Normandy Turns 80
The Myth of American Capacity
Welcome to Ridgway’s Notebook, your home for airborne PME. We offer penetrating essays on military history. Through the World War II experiences of General Matthew Ridgway and the 82nd Airborne Division, we illustrate some of the similarities between the questions asked by officers of the 82nd yesterday and today—and dissect how they came to be.
I have become rather withdrawn around the major anniversaries. To me, much is lost in the photos ops, networking, click bait1, and headline speeches. They’re only occasionally broken by the genuine qualities — solemnness and reflection. It’s like a fair. Too loud.
The dignitaries went at echelon, their prism of Normandy now through the cold fact of renewed war in Europe. Some tried to fit Normandy into their box, yet harboring beliefs fatally cross with Normandy, either rhetorically — folks against Ukraine aid — or practically — proposers of defense budgets incapable of repeating the task they laud. I was recently editing for a senior leader and explained the perennial challenge of military writing: nothing happens in isolation. Everything depends on everything else. In writing, this can lead to a clutter of tangents to dilute the potency of the message. Good writing — and teaching — spurs broader investigation. It will nudge the audience to find those paths themselves. World War II education has failed at this.
It’s reflected in the halo of invincibility surrounding the US military. Since it landed at Normandy, there’s nothing it can’t do. I was once stupefied by a response — “If they need more planes, they’ll get more planes, believe me” — to my explanations of limiting factors to a layperson. But even those with a military mind have this halo about American inevitability in World War II. Everyone is impressed by the newsreel footage, by equipment unfolding across the screen, arrayed in unceasing rows, readily standing at attention. As though the weight of ships, planes, guns, jeeps, and tanks would make victory at Normandy inevitable. The mystic of American production is well-secured; Rosie the Riveter has gotten her due. But to the generals stooping over maps and movement tables, it was a myth.
Plane shortages loomed over General Ridgway’s every decision. Sicily, Italy — the very composition of the 82nd Airborne Division was written partly by this math problem. For a brief period, it drove General Ridgway to advocate against airborne operations. In planning Normandy, the unceasing rows of planes were not enough for two divisions.
The operational plans were engraved by middle May. All nine battalions of infantry had their jobs, all the functions their tasks. And General Ridgway’s staff had to fit it into 52 gliders. Of the two airborne divisions, Ridgway had the more enduring task — he was two divisions deep into Europe. Sandwiched between him and the sea was the 101st Airborne Division. Their job was to come immediately aft the beach and secure the exits. By virtue of their mission, their access to artillery from sea and shore would be rapid. For Ridgway, artillery would be days away.
He was faced with the inability to bring a single battery of artillery in his 52 gliders.2 Nothing would be available to him on D-Day as his regiments assaulted their objectives. Ridgway’s mission was more offensive, and his internal communications were weaker — two of his regiments were to land west of the Merderet River. In Ridgway’s view, the guns the 101st landed by glider would arrive too late to be of use and “shortly thereafter [the 101st] can count upon powerful air and artillery support, the latter from guns on the shore and aboard ships.”
So, Ridgway came for the 101st Airborne’s gliders.
Of the 54 assigned to the Screaming Eagles, Ridgway requested, in writing to General Bradley, a transfer of 42 of the 54. This would allow twelve gliders in which to land the 101st divisional headquarters. He wrote to Bradley that no artillery support to the 82nd could possibly be had until daylight of June 7 at the earliest, thus making the gliders “desirable” to the 101st, but “imperatively necessary” to him.3
The Air Committee discussed Ridgway’s request on May 18, 1944 — and denied it. The only way more planes and crews could be freed for more gliders, was for an equal reduction in the parachute lift. As great as Ridgway’s demand for artillery was, his need for infantry was greater still.
Detailed coordinated plans for the employment of all nine battalions have been thoroughly worked out and disseminated. A reduction by one infantry battalion would disrupt this entire plan, would create profound distrust throughout the division, and in my opinion reduce the chance of success dangerously close to the vanishing point.
It’s remarkable how, with even enough planes to sparkle the eye of any general, they could insert such strain into a meeting, and that such an awesome physical display could be such an illusion on paper.
This is the moment where remembrance fails to translate into education; if Americans understood Normandy, they’d understand the folly of American defense budgets. Lack of acuity is reflected in the words of Secretary Austin. They’re flat, wooden, rote. The one who spoke these words above the beaches will be responsible for the air fleet of 2035, when once again Americans may have to leap into battle. Even in the fount of capacity arrayed on June 5, 1944, ambitions were tempered. One can imagine the tempering required today in the face of anemic aircraft fleets.
📚READ OF THE WEEK📚
CNN’s title of this video, deplorable in the context, is click-bait for a wonderful, unifying message by Tom Hanks, and his deflection of the anchor is admirable. This piece of click-bait is an exception — quality worthy of your time.
I do not count the two batteries of AT guns taken in on the first lift.
The 101st lift would later be reduced to 52 but with no increase in the 82d lift. Ridgway’s fears of lack of artillery support came to pass. Their first attachment was on June 8 — but the attachment was reversed “before it was in position to fire a shot in support of our operations,” the division history bitterly notes. They finally got support on June 9.
Students of Russian military history may already be familiar with the mantra often attached to their military operations- nothing succeeds like excess. Ridgeway’s problems were real tough on the other hand there was Germany’s airborne general Kurt Student looking up enviously at the Allied air armada supporting Operations Market Garden. My biggest complaint about these big anniversaries are the crowds so I avoid them and plan my visits accordingly. As for the words, I pay little attention after a career that involved preparing, editing, revising “official remarks”. We have so few orators today but a surfeit of public speakers. I was amused at how few and far between were the references to President Reagan’s DDay speech - now that was a story.
I am the author of Suicide Jockeys: The Making of the WWII Combat Glider Pilot. I very much enjoyed your article and am glad to see someone bring up the shortage of power planes and gliders. Although some gliders were reclaimed after a mission and additional retrievals were planned, they never happened. There were not enough gliders for some missions and often not enough glider pilots in a given Troop Carrier Group to fly a mission with the gliders they had. The glider pilots were often on "detached service" flying with co pilots and tow crews they did not know. The glider and the glider pilot were the lifeline to the airborne both in terms of heavy artillery but also resupply on so many levels without which the airborne may not have completed the mission or struggled greatly simply due to the limited amount of equipment they could jump with and the difficulties of gathering up scattered drops when time was of the essence. Great article!