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Pull up your tank behind me
THE SWORD OF SAINT MICHAEL:
The 82nd Airborne Division in World War II
By Guy LoFaro
746 pp. Da Capo Press
Reviewed by David Hoekenga, M.D.
The Sword of Saint Michael is not the story of the 82nd airborne division. At 358,000 words, it is the encyclopedia of this amazing division. It not only describes the division, but the regiment, company, platoon, and often individual as they fought in Sicily, Normandy, Nijmegen (Market-Garden), and the Battle of the Bulge. This book may contain more than you want to know about this military group, amazing though it is in every respect.
It all grew out of fifty men that “constituted the entire airborne contingent” of the U.S. Army in the summer of 1940. By August 1942, General Ridgway reviewed 14,000 airborne in addition to glider infantry regiments. By 1945, the Waco gliders (the fourth-most produced combat aircraft of the war) had been manufactured by firms as diverse as Heinz and Steinway.
The first U.S. airborne landing in Sicily was disorganized and scattered, but the troopers quickly coalesced like drops of mercury in a watch glass. General Gavin organized a mixed group of clerks, cooks, truck drivers, and soldiers from the 45th Infantry Division into a fighting force. He ordered a limited withdrawal as German tanks approached. Then LoFaro writes, “Yet it was not to be a wholesale withdrawal. Rather, Gavin arranged his troops in a new defensive line on the reverse slope of Biazzo Ridge. The advantage of defending from the reverse (or friendly) side of the ridge was that it shielded the troopers from German tank fire. The disadvantage was that it relegated them to a close-in fight once the enemy crested the ridge. Gavin felt that if his troopers engaged “the less heavily armored underbellies of the tanks when they first appeared at the top of the rise,” they might have a chance of knocking a few of them out, and if not, they were to remain in place anyway to kill or drive off the accompanying German infantry…We are staying on the goddamned ridge,” he shouted at one point, “no matter what happens!”
The 82nd Airborne Division took 181,000 enemy prisoners during the entire war, and received three Medals of Honor and 900 Silver Stars. The terrible price was the unit's 19,500 casualties.
What was the secret of the 82nd's success? They were well trained. The author states they showed “speed, aggressiveness, daring and imitative” wherever they were deployed. Only once in 422 days of combat did they retreat, and then only because they were repeatedly ordered to do so. However, perhaps the most important element of their success was two extraordinary generals--James Gavin and Matthew Ridgway who led from the front and although reckless somehow managed to avoid being shot. For example, on Christmas Day during the Battle of the Bulge, in two feet of snow, Gavin dropped into a foxhole to share fried chicken with several of his men.
The author uses official records, letters, journals and testimonies of the soldiers to weave a complex tale of every engagement large and small.
An incident during the Battle of the Bulge summarized for the author the attitude of the 82nd airborne, “It was 22 December 1944. The U.S. First Army was still in headlong retreat from the onrushing panzers that were seemingly everywhere. A column of American tanks came upon a lone bazooka gunner in a snow-covered bunker. The lead tank commander leaned down from his hatch to ask where the American lines were. The bazooka gunner, a private from the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment replied, “You've just arrived at the American front lines, pal. Now just pull your tank up behind me. I'm the 82nd Airborne Division, and this is as far as the bastards are going.”
The skirmishes and battles are clearly described and the anecdotes are fun to read and retell. The real question is do you want to spend 32 hours (the average person reads 200 words per minute) plowing through this tome?
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