Airborne (1997) (8 page)

A call to the XVIII Airborne Headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is all it takes to get the ball rolling. Within minutes of receiving its own call from XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division issues orders to the alert brigade which is standing by. When I say standing by, I mean that everyone in the alert brigade is on base or at home, only a phone call or beeper page away from being recalled. Only eighteen hours from a “cold” (i.e., no-notice) start, they can put the first combat element of the division (a reinforced airborne parachute infantry battalion) into the air. With a bit more notice, even larger units like an entire brigade or the whole division can be airlifted at once into a combat zone.

This is what occurred in October of 1994, when all three of the 82nd’s brigades were in the air simultaneously during Operation Uphold Democracy. The plan had been to have the 82nd take the whole nation of Haiti away from strongman General Raoul Cedras in a single stroke from the sky. The lead elements of the airborne assault were only minutes from the “point of no return” when the final negotiations for the resignation and exile of General Cedras were completed by a team that included former President Jimmy Carter, Senator Sam Nunn, and General Colin Powell. This resulted in a mass recall and redeployment of aircraft and personnel to support the peacekeeping mission that followed.

Once the basic airborne force is assembled, the next issue is transportation. Will the entry be into
a permissive
(military for “friendly”) or
hostile
environment? The answer to this question determines how fast the force can be delivered. If the landing area is “permissive,” then the airborne task force can be landed via chartered airliners and airlift aircraft without the need for a parachute drop. This is how the 2nd Brigade arrived in Saudi Arabia in August of 1990. All they needed was the international airport at Dhahran, and a few hours to off-load, organize, and head north into the desert. Landings into hostile territory are a bit more involved. Should the operation require a forced entry, the airborne task force would have to make plans for a full-blown parachute assault into hostile territory. This is a well-practiced, though risky, operation that requires the full eighteen hours to pull together.

However the task force enters the operating area, transportation will be the responsibility of the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of airlift aircraft, drawn from the Air Mobility Command’s C-130s, C-141s, C-5s, and C-17s. As a general rule, the C-130s are used when the flying distance to the crisis zone is within two thousand miles. This was the case in 1989 when the U.S. invaded Panama during Operation Just Cause. These C-130s would likely consist of a mix of active duty, Air National Guard, and USAF Reserve aircraft, including those of the 23rd Wing based at nearby Pope AFB, North Carolina. Anything longer than a short hop around the hemisphere requires a fleet of four-engine jet transports. This is the specialty of AMC, which has forged a strong relationship with the units of XVIII Airborne Corps, particularly the 82nd Airborne. AMC maintains a ready pool of the big airlifters suitable for the lifting of an airborne battalion task force on eighteen hours’ notice from Pope AFB, North Carolina.

Now, let us suppose that the 82nd has put together an airborne task force (something between a reinforced battalion or brigade). The airlift assets are on the way to Pope AFB, and you are waiting to get going. Even before the first paratroopers load onto the transport aircraft, there will be a huge amount of planning and preparation going on. Assuming that a parachute assault is required, the airborne task force commander is going to need a place to land. That place is called a drop zone (DZ). There are many issues involved in the selection of a proper DZ, all of which require a bit of subjective judgment and analysis by the task force staff. You need to look for a piece of clear land, at least a mile long. The required size for a DZ is dictated mostly by the kind of aircraft dropping the paratroops. Obviously, a C-130 dropping thirty to forty troopers can use a shorter DZ than a C-141, which carries over a hundred. The DZ should also be clear of trees, brush, and large rocks. In addition, the DZ has to be defensible, because it will become the entry point for follow-on reinforcements, equipment, and supplies. Much as the Marines fight to take and hold a beachhead, the paratroopers need to work hard to establish what they call an “airhead.”

The more popular kinds of DZs include airfields and international airports. These are useful for airborne forces because they are perfectly clear, easy to find, and can provide an excellent fly-in entry point for supplies and reinforcements. The downside of trying to take such a facility, though, is that the bad guys in the crisis area already know this, and will likely defend such installations quite vigorously. This is what happened when the German 7th Fallschirmjäger Division attacked Maleme Airfield during the invasion of Crete in 1941. The British defenders put up stiff resistance, and almost won the battle. Only a near-suicidal commitment of reinforcement Fallschirmjägers and transport aircraft allowed the Germans to prevail. The Crete invasion tore the guts out of the German Fallschirmjäger force, and taught everyone else in the business some valuable lessons. One other little problem: Runways are lousy places to land paratroopers because the hard surfaces cause landing injuries. A lot of the paratroopers who jumped into Grenada in 1983 wound up breaking legs and spraining backs and ankles on the hard surface of the runway at Port Salinas. Whatever the DZ, though, the paratroopers have a basic philosophy of dropping on top of their objectives whenever it is possible. This was a lesson that was learned the hard way during airborne operations in Europe back in World War II. For this reason, paratroopers know to take what they want quickly, and get relieved fast.

Once you have picked out a DZ, the next problem is making sure that it is a safe place to drop onto. This means getting eyes onto the ground nearby. Fortunately, the Army has a number of personnel, from special forces and Ranger units to the 82nd’s own pathfinders, who can scout a DZ and make sure it is a good place to land. Should a DZ prove suitable, then there is the problem of making sure that the transport planes with their loads of personnel, equipment, and supplies can actually find it. Most airborne operations these days take place under the cover of darkness, and in weather conditions that would be considered insane by some professional soldiers. During Operation Royal Dragon (a large joint international training exercise at Fort Bragg) in 1996, all of the initial drops took place in heavy fog and rain. Despite this, injuries were few and not one fatality was suffered by the over five thousand British and American paratroopers who took part. One of the reasons for this success is the array of navigation and homing equipment carried by the pathfinders to mark the DZs for the transport crews. The coming of GPS-based navigation aids may make ground-based beacons a thing of the past. For the next few years, though, the pathfinders will still need to be on the ground waiting to guide the paratroopers into the DZ.

Back at Fort Bragg, the troopers of the first fly-out unit are sequestered into a special holding area prior to being bused over to Pope AFB. Here the troopers spend their time preparing equipment, and themselves mentally, for what is ahead. When the time to load up comes, they board buses which take them over to what is called “Green Ramp” at Pope AFB. This is a holding area at one end of the field which is equipped with special benches for the troopers to sit on with all of their equipment and parachutes loaded. The Green Ramp facility is not terribly green, and is decidedly decrepit, with concrete floors and a few soft-drink machines and water fountains. However, for the troopers of the 82nd, it frequently is the last piece of America that they see before a deployment.

When the load order finally comes, the troopers are lined up into what are called “chalks” (lines of paratroops assigned to each aircraft). They start checking each other’s gear (something they will do continuously until they jump), and then waddle out to their transports. Frequently, an average trooper will be carrying up to 150 lb/68.2 kg, of gear and watching them is like watching elephants march. They are loaded aboard in such a way that several platoons or companies are spread among several aircraft in a formation. Thus, the loss of any single aircraft will not wipe out a particular unit, or keep an objective from being taken. It also makes forming up after the drop easier, since different units can be placed down the length of the DZ more easily. Once loaded, the transports are quickly launched, so that others can be loaded and staged. Green Ramp holds perhaps a company or two at a time, and moving the troopers through quickly is vital to keeping the airborne assault on schedule.

Once they are airborne, it can take up to eighteen hours for the task force to get to their targets if the flight to the target area is located somewhere like Southwest Asia. Flights to Central America might take a few hours, as was the case during the Panama operation in 1989. For the troopers, it is a decidedly unpleasant experience. The older transports like the C-130E and C-141B have fairly narrow cargo compartments, and the paratroopers sit with their legs interlocked. Facing each other in two sets of rows, they continue to check each other’s equipment, and try to get some rest. When they are about thirty minutes to target, the transport crews tighten up their formations, which each have three aircraft in an inverted V (called a “vic”) alignment. The various “vic” formations are formed into a stream, with about a mile separating each trio of transport aircraft. While in close formation, the aircraft crews use special station-keeping instruments to maintain formation and spacing so that the chances of midair collisions between paratroopers (and aircraft!) will be minimized.

At about ten minutes prior to jump, the loadmaster and jumpmaster in the rear of each aircraft have the troopers stand up and begin to check their equipment. The jumpmaster orders the troopers to hook up the static lines from their chutes, and the jump doors on both sides of the aircraft are opened. The jumpmaster, an experienced paratrooper with special training, sticks his head out of one door and begins to look for the DZ and various local landmarks (such as lakes and roads). About this time, the heavy equipment of the airborne task force will be dropped. Virtually every airborne task force package currently on the books with the 82nd has both heavy weapons and 105mm artillery pieces included to provide a heavy firepower punch as the troopers fight their way off the DZ. Since the first few minutes of the assault will always be the time of greatest danger to the paratroops, the presence of machine guns and missiles, and the boom of friendly artillery, can do wonders for the troops’ morale and esprit as they start their fight to the objectives.

When the DZ comes into sight of the jumpmaster, the command “Stand in the door!” is given to the rear paratrooper on each side, who then passes it up the line. When the green (“jump”) light comes on, the jumpmaster begins to order the paratroopers out the door with a loud “Go!” once every second from each door. This means that even a C-141 can unload over a hundred paratroopers in less than a minute, and transit less than a mile down the DZ. First out the door is
always
the senior officer, even if it is the division or airborne corps commander. The jump done, the planes bank for home, and another load of troopers, equipment, or supplies. Meanwhile, as the troopers begin to hit the ground, they immediately get their personal weapons operational, even before they have a chance to get out of their harnesses. Every member of the 82nd has been indoctrinated with the legend of the paratrooper unit, which fell into the square at Sainte Mere Eglise early on D-Day. When their C-47s overshot their assigned DZ, one whole company came down into the middle of the town, and was massacred by the German garrison as they struggled out of their chutes. Therefore, getting armed and dangerous is
always
the first order of business for the airborne troopers.

Once the troopers have cleared their harnesses and gotten their gear together, they try to assemble into their assigned units. This is usually fairly easy, as they just head back up to the “top” of the DZ, where their unit leaders should be waiting. Once this is done, the next thing that has to be done is to make sure that the DZ is secure and defended. From there, the troopers immediately move out to their objectives. Even if the drop has gone poorly and the task force is scattered, it is expected that LGOPs will form up, protect the DZ, and drive to the objective no matter what the cost. As soon as the objectives are taken, the airborne battle transitions to the “hold until relieved” phase. Though airborne commanders would tell you that they intend to keep attacking whenever possible, they are realists. Once the objectives have been taken, it only makes good sense to insure that you keep what you have paid in blood to take. In any case, the job of doing the heavy work in the crisis must necessarily pass to units with better logistical capabilities and more “teeth” than what can be dropped out of airplanes. The relieving units can come from many places. They may be Marines, coming ashore from an amphibious unit, or flying in to meet up with equipment in a port from one of the MPSRONs. Alternatively, the follow-on forces might be one of the light infantry divisions, flown on AMC transports. It might even be the 82nd’s sister division in the XVIII Airborne Corps, the legendary “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Air Assault Division. Whoever it is, though, it will be in the interests of all to get the airborne forces relieved and back to Fort Bragg as soon as practical. The 82nd is the only division-sized airborne unit in the U.S. military, and there is no backup. Therefore, look for the National Command Authorities to do in the future what they have done in the past: return the 82nd as quickly as it can be relieved. The 82nd is
that
valuable.

Now I want to take you on a tour of the 82nd Airborne. Its equipment, people, roles, and missions. Along the way, we’re going to introduce you to some of the fine people that make this one of America’s premier crisis-response units. You’ll also get to know something about what it takes to become an airborne trooper, and to serve in the eighteen-week cycle that dominates the lives of the 82nd’s personnel. Most of all, you will be getting to know one of the most heavily tasked military units in recent U.S. history. If America has gone there, the 82nd has usually been leading the way. Into Grenada during Urgent Fury. Helping invade Panama during Just Cause. Defending Saudi Arabia in 1990 as part of Desert Shield, and attacking into Iraq during Desert Storm. Most recently, they took part in the near-invasion and subsequent peacekeeping mission in Haiti. The 82nd was there for all of these, and will be the country’s spearhead in the future.