101st Airborne troops posing with a captured Nazi vehicle air identification sign two days after landing at Normandy.
The 101st Airborne Division was activated at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana on August 16, 1942 under command of Major General William C. Lee and transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina in September. It was one of two airborne divisions created by dividing up the 82d Infantry Division. General Lee said of the division: “The 101st Airborne... has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny…”
General Lee had played an early role in American airborne history. After serving in France in World War I as a platoon leader and a company commander, he taught military science and became an expert in tank warfare. As a major in the Office of the Chief of Infantry, Lee worked on the development of the infantryman as a paratrooper, studying the methods of the U S Forest Service fire-jumpers.
A test platoon was formed from infantry volunteers in July 1940, and they made their first jump on august 16th. Some of the battalion combat leaders in the 101st at Normandy served in the battalion that grew out of this test platoon, including. Robert F. Sink, Julian Ewell, Patrick J. Cassidy, Robert G Cole, as well as Robert L. Strayer who became a regimental commander. As a colonel, Lee assumed leadership of the Airborne Command at Fort Bragg on 21 March 1942. As a general, he established the Parachute School at Fort Benning, Georgia in May.
The 101st Airborne Division in its initial form comprised: Headquarters, the 502d Parachute Infantry, the 327th and 401st Glider Infantries, the divisional artillery, the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, the 321st and 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalions, the 101st Airborne Signal Company, 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 426th Airborne Quartermaster Company and the 326th Airborne Medical Company. By 1944 the division had added the 81st Airborne Anti-aircraft Battalion and several auxiliary companies and platoons, as well as combat attachments comprising three more entire tank and tank destroyer battalions.
The 101st Airborne sailed to England in September 1943 where they took part in training exercises and practice jumps for their first combat of the war. When General Lee suffered a heart attack, the division passed to the command of Major General Maxwell D. Taylor in March 1944.
On 6 June 1944, the 101st shared in the air and sea assault of Normandy. In the predawn hours, the 502d Parachute Infantry Regiment and the attached 501st and 506th Parachute Infantry Regiments parachuted behind enemy lines, while supporting divisional units arrived by sea and gliders brought in equipment and troops. The division played a key role in the capture of Carentan. The 101st returned to England on 13 July for rehabilitation. Airborne leaders were eager to stage another major operation. However, such was the speed of the allied pursuit across France and Belgium that no sooner had an operation been prepared than the ground forces had already overrun the proposed landing zones. Then came Arnhem, the proverbial "bridge too far”. The 101st air assaulted Nijmegen-Arnhem, Holland on 17 September 1944. It took the Veghel and Zon bridges, as well as Eindhoven, Zon, St. Oedenrode, Veghel, and Schijndel. On 28 November, the division was relieved and returned to France.
The division returned to action in the Ardennes on 18 December 1944 under the temporary command of Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe. Its epic defense of surrounded and besieged Bastogne won the entire division the Distinguished Unit Citation. When the Germans demanded surrender on 22 December, General McAuliffe replied with the now legendary, “Nuts" The general later said of his men: “With the type of soldier I had under my command, possessing such fighting spirit, all that I had to do was to make a few basic decisions – my men did the rest."
On February 25th, 1945, the 101st retired to France for rehabilitation. In late March, the division moved out to hold the Ruhr pocket, from where they sent periodic patrols across the Rhine. It took up military government duties while advancing across southern Germany into Bavaria. Ordered to march on Berchtesgaden on 4 May, the division suffered its last three battle casualties en route as the war came to an end. After a period of occupation in southern Germany and Austria, the “Screaming Eagles” returned to France on August 1st 1945. The division was inactivated in France on November 30th.
During the course of battle the division had 1,766 men killed , 6,388 wounded, and 324 later died of their wounds. Two men of the division, from the 502d Parachute Infantry Regiment, won the Medal of Honor, one of which was for the invasion of Normandy. In sum, the 101st participated in the World War II campaigns of Normandy, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe.