"82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions." Topic

Reading about the history of those two great units at WW2, wonder to ask your opinion about why the 101st with his records was deactivated and the 82nd do not?
Crack soldiers that those of the 101st were not easy to find for the US Army.
It was some kind of political decision?

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Thanks in advance for your guidance.

Amicalement
Armand

The 82nd was far more experienced.
All though they got lots of press (and did great things).
The 101 was in combat less than one year (DDay to VEDay).
The 101 was reactivated later as Air-Mobile (helicopters)

The 101st wasn't needed for the invasion of Japan and wasn't really needed postwar so it was deactivated like many others since they weren't going to be used. The 82nd was an older division with more combat experience as noted before. From what I understand it was only briefly deactivated until the late 40s when it was reactivated and had units sent to Vietnam along with the 82nd. They both were used in the 60s.

"In the next eleven years the 101st Airborne was activated and deactivated three times. Finally in 1956 the Division was reorganized as a five brigade division and came back to the Regular Army and its permanent home of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Between 1956 and 1964 the Division was reorganized again and participated in several major exercises as the world transitioned into the nuclear age and the United States entered the Cold War. Most notable during this period was the 101st Airborne's deployment to Little Rock, Arkansas, in September of 1957 to assist in maintaining order during a series of civil disturbances. The unrest was a result of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock. This was a major event in the quest for racial equality and the professionalism of the troops of the 101st Airborne prevented possible tragedy."

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Robert

The 101st was also a child division of the 82nd. One of the brigades of the 82nd was detached to form the nucleus of the 101st. The 82nd was the first airborne division created. It was also the original division that Sergeant York was in during WWI as the 82nd Infantry Division.

But your point is well taken, kind of stupid in retrospect to deactivate it but the division went through quite a bit in Europe!

The Army actually has a set of criteria it uses to decided which units are activated, during periods of expansion, and deactivated. It's not just a matter of what unit does well or not, etc, but also includes the unit's lineage compared to others. For example, that's why the Army deactivated the 2d and 3rd armored divisions and not the first. And, odds are, if another armored division is cut, the 1st armored would be deactivated and the 1st Cavalry division would be the only armored division left.

The 82nd was the more senior division; the 101st, as noted by ancientgamer was a newly created division during WW2. It later became a test bed for air cav operations, along with the the 11th Airborne Division – which sort of evolved into the 1st Air Cav Division.

When I went to jump school in the early-80's a Black Hat instructor picked on a student wearing a 101st patch. The Black Hat said he hated the 101st because he was in the Division when they became "Legs" – that is, came off of jump status.

Oh, but why take them off status – because it was too expensive to keep another division on jump status – it's actually too expensive to have even one – but as many are aware, it's not that they expect to drop an entire division during war again, but it makes those on status believe they are elite. And, as many also are aware, what you believe you are makes up for a lot sometimes.

The whole issue of 'lineage' is interesting with the 82nd and 101st. Obviously the thing that the divisions are known for are the paratroopers. But neither division had any paratroopers at first. The organization was planned to be two glider infantry regiments and one parachute regiment. The glider regiments came from the original foot infantry regiments of the 82nd (two of which were cloned off to form the 101st). The parachute regiments were added later from newly created and trained independent parachute regiments. Later it was decided that the divisions would have two parachute regiments each. Initially, the parachute regiments didn't feel all that much loyalty toward the divisions and continued to emphasize their regimental organizations over the division. The parachute regiments of the 101st were not even attached to the division until after they got to England early in 1944. (One of the errors in Band of Brothers is that it shows the men wearing 101st patches on their uniforms during a training exercise in the States.)

The 82nd had more time in and was more experienced. I did an interview with a platoon sgt from the 504th. He jumped in Sicily, landed in Salerno and Holland. Very pround of his regtiment and his division.

I always thought it was a screw job to the glider infantry that they were NOT volunteers, but were assigned like any other infantry troops. As a result, they did not get the extra pay for jump status that the volunteer paratroops got. They were also not allowed to wear the "Airborne" rocker to the division patches.

This changed after the Normandy Invasion.

I have never heard of units not being allowed to wear the airborne tab, that is part of the divisional insignia and was never meant to differentiate if an individual or unit was airborne qualified. In fact, 'airborne' was considered the lower status so allowing the airborne units to wear it along with the parachute units would not have been an issue. The glider units were the airborne part of the division and were titled airborne infantry regiments while the jump qualified units were parachute infantry regiments. When I was at Bragg in the late 80s- early 90s the 325th was still harassed for being an 'airborne' regiment and not real parachute infantry (the title remained even though all units converted to parachutes in the 50s).

When the helicopter based units were developed it was actually the 11th Airborne Division that was the start up unit. However, the airborne generals fought the concept for fear of losing jump qualified slots to passenger seats in choppers. So when the division went from test status to operational, the Army gave the division to the cavalry by changing its nae to the 1st Cavalry Division.

Airborne Engineer:

You are correct about the 11th; the way I wrote my post jumbled the history. I once knew a Master Sergeant in the early-80's who was awarded those weird wings that were awarded to the guys in the 11th when they tested/qualified for air assualt operations. It had lightning bolts on it, IIRC. Best, Dean

Edit: here is an image of the badge – one lightning bolt and a rifle – weird.