons.

 

Hope this helps!

 

BillB

[BillB]

Just going off memory from A Bridge Too Far, which ISTR last reading fifteen years ago. Mea culpa for any inacurracies, but at least I didn't blast the man because his knowledge didn't live up to some arbitrary standard of my own creation.

 

The only one blasting in here was you, as per usual. Don't let anything get in the way of a good bit of contrarian ranting, eh Tony. Things have moved on quite a bit since A Bridge Too Far. You might like to try my 2001 work on the subject, it's gone into two editions so I must be doing something right...

 

What!? You're actually agreeing in a criticism of British military efforts? Give me a sec to police my lower jaw up off of the floor...

Yet another example of The Chief Contrarian basing his opinions on personal prejudice rather than objectivity. I give credit or whatever where it's due, not on national or any other lines. It's a lesson that you clearly missed in your own academic career, despite the summa cum laude. Must have been all the time you spent sycophantically regurgitating what people wanted to hear rather than having the courage of your convictions and exercising a bit of individualism and critical thinking. Ref your jaw, just leave it on the floor , hopefully some right thinking individual will put a size nine boot into it.

 

BillB

[Guest aevans]

The only one blasting in here was you, as per usual. Don't let anything get in the way of a good bit of contrarian ranting, eh Tony. Things have moved on quite a bit since A Bridge Too Far. You might like to try my 2001 work on the subject, it's gone into two editions so I must be doing something right...

 

Or just confirming other people's prejudices. That's always a lucrative racket.

 

Yet another example of The Chief Contrarian basing his opinions on personal prejudice rather than objectivity. I give credit or whatever where it's due, not on national or any other lines.

Is that so?

 

It's a lesson that you clearly missed in your own academic career, despite the summa cum laude. Must have been all the time you spent sycophantically regurgitating what people wanted to hear rather than having the courage of your convictions and exercising a bit of individualism and critical thinking.

 

Individualism I have plenty of. When the instructor doesn't want critical thinking, why waste your time? There are plenty of subjects in a scientific/technical degree that actually require critical thinking that wasting your effort on psuedointellectuals in the Yoohoomanities is contraindicated.

 

Ref your jaw, just leave it on the floor , hopefully some right thinking individual will put a size nine boot into it.

 

Even in your case I have never advocated violence, Bill.

[BillB]

Or just confirming other people's prejudices. That's always a lucrative racket.

Dismissing stuff without even setting eyes on it. How very petty and pathetic. How very Tony Evans, in fact.

 

Is that so?

Yup. Have a look at my book you disparage so lightly despite having not a clue about what is actually in it, or any of my others for that matter. Plethora of evidence to contradict your fantasies about my objectivity there, as well as on this Grate Sight too. Which is why you won't go within a mile of them, of course. Can't possibly have the ludicrously inaccurate and frankly laughable imaginary picture you have assembled of me being contrradicted by reality, can we...

 

Individualism I have plenty of. When the instructor doesn't want critical thinking, why waste your time? There are plenty of subjects in a scientific/technical degree that actually require critical thinking that wasting your effort on psuedointellectuals in the Yoohoomanities is contraindicated.

Ah, the "why should I waste my time" line, beloved of losers and those incapable of accepting that they are not quite as clever as they fondly imagine despite the evidence. You may consider historians to be pseudointellectuals in the Yoohoomanities, but I have yet to come across one that could be remotely considered an "instructor". I've also, incidentally, come across more than a few hard scientists with all the man-management, critical thinking ability and mental flexibility of a lamp post. That aside, the above is the root of your problem - you have a surfeit of individualism at the expense of far more desirable and necessary character traits. Like having the courage of your convictions as a full time fixture for example, rather than hiding your lack of minerals behind obscure words - your penchant for the latter, by the way, is merely another symptom of the small man syndrome you epitomise so comprehensively.

 

Even in your case I have never advocated violence, Bill.

Sorry to shatter your illusions, Tony, but I am a firm believer in the "a smack in the mouth says a thousand words" school of thought when reason fails to make any impression on the terminally stupid and/or obtuse. It's what comes of growing up in a housing project, working for two decades in the construction industry and living in the real world, Tony. You know, all those things that you are convinced I know nothing about.

 

BillB

[Colin Williams]

Personally, I think that the paratroopers of WW2 fall into roughly the same category as commandos. When used in right way they could have a disproportionately favorable effect on the outcome of a battle. When used in the wrong way they would quickly become scattered light infantry lacking in supporting weapons and liable to take heavy casualties for little result. The high level of training and skill at small unit tactics typical of these units has tended to cover for their operational limitations.

[Guest aevans]

Sorry to shatter your illusions, Tony, but I am a firm believer in the "a smack in the mouth says a thousand words" school of thought when reason fails to make any impression on the terminally stupid and/or obtuse. It's what comes of growing up in a housing project, working for two decades in the construction industry and living in the real world, Tony. You know, all those things that you are convinced I know nothing about.

 

BillB

 

Since you seem to have waived the restriction against remote psychoanalysis with comments like "small man syndrome", I'll limit myself to this observation -- you can take the man out of the gutter, but you can't take the gutter out of the man, and that really defines who is "small" around here..

[DesertFox]

As a matter of interest, which of your sources refers to men being dropped into the ocean? To address your original post:

 

Lecture on World War II from a professor Childers on DVD...I don't believe he specified on Market Garden other than the troops failed to reach their objective and that there were massive casualties.

 

Id the part on dropping troops into the ocean accurate?

He also talks that the Germans flooded fields and paratroopers drowned in 2 or 3 feet of water due to teh weight of their gear and being unable to entangle from their parachutes....

Edited May 3, 2008 by DesertFox

[Sikkiyn]

Essentially an administrative movement using parachutes for delivery duew to airfield restrictions.

 

Several hundred "administratives" dropped in to secure an airfield...guess all of those S1 types lined it with red tape; would explain the mongolian style CF which currently exist.

[FALightFighter]

Lecture on World War II from a professor Childers on DVD...I don't believe he specified on Market Garden other than the troops failed to reach their objective and that there were massive casualties.

 

Id the part on dropping troops into the ocean accurate?

He also talks that the Germans flooded fields and paratroopers drowned in 2 or 3 feet of water due to teh weight of their gear and being unable to entangle from their parachutes....

 

Can't find a reference right now, but I recall reading that a few (a couple of plane loads out of quite a few overa 100) paratroopers overshot the cotentin peninsula and dropped in the English channel.

 

Some others were drowned in the swamps along the Mederet River, but from experience in ABN operations, I doubt it would happen in only 2-3 feet, unless the jumper were injured or knocked unconscious (I guess that would count as injured). I've never been so tangled that I couldn't sit up, which would get your head out of 2-3 feet of whater.

[Mk 1]

Id the part on dropping troops into the ocean accurate?

Could this have been a less-than-clear reference to earlier experiences of the US paras?

 

During the invasion of Sicily many of the US paras were indeed given the "GO" signal while their planes were still offshore, sometimes miles off shore. Many soldiers were lost.

 

-Mark 1

[Ken Estes]

Could this have been a less-than-clear reference to earlier experiences of the US paras?

 

During the invasion of Sicily many of the US paras were indeed given the "GO" signal while their planes were still offshore, sometimes miles off shore. Many soldiers were lost.

 

-Mark 1

You are right, that was the worst. There may have been a few dropped offshore at Normandy as well. Having seen the post-op map reconstructing where the sticks came down at the abn museum at St Mere Eglise [or maybe it was the invasion museum at Arromanches], I can tell you it was unbelievable how far & wide some of the regiments were spread. The battle effects they generated afterward remain a real testiment to small unit leadership and spirit.