101st Airborne Division

101st Airborne Division
File:101DIV.jpg U.S. 101st Airborne Division Shoulder Patch
Active	August 15, 1942—
Branch	Regular Army
Type	Division
Role	Air Assault Infantry
Part of	XVIII Airborne Corps
Garrison/HQ	Fort Campbell
Nickname(s)	Screaming Eagles
Motto(s)	"Rendezvous With Destiny"
Engagements	World War II Vietnam War Desert Shield Desert Storm Operation Iraqi Freedom
Commanders
Current commander	MG Thomas R. Turner II
Notable commanders	Maxwell Taylor

The 101^st Airborne Division (Air Assault) —nicknamed the Screaming Eagles— is an air assault division of the United States Army mainly trained for air assault operations. During the Vietnam conflict, the 101^st was redesignated an airmobile division, and later as an air assault division. It keeps the identifier "airborne" but does not conduct parachute operations at a division level. Many modern members of the 101^st are graduates of the U.S. Army's Air Assault School, and wear the Air Assault Badge, but it is not a prerequisite to be assigned to the division. The division is headquartered at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and is currently serving in Iraq.

History

The division was activated on August 15, 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. On August 19, 1942 its first commander, Major General William C. Lee, promised his new recruits that the 101^st had a "rendezvous with destiny."

General Order Number Six, which gave birth to the division, reads:

The 101^st Airborne Division, activated at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny. Like the early American pioneers whose invincible courage was the foundation stone of this nation, we have broken with the past and its traditions in order to establish our claim to the future.

Due to the nature of our armament, and the tactics in which we shall perfect ourselves, we shall be called upon to carry out operations of far-reaching military importance and we shall habitually go into action when the need is immediate and extreme.

Let me call your attention to the fact that our badge is the great American eagle. This is a fitting emblem for a division that will crush its enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies.

The history we shall make, the record of high achievement we hope to write in the annals of the American Army and the American people, depends wholly and completely on the men of this division. Each individual, each officer and each enlisted man, must therefore regard himself as a necessary part of a complex and powerful instrument for the overcoming of the enemies of the nation. Each, in his own job, must realize that he is not only a means, but an indispensable means for obtaining the goal of victory. It is, therefore, not too much to say that the future itself, in whose molding we expect to have our share, is in the hands of the soldiers of the 101^st Airborne Division.

During World War II, the Pathfinders of the 101^st Airborne Division led the way on D-Day in the night drop prior to the invasion. They left from RAF North Witham having trained there with the elite, veteran 82nd Airborne Division.

On August 2 1944 the division became part of the First Allied Airborne Army. As part of this formation it took part in Operation Market Garden.

During the Battle of the Bulge the 101^st, as one of the few forces available to contain the German advance was rushed forward to defend the vital road junction of Bastogne. Famously, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe answered the German demand for surrender with the reply "To the German Commander: NUTS! -The American Commander" and the division fought on until the siege was lifted and the German advance halted.

For their efforts during World War II, the 101^st Airborne Division was awarded four campaign streamers and two Presidential Unit Citations. The division suffered 1,766 Killed In Action; 6,388 Wounded In Action; and 324 Died of Wounds during World War II.

Reactivation

The 101^st Airborne Division was reactivated as a training unit at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, in 1948 and again in 1950. It was reactivated again in 1954 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and in March 1956, the 101^st was transferred, less personnel and equipment, to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to be reorganized as a combat division.

Civil rights

From September through November of 1957 elements of the division were deployed to Little Rock, Arkansas, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to enforce Federal court orders during the Little Rock Crisis.

Vietnam

In the mid-1960s, the 1^st Brigade and support troops were deployed to the Republic of Vietnam, followed by the rest of the division in late 1967. In almost seven years of combat in Vietnam, elements of the 101^st participated in 15 campaigns. Notable among these were the Battle of Hamburger Hill in 1969 and Firebase Ripcord in 1970. The 101st was deployed in the northern I Corps region operating against the NVA infiltration routes through Laos and the A Shau valley. Elements of the division supported the ARVN Operation Lam Son 719, the invasion of southern Laos, in 1971, but only aviation units actually entered Laos. In the seven years that all or part of the division served in Vietnam it suffered 4,011 Killed In Action and 18,259 Wounded In Action.

In 1968, the 101^st took on the structure and equipment of an airmobile division. Today, the 101^st stands as the Army's and the world's only air assault division with unequaled strategic and tactical mobility. In 1974, the training of the 101^st was recognized with the creation of the Air Assault Badge, now a service wide decoration of the United States Army.

Post-Vietnam

Tragedy struck the division on December 12, 1985. A civilian aircraft, Arrow Air Flight 1285, chartered to transport some of the division from peacekeeping duty with the Multinational Force Observers on the Sinai Peninsula to Kentucky, crashed near Gander, Newfoundland. All eight air crew members and 248 US servicemen died, most were from the 3d Battalion, 502d Infantry. The crash was the worst in Canadian aviation history. President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy travelled to Fort Campbell to comfort grieving family members.

Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm

In January 1991, the 101^st once again had its "Rendezvous with Destiny" in Iraq during the combat air assault into enemy territory. The 101^st sustained no soldiers killed in action during the 100-hour war and captured thousands of enemy prisoners of war.

The division has supported humanitarian relief efforts in Rwanda and Somalia, then later supplied peacekeepers to Haiti and Bosnia.

Operation Iraqi Freedom

The division was deployed once again to Iraq in 2003 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The division was in V Corps, providing support to the 3rd Infantry Division by clearing Iraqi strongpoints which that division had bypassed. The Division then went on to a tour of duty as part of the occupation forces of Iraq, using the city of Mosul as their primary base of operations, before being withdrawn in early 2004 for rest and refit. As part of the Army's modular transformation, the existing infantry brigades, artillery brigade, and aviation brigades were transformed, with the addition of re-activating a brand-new (or in this case old) 4th Brigade Combat Team known as "Currahee" has come back since World War II and it's subordinate units, to form a 6-7 major units division, one of the largest currently in the U.S. Army, in preparation to redeploy in fall 2005 to Iraq.

The division's second deployment to Iraq began in the late summer of 2005. The division headquarters replaced the 42nd Infantry Division, which had been directing security operations as the headquarters for Task Force Liberty. Renamed Task Force Band of Brothers, the 101st assumed responsibility on November 1, 2005 for four provinces in north central Iraq: Salah ad Din, Kirkuk, Diyala and As Sulymaniyah. On December 30, 2005, Task Force Band of Brothers also assumed responsibility for training Iraqi security forces and conducting security operations in Ninevah and Dahuk provinces as the headquarters for Task Force Freedom was disestablished.

During the second deployment, 2nd and 4th Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division were assigned to conduct security operations under the command of Task Force Baghdad, led initially by 3rd Infantry Division, which was replaced by 4th Infantry Division.

General information

• Commanding General: Major General Thomas R. Turner II
• Deputy Assistant Division Commander (Operations): Brigadier General Michael L. Oates
• Deputy Assistant Division Commander (Support): Brigadier General Rickey L. Rife
• Chief of Staff: Colonel Mark L. Ritter
• Division Command Sergeant Major: Command Sergeant Major Frank A. Grippe

Subordinate Units

• 501st Special Troops Battalion
  • 501st STB, Headquarters
  • 501st STB, A Company
  • 501st STB, B Company
  • 101st Division Band
  • 501st STB, MI DET
  • 501st STB, SIG DET
  • 501st STB, E Company
  • 501st STB, PATH

• 1st Brigade Combat Team ("Bastogne")
  • HHC, 1st BCT ("Warriors")
  • 1-327th Infantry Regiment ("Above the Rest")
  • 2-327th Infantry Regiment ("No Slack")
  • 1st Squadron (RSTA), 32d Cavalry
  • 2-320th Field Artillery Battalion ("Balls of the Eagles")
  • 326th Brigade Troops Battalion
  • 426th Brigade Support Battalion ("Taskmasters")

• 2d Brigade Combat Team ("Strike")
  • HHC, 2d BCT
  • 1-502d Infantry Regiment ("First Strike")
  • 2-502d Infantry Regiment ("Strike Force")
  • 1st Squadron (RSTA), 75th Cavalry
  • 1-320th Field Artillery Battalion ("Top Guns")
  • 311th Brigade Troops Battalion ("Team")
  • 526th Brigade Support Battalion ("Best By Performance")

• 3d Brigade Combat Team ("Rakkasans")
  • HHC, 3d BCT
  • 1-187th Infantry Regiment ("Leader Rakkasans")
  • 3-187th Infantry Regiment ("Iron Rakkasans")
  • 1st Squadron (RSTA), 33d Cavalry
  • 3-320th Field Artillery Battalion ("Red Knight")
  • 381st Brigade Troops Battalion
  • 626th Brigade Support Battalion ("Assurgam")

• 4th Brigade Combat Team ("Currahee")
  • HHC, 4th BCT
  • 1-506th Infantry Regiment
  • 2-506th Infantry Regiment
  • 1st Squadron (RSTA), 61st Cavalry
  • 4-320th Field Artillery Battalion
  • 4th Brigade Troops Battalion
  • 801st Brigade Support Battalion

• 101st Aviation Brigade ("Wings of Destiny")
  • HHC, 101st Aviation Brigade
  • 2-17 Air Cavalry Squadron ("Out Front")
  • 1-101st Aviation Battalion ("Expect No Mercy")
  • 2-101st Aviation Battalion ("Eagle Warrior")
  • 5-101st Aviation Battalion ("Eagle Assault")
  • 6-101st Aviation Battalion ("Pathfinder")
  • 8-101st Aviation Battalion ("Troubleshooters")

• 159th Aviation Brigade ("Eagle Thunder")
  • HHC, 159th Aviation Brigade
  • 1-17th Air Cavalry Squadron
  • 3-101st Aviation Battalion ("Eagle Attack")
  • 4-101st Aviation Battalion ("Wings of the Eagles")
  • 7-101st General Support Aviation Battalion (GSAB) ("Eagle Lift")
  • 9-101st Aviation Battalion ("Eagle Strike")

• 101st Sustainment Brigade ("Life Liners")
  • DMMC
  • 63d Chemical Company
  • 106th Transportation Battalion
  • 372d TC Company
  • 594th TC Company
  • 613th MCT
  • 632d MCT
  • 129th Combat Support Battalion
  • 494th TC Company
  • 561st Combat Support Battalion
  • 95th Maint
  • 102d Quartermaster Company
  • 196th Quartermaster Detachment
  • 227th GS Company
  • 541st TC Company
  • 584th Maintenance Company
  • 717th EOD Detachment
  • 101st Sustainment Brigade Troops Battalion
  • 101st SSB

• 2-44th Air Defense Artillery Battalion ("Strike Fear")
• 887th Engineer Company (LE) ("Empire")
• 86th CSH

Popular culture

• Only seven years after the 101^st Airborne Division was first activated, filmmakers were capturing its World War II Battle of the Bulge heroics in black-and-white film Battleground, starring James Whitmore and Van Johnson. The film received six Academy Award nominations in 1949, winning two awards, but losing the best picture award to Robert Rossen's All the King's Men.

• Rakkasans of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment are featured in the 1987 film "Hamburger Hill," which depicted their seizure of Dong Ap Bia in the A Shau Valley over a period of days.

• The 502d Infantry Regiment appear in the video games Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and its sequel, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood. You play in historically accurate missions such as the D-Day parachute drops and the capture of Carentan and St. Savoeur.

• The 502d Infantry Regiment was also the subject of a recent documentary series produced by the History Channel Brothers in Arms: The Untold Story of The 502. This series used the 3D video game engine from the Brothers in Arms game to render graphics to tell the story of the unit's ordeal during the war, accompanied by interviews, narration, and traditional archival footage and photos. It was the second series produced by the History Channel to use commercial video game technology as a means of rendering cheap, but good quality, graphics for a documentary series (the first was Decisive Battles in 2004, which used the game Rome: Total War's engine to reproduce large-scale battles). The series can generally be seen both as a promotional tactic, and as fanfare.

• Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, are depicted in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which was based on Stephen Ambrose's book of the same name.

• Baker Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, are highlighted in the film Saving Private Ryan. During which a unit of U.S. Army Rangers search throughout Normandy for a 101^st paratrooper (played by Matt Damon) who was being sent home after his three brothers are killed in action.

• The computer game Call of Duty and its expansion Call of Duty: United Offensive portrays players as part of the 101^st Airborne in several divisions and companies, often intermingled with their historical counterparts.

Helmet insignia

The 101^st is made famous partly by their helmet decorations. The soldiers used card suits (diamonds, spades, hearts, and clubs) to indicate the regiment to which they belonged.

• These insignias were first seen in WWII, and can still be seen on 101^st Division soldiers today.
  • 502d: Hearts (♥)
  • 327th: Clubs (♣)
  • 506th: Spades (♠)
  • 501st: Diamonds (♦)

External links

• 101^st Airborne Division Home Page - official site.
• Fort Campbell Home Page
• GlobalSecurity.org information page about the 101^st Airborne Division
• 101^st Airborne Division Association
• The Story of the 101^st Airborne Division (WWII unit history booklet, 1945)
• Trigger Time web site by historian Mark Bando