US Airborne Divisions 1942-2000
v.1.1 August 25, 2002
The United States raised five airborne divisions:
11 Airborne Division
13 Airborne Division
17 Airborne Division
82 Airborne Division
101 Airborne Division
The 82 (All Americans) and 101 (Screaming Eagles) Divisions have remained on active duty from World War II onward. The three others have passed into obscurity. 11 Airborne Division saw action during the reconquest of the Philippines and 17 Airborne Division briefly saw service in the European Theatre. 13 Airborne Division does not seem to have seen any action.
11 Division was reraised in the early 1960s as the first Air Assault division consequent on the Howze Board’s recommendations to introduce large-scale helicopter mobility into the US Army. 11 Division served as a test formation and stood down after 1 Cavalry and 101 Airborne Divisions were converted to helicopters.
1 Cavalry Division was formally the 1 Air Cavalry Division, and informally, simply "The Cav". After Vietnam, the division served to examine new airmobile warfare concepts. It was, for a time, converted to TRICAP (Triple Capability) configuration, with one tank, one airmobile infantry, and one air cavalry brigade. Eventually the US Army decided the configuration was too complex and converted 1 Cavalry Division to armored configuration. It remains so to this day. 101 Division has continued in its air assault configuration. The division is no longer parachute capable.
The US has, in 2000, reraised the 173 Airborne Brigade, an independent unit that fought in Korea and Vietnam. This famous brigade how takes over NATO’s Southern Task Force, a rapid reaction force based in Italy. SETAF has one active US parachute battalion assigned.
During World War 2, 108 Infantry Division was briefly configured as an airborne formation. As nearly as we can tell, 108 Division was the highest regular numbered division in the US Army.
Additional to the above airborne divisions, the US had five fake airborne divisions:
6 Airborne Division
9 Airborne Division
18 Airborne Division
21 Airborne Division
135 Airborne Division
These five, and the real 17 Division, were part of General George Patton’s Phantom 14 Army, "raised" to mislead the Germans into thinking the Allies would cross the Channel at Calais.
Division numbers and patches of the fascinating 14 Army, and thumbnail sketches of all US Army divisions, can be found at grunts.net