Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/216

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194
MANEUVER AND FIREPOWER

TABLE 15

Deployment of Divisions to the Pacific Theater

Division Date
1st Cavalry June 1943
6th Infantry July 1943
7th Infantry April 1943
11th Airborne April 1944
24th Infantry *
25th Infantry *
27th Infantry March 1942
31st Infantry February 1944
32d Infantry April 1942
33d Infantry June 1943
37th Infantry May 1942
38th Infantry December 1943
40th Infantry August 1942
41st Infantry March 1942
43d Infantry September 1942
77th Infantry March 1944
81st Infantry June 1944
93d Infantry January 1944
96th Infantry July 1944
98th Infantry April 1944
Americal *
Philippine #

* Unit organized outside the continental United States.
#Partially organized in 1941: surrendered in April 1942.

After the assault landings by the 82d and 101st in Holland in 1944, Ridgway again attempted to revise the authorized structure of the divisions. The 82d had an additional 4,000 troops attached in the Normandy jump and over 5,000 for its operations in Holland. The 101st had also been augmented for both operations. Frustrated with the bureaucracy, Ridgway, then commanding the XVIII Airborne Corps, appealed personally to General Marshall for aid in reorganizing the divisions. Marshall directed his staff to reconsider their structure and invited Ridgway or his representative to Washington to explain his ideas. Instead of coming himself, Ridgway sent Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the 101st's commander. On the day the German Ardennes offensive began, the War Department published new tables of organization and equipment for the airborne division. Marshall described it to Ridgway as "in all probability wholly acceptable to you and your associates."[1]

The new airborne division consisted of one glider infantry and two parachute infantry regiments, division artillery, antiaircraft artillery and engineer battalions,

  1. Ltr, Ridgway to Marshall, 1 Nov 44, Ltr, Ridgway to Marshall, 4 Dec 44, Summary Sheet (SS), G–3 for CofS, 8 Nov 44, sub: Reorganization of the Airborne Division, all in Matthew Ridgway, Marshall Papers; Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972), pp. 97–98; TOE 71, Airborne Division, 16 Dec 44; cited material from Ltr, Marshall to Ridgway, 18 Dec 44, Marshall Papers.