The 82nd was in holland Sept of 44 for operation Market Garden...didn't go all that well. A Movie A BRIDGE TOO FAR is all about the operation...
Peter
The 82nd airborne performed brilliantly in that operation - did everything they were tasked to do.
The problem was at Arnhem and the tactical plan for the capture of the bridge over the lower Rhine which was the responsibility of the British 6th airborne division. The issue was that the plan called for landings 12-15 km away from the bridge. Doesn't sound very far but for an airborne operation at that time it may as well have been the distance to the moon.
Only a handful of British paratroops even got as far as Arnhem...
The outstanding tactical lesson for airborne operations in WW2 was that one needed to be dropped or land (they used gliders extensively) right on top of one's objective. That lesson was not heeded by the planners of the operation at Arnhem.
Interestingly enough the two American airborne divisions (the 82nd and 101st airborne) involved in operation Market Garden performed flawlessly and achieved all their objectives. Their tactical plans called for the drop zones and landing zones to be right next to their objectives. A less than subtle pattern emerges...
All airborne operations carried out in WW2, by any army, resulted in heavy casualties. However, by the end of the war, despite the casualties, the American airborne units had written, and rewritten, the book on airborne operations...Many of those operations are still taught as textbook operations in military academies around the world today!
Hero's to the last - every one of them!