4JAS WW2 RE-ENACTMENT AND
LIVING HISTORY ASSOCIATION

History of the 101st Airborne Division in WWII

3. Training.

Traditional U.S. military training comprised 13 weeks basic training before soldiers were posted to their units for ongoing training. The paratroopers used a different, cadre based training where raw recruits trained from day one with the same men they would go on to serve with. This method built up an unparalleled camaraderie. All paratroopers were volunteers and during the training no distinction was made as to prior rank, all trainees were treated as equals. Training was very hard and often brutal. Discipline was exceedingly strict, it was not uncommon for noncoms (amer. Slang: non commissioned officers) to physically beat slackers whilst the officers looked the other way. The medics would patch up the losers, no questions would be asked and training would proceed. As one trooper put it, “If we survive training we can survive anything they (the enemy) can throw at us.”

After gruelling basic training came jump training. Mostly this took place at the Jump School at Fort Benning (though some early officers qualified at their home base for example the original cadre of officers of the 506th qualified at camp Toccoa in Georgia).

All paratroopers were also trained on enemy weapons as it was envisaged that in the event of supply problems they would be able to use these. In reality this seldom occurred, for example in one incidence a trooper landed weaponless and commandeered a German MG42. However, when he started using it the sound it made was so distinctive that he started drawing friendly rifle fire. The weapon was quickly abandoned.

All paratroopers went through jump school regardless of rank or role, this included all officers, medics and chaplains. Jump school culminated with 5 live jumps from an aircraft with one jump being at night. After the 5th jump the troopers were awarded their “wings” and were officially paratroopers. Trainee paratroopers were issued jump boots. Trousers were only allowed to be tucked into these during the actual training jumps but as soon as the troopers had been awarded their wings they had also earned the right to wear their trousers bloused over the boot tops permanently. Paratroopers took this seriously and even when wearing class A (or dress uniforms), the trousers were worn bloused at all times. Conversely if a trainee were found blousing his trousers (or even bearing trouser creases that indicated he had bloused his trousers) he would be treated most harshly.

Troopers of 3/506 resting on the arduous record breaking march to Fort Benning.

During 1942 Colonel Bob Sink read a Reader’s Digest article relating how a unit of the Japanese Army had set an endurance marching record of 100 miles in just 72 hours. He saw this as a challenge and when it was time for the 506th PIR to undertake parachute training at Fort Benning he arranged that only the 1st Battalion should travel all the way there by rail. The 2nd Battalion Marched 115 miles to Atlanta in 3 days and then took the train and the 3rd Battalion rode to Atlanta by train and then marched the remaining 138 miles to Fort Benning. It must be remembered that not only was the Japanese record well and truly smashed but that the 506th achieved this with full kit including .30 cal machine guns, tripods, mortars and base plates!

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