Lighthorse Harry's Notes: Fighting the Glider Regiment

"A Series on Theory" - Short Hits on Airborne Warfare

Roosevelt’s study of the narrow subject of tactics has had a persistent influence on the writing of the naval history of the War of 1812. For, as William Dudley observes, the tactical details “make his work . . . an essential reference for those working deeper in the subject.” —Michael Crawford¹

Colonel Harry Lewis was distinguishable from the young and charismatic commanders littering the 82nd Airborne Division. He was old. But out of his uncommonly short, wiry frame there was cascading vigor which earned him the nickname, “Lighthorse Harry.” He was described by some as the “the biggest ball of fire for a little man they ever saw.” He was short, quick and sharp in manner, a just but stern disciplinarian. The old colonel’s pug face and darkest eyes were behind glasses most of the time, especially when looking over a map or range card. One officer reminisced that “he reminded me of the even older officers around basic training units in the States… He was distant and the few times I even saw him he appeared excitable, bombastic—sort of the proverbial ‘bantam rooster.’”²

For what Colonel “Lighthorse Harry” Lewis was doing with his men, there was no manual. His unit was unlike anything in the Army. With only two battalions, vise three, his 325th Glider Infantry was uncharacteristic of the infantry regiment of the day. Its organization rendered mute the Army’s infantry tactics, and he saw his unit as his experiment, and the model.

Although unorthodox, Harry Lewis’s regiment was designed for a very specific purpose. It was the fighting backbone of the airborne division. Paratroops, usually a regiment, would parachute as an advance guard to secure landing fields for Lewis’s matchboxes-with-wings, which would deliver his regiment—the combat power.

September 23, 1944 — The 325th sails over the Dutch countryside in their gliders shortly before landing in Operation Market Garden.

Fighting a biangular unit was tricky, especially in the defense. And it required Colonel Lewis and his officers to develop new tactics from the ground up for their glider regiment. Fighting a defensive battle was tricky. Standard Army practice was to have two units fronting the enemy, with a third unit as a reserve. Having a complete unit in reserve meant having a reserve with unity. That is, holding a fully-contained maneuver unit, in its integrity, available to backstop areas of crisis or deliver a counterpunch to the Germans. Instead, the reserve had to be a composite—and small.

Colonel Lewis’ captains held the defense line with two rifle platoons (36 men each), and the weapons platoon in support. One eight-man squad, pillaged from one of the platoons on the line, was the company reserve.

The airborne soldier’s propulsion was his feet. It was his vehicle for crashing through German lines. In the attack, Colonel Lewis settled on attack in foot column, harkening back to the days of Napoleon. One rifle platoon would lead and join battle with the enemy. Following, the weapons platoon could provide support with their mortars to help fix the enemy. Behind, the second rifle platoon could maneuver to the left or the right to hit a Germans flank.

“Lighthorse Harry” Lewis (at right) confers with Brig. Gen. Gavin in Normandy.

In the Matchup of Mettle

Attacking in column, as the glider men were prepared to do, was to initiate battle on unequal terms. From the outset, the weight of fire would be lopsided against the glidermen, presenting the narrow front of a unit in column. It would be bad business for the weapons platoon in the middle to fire into the backs of their advance guard. In the meeting engagement, it is easy to envision a gliderman forced to portage a machine gun to the front. The gunner would be at a disadvantage. The disparity was in effective firing range, being outmatched by the Germans by 500 yards. Under the weight of the gun, from the portage, the gliderman would likely have experienced more fatigue than his German counterpart; the gun was heavy for what it was, more so than the German correlative according to James Gavin: “The LMG is too heavy and difficult to handle for the results obtained. Recommended substitution of the BAR for the LMG. The German LMG seems to be superior to both.”³ Captain Robert Dickerson’s weapons platoon would trade out their light machine guns for the heavier M1917 machine gun, providing parity in range.⁴

Certainly a battalion attacking in such a narrow yet deep front is itself vulnerable to be flanked, especially with such a small reserve to throw around. Seeing the problem clearly, Major John Swanson’s brainchild was to form a “commando platoon” for his battalion. This unauthorized organization would provide flank protection or act as a battalion reserve.

The 25 men to form the commando platoon were pillaged from the rifle companies, much to the dispute of the captains. This further stretched the disparity between the glider company and the German company they would face. After Major Swenson siphoned off 50 men for both a commando platoon and an unauthorized bazooka platoon to combat panzers, his companies were left with a strength of approximately 120 men and officers. They would be squaring up against a 187-man German company.

Major John Swanson, commander of 2nd Battalion, 325th GIR

In the Matchup of Time

A small organization for the purpose envisioned was likely to be adequate. It was built on the assumption the force would be relieved in “as soon as practicable,” that is to say a few days.

War rarely works how it’s envisioned. Myriad reasons prevented airborne troops from fighting a few days, although the intent never left. (Even as late as the fall of 1944, in Operation Market Garden, the original plan was to relieve the airborne within a week.) Like the infantryman since time immemorial, the All-Americans always fought the long ground campaigns that came after landing. And they would last longer than a few days. The glider regiment, as conceived in 1942/1943, was not durable enough for the task. It was not sufficiently large and deep to absorb the casualties of weeks of fighting.

Before Normandy, a third battalion was added to the glider regiment, and a heavy weapons company to each battalion. This gave it the firepower, reach, and personnel it needed to endure a long campaign, and parity with the German regiment with which it would interlock. Now, as a triangular unit, the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment would tread underfoot the soil of Normandy, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, wresting yard-for-yard from the Germans in long campaigns. In the bocage, the German frontier, and the Belgian forests, the three battalions of the 325th would acquit itself well.

Seventy-nine years ago today, the three battalions of the 325th Glider Infantry were preparing for one of the most significant attacks of its history. A raw, personal exposé of the attack’s conduct is contained in “The Blitzkrieg Defense.”

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This post was initially inspired by the “narrow subject of tactics” addressed in Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval War of 1812. The manner of addressing the subject was inspired by my recent reading of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle. While it will not measure on the yardstick of these giants, I hope it was a formative endeavor to look at the 82nd Airborne in a different way. Much of the data used was based, again, on the papers of the late historian Gerald Devlin, currently in my possession.

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1. Michael J. Crawford, “The Lasting Influence of Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval War of 1812,” International Journal of Naval History, Volume 1, Number 1 (April 2002).

2. Lee Travelstead as quoted in Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers: The American Airborne in World War II. The Dial Press (1985). Ch 24,n5, p. 545.

3. Gavin would be referring to the Browning M1919.

4. Robert L. Dickerson, The Operations of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry (82nd Airborne Division) in the Battle of Mount St. Angelo, 18-20 September 1943, General Subjects Section, Academic Department, The Infantry School. P. 12.