The 11th Airborne Division ("Arctic Angels") is a United States Army multirole infantry division made up of specialized light infantry and airborne infantry based in Alaska.
Currently, this unit specializes in arctic warfare, airborne operations, combined arms, maneuver warfare, and urban warfare.
First activated on 25 February 1943, during World War II, it was held in reserve in the United States until June 1944 when it was transferred to the Pacific Theater where it saw combat in the Philippines. On 30 August 1945 the division was sent to southern Japan as part of the occupation force where it remained for four years. One parachute infantry regiment was detached for service in the Korean War. On 30 June 1958 the division was inactivated.
In the summer of 2022 the U.S. Army Alaska headquarters was redesignated as the 11th Airborne Division, and the two Brigade Combat Teams in Alaska, the 1st Brigade Combat Team and 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, were transferred to the 11th Airborne Division and redesignated as the 1st and 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 11th Airborne Division.
Inspired by the pioneering German use of large-scale airborne formations during the Battle of France in 1940 and later the invasion of Crete in 1941, the various Allied powers decided to raise airborne units of their own. One of the resultant five American and two British airborne divisions, the 11th Airborne Division, was officially activated on 25 February 1943 at Camp Mackall in North Carolina, under the command of Major General Joseph Swing. As formed, the division consisted of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the 187th Glider Infantry Regiment and the 188th Glider Infantry Regiment, and with a complement of 8,321 men was around half the strength of a regular U.S. infantry division of World War II.
The division initially remained in the United States for training, which in common with all airborne units was extremely arduous to befit their elite status. Training included lengthy forced marches, simulated parachute landings from 34-and-250-foot (10 and 76 m) towers, and practice jumps from transport aircraft; hesitancy in the doorway of an aircraft resulted in an automatic failure for the candidate. The washout rate was high, but there was never a shortage of candidates, especially because in American airborne units the rate of pay was much higher than that of an ordinary infantryman.
Before training was complete a debate developed in the U.S. Army over whether the best use of airborne forces was en masse or as small, compact units. On 9 July 1943, the first large-scale Allied airborne operation was carried out by elements of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division and the British 1st Airborne Division in support of the Allied invasion of Sicily, code-named Operation Husky. The 11th Airborne Division commanding general, Swing, was temporarily transferred to act as airborne advisor to General Dwight D. Eisenhower for the operation and observed the airborne assault which went badly. The 82nd Airborne Division had been inserted by parachute and had suffered high casualties, leading to a perception that it had failed to achieve many of its objectives.
Eisenhower reviewed the airborne role in Operation Husky and concluded that large-scale formations were too difficult to control in combat to be practical. Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, the overall commander of Army Ground Forces, had similar misgivings: once an airborne supporter, he had been greatly disappointed by the performance of airborne units in North Africa and more recently Sicily. However, other high-ranking officers, including the Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, believed otherwise. Marshall persuaded Eisenhower to set up a review board and to withhold judgement until the outcome of a large-scale maneuver, planned for December 1943, could be assessed.
When Swing returned to the United States to resume command of the 11th Airborne in mid-September 1943, he was given the role of preparing the exercise. McNair ordered him to form a committee—the Swing Board—composed of United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), parachute, glider infantry and artillery officers, whose arrangements for the maneuver would effectively decide the fate of divisional-sized airborne forces. As the 11th Airborne Division was in reserve in the United States and had not yet been earmarked for combat, the Swing Board selected it as the test formation. The maneuver would additionally provide the 11th Airborne and its individual units with further training, as had occurred several months previously in an earlier large-scale exercise conducted by the 101st
and the 82nd Airborne Divisions.
The 11th Airborne, as the attacking force, was assigned the objective of capturing Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield near Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The force defending the airfield and its environs was a combat team composed of elements of the 17th Airborne Division and a battalion from the 541st Parachute Infantry Regiment. The entire operation was observed by McNair, who would ultimately have a significant say in deciding the fate of the parachute infantry divisions.
The Knollwood Maneuver took place on the night of 7 December 1943, with the 11th Airborne Division being airlifted to thirteen separate objectives by 200 C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft and 234 Waco CG-4A gliders. The transport aircraft were divided into four groups, two of which carried paratroopers while the other two towed gliders. Each group took off from a different airfield in the Carolinas. The four groups deployed a total of 4,800 troops in the first wave. Eighty-five percent were delivered to their targets without navigational error, and the airborne troops seized the Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield and secured the landing area for the rest of the division before daylight. With its initial objectives taken, the 11th Airborne Division then launched a coordinated ground attack against a reinforced infantry regiment and conducted several aerial resupply and casualty evacuation missions in coordination with USAAF transport aircraft. The exercise was judged by observers to be a great success. McNair, pleased by its results, attributed this success to the great improvements in airborne training that had been implemented in the months following Operation Husky. As a result of the Knollwood Maneuver, division-sized airborne forces were deemed to be feasible and Eisenhower permitted their retention.
Following the Knollwood Maneuver the 11th Airborne remained in reserve until January 1944, when it was moved by train from Camp Mackall to Camp Polk in Louisiana. After four weeks of final preparation for its combat role, in April the division was moved to Camp Stoneman, California and then transferred to Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, between 25 May and 11 June. From June to September the division underwent acclimatization and continued its airborne training, conducting parachute drops in the New Guinea jungle and around the airfield in Dobodura. During this period, most of the glider troops became parachute-qualified making the division almost fully airborne. On 11 November the division boarded a convoy of naval transports and was escorted to Leyte in the Philippines, arriving on 18 November. Four days later it was attached to XXIV Corps and committed to combat, but operating as an infantry division rather than in an airborne capacity. The 11th Airborne was ordered to relieve the 7th Infantry Division stationed in the Burauen-La Paz-Bugho area, engage and destroy all Japanese forces in its operational area, and protect XXIV Corps rear-area supply dumps and airfields.
Swing ordered the 187th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) to guard the rear installations of XXIV Corps, while the 188th GIR was to secure the division's rear and conduct aggressive patrols to eliminate any enemy troops in the area. The 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) was assigned the task of destroying all Japanese formations in the division's operational area, which it began on 28 November when it relieved the 7th Infantry. The 511th PIR advanced overland with two battalions abreast and the third in reserve, but progress proved slow in the face of fierce Japanese resistance, a lack of mapped trails and heavy rainfall (with more than 23 inches (580 mm) falling in November alone). As the advance continued resupply became progressively more difficult; the division resorted to using large numbers of Piper Cub aircraft to drop food and ammunition. Several attempts were made to improve the rate of advance, such as dropping platoons of the 187th GIR from Piper Cubs in front of the 511th PIR to reconnoiter, and using C-47 transport aircraft to drop artillery pieces to the regiment's location when other forms of transport, such as mule-trains, failed.