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70 Years ago today on the 24th March 1944, Operation VARSITY, the last major Allied airborne operation of World War Two was launched. VARSITY is widely recognised as the war’s most successful airborne drop. Carried out by 17,000 men of the XVIII Airborne Corps - made up of American, British and Canadian airborne troops, the objective was to seize and hold a strategic ground between the Rhine and Issel
rivers and establish bridgeheads for the ground forces to advance across. The men were dropped in a massive single lift (wave of transport aircraft) of 1,500 C-46 & C-47 transports and 1,300 gliders in conjunction with a amphibious assault across the Rhine by the 21st Army Group.
The operation was carefully planned and put into practice many of the lessons learnt from earlier
operations. The landings took place during the day, in a single lift with drop
zones located closely to the objectives and following the lessons learnt from MARKET GARDEN better air support was provided which prevented effective enemy counter-attacks.
Despite these efforts scattering and heavy losses were suffered as the drop zones were badly obscured by smoke and ground fire was intense. In contradiction to the recommendations made following Operation HUSKY (the airborne debacle during the Invasion of Sicily) troops were dropped into stiff German opposition from elements of the 1st Fallschirm-Armee (German paratroop) which were expecting an airborne assault. All of the objectives had been taken within five and a half hours of the landing. However, while the operation was successful 2,500 casualties were suffered by the XVIII Airborne Corps and three quarters of the aircraft and gliders involved were damaged in an operation which arguably did not require an airborne element.
Sources:
Airborne To Battle: A History of Airborne Warfare, M. Tugwell, (1971)
Sky Men, R. Kershaw, (2010)
Wings of War, P. Harclerode,(2005)
Operation Varsity (source)
Image One Source Image Two Source
Image Three Source Image Four Source
Image Five Source
On the 12th November 1942, the 3rd Parachute Battalion under the command of Lt. Col. R.G. Pine-Coffin (his men frequently called him Woody or Wooden Box) captured the German held airfield at Bone on the Algerian-Tunisian border (now known as Rabah Bitat Airport). 3 PARA conducted an almost perfect drop capturing the airfield in the early hours of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.
By 8.30 the airfield had been secured but their landing had been watched by a flight of German JU-52 transport aircraft who were also destined for the airfield at Bone. On board the transports were a battalion of Fallschirmjager, the Para’s Axis counterparts. Ill-equipped for a combat drop - they had been planning to land and reinforce the area, and not wanting to land on an enemy held runway without the element of surprise the JU-52s were forced to turn around and return to Tunis.
If 3 PARA had arrived just a couple of hours later they would have dropped onto a battalion of elite german paratroops and faced heavy casualties capturing the airfield.
Sources:
Image One Source (British 1st Airborne troops training in N. Africa, 1943)
Image Two Source (Fallschirmjaeger pose in front of a JU-52)
Wings of War, (2005), P. Harclerode
The use of troops parachuted behind enemy lines en masse was first suggested during the First World War by Brigadier General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell commander of the US Army’s air corps inFrance. In October 1918, Mitchell had suggested that 12,000 men of the US 1st Infantry Division could be outfitted with parachutes and dropped behind the German line near Metz. While General John Pershing was skeptical he order that operational plans be drawn up. Mitchell explained his idea:
“We could equip each man with a parachute, so that when we desired to make a rear attack on the enemy, we could carry these men over the lines and drop them off in parachutes behind the enemy position.”
This force was to attack the enemy’s rear in conjunction with a larger conventional offensive. Mitchell envisioned the operation as a new strategic role for the air corps however, in order to lift an entire division he would have needed sixty squadrons of the huge Handley Page Type 0 twin engine (see image #2) and four engine Handley Page V/1500 (see image #3) heavy bombers. Mitchell’s operations officer Major Lewis Brereton was tasked with planning the drop. The Type 0 was to carry 10 paratroops and two machine guns while the heavier V/1500 was to carry 20 men. One of the first major problems with the plan was that there would not be sufficient aircraft available until the spring/summer of 1919. Additionally producing enough parachutes for 12,000 men, 4,000 machine guns and thousands of tons of supplies was an insurmountable task.
While the plan seriously considered it was quickly abandoned because of the sheer complexity and huge cost of the operation. The feasibility of training so many men
how to parachute was also extremely ambitious and the operational problems with resupply and communication that would have arisen were so great that even during the Second World War similar
operations struggled. Several weeks later the war came to an end and any possibility of a parachute drop of troops behind enemy lines ended.
Mitchell did not abandon the idea however, during the 1920s he led a limited efforts at McCook Field in Ohio to develop new ideas and improved parachutes. However, the US Army Air Service never seriously considered the idea as practical. It was not until the mid-1930s when Russia demonstrated mass drops in exercises and the German Luftwaffe proved the concept in the summer of 1940.
Sources:
Image One Source
Image Two Source
Image Three SourceWings of War, P. Harclerode, (2005)
Sky Men, R. Kershaw, (2010)
The use of troops parachuted behind enemy lines en masse was first suggested during the First World War by Brigadier General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell commander of the US Army’s air corps inFrance. In October 1918, Mitchell had suggested that 12,000 men of the US 1st Infantry Division could be outfitted with parachutes and dropped behind the German line near Metz. While General John Pershing was skeptical he order that operational plans be drawn up. Mitchell explained his idea:
“We could equip each man with a parachute, so that when we desired to make a rear attack on the enemy, we could carry these men over the lines and drop them off in parachutes behind the enemy position.”
This force was to attack the enemy’s rear in conjunction with a larger conventional offensive. Mitchell envisioned the operation as a new strategic role for the air corps however, in order to lift an entire division he would have needed sixty squadrons of the huge Handley Page Type 0 twin engine (see image #2) and four engine Handley Page V/1500 (see image #3) heavy bombers. Mitchell’s operations officer Major Lewis Brereton was tasked with planning the drop. The Type 0 was to carry 10 paratroops and two machine guns while the heavier V/1500 was to carry 20 men. One of the first major problems with the plan was that there would not be sufficient aircraft available until the spring/summer of 1919. Additionally producing enough parachutes for 12,000 men, 4,000 machine guns and thousands of tons of supplies was an insurmountable task.
While the plan seriously considered it was quickly abandoned because of the sheer complexity and huge cost of the operation. The feasibility of training so many men
how to parachute was also extremely ambitious and the operational problems with resupply and communication that would have arisen were so great that even during the Second World War similar
operations struggled. Several weeks later the war came to an end and any possibility of a parachute drop of troops behind enemy lines ended.
Mitchell did not abandon the idea however, during the 1920s he led a limited efforts at McCook Field in Ohio to develop new ideas and improved parachutes. However, the US Army Air Service never seriously considered the idea as practical. It was not until the mid-1930s when Russia demonstrated mass drops in exercises and the German Luftwaffe proved the concept in the summer of 1940.
Sources:
Image One Source
Image Two Source
Image Three SourceWings of War, P. Harclerode, (2005)
Sky Men, R. Kershaw, (2010)