Holland

The 82d’s next mission, after recuperating and adding troops to their depleted ranks in England, was code-name Operation “Market Garden” the invasion of German held Holland by air.

Just as the Germans had done four years earlier, the Allied plan of September 17, 1944 using the 82d and 101st U.S. Airborne Divisions and England’s first Airborne Division was to be launched by dropping paratroopers and Glidermen into Holland. If successful, it would speed up the process for reaching the final target of the war- Hitler’s headquarters in Berlin.

MARKET GARDEN was to be the first major daylight air assault attempted by any military power since Germany’s attack on Crete. The airborne Allied troops were to seize roads, bridges, and the key communications centers of Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Arnhem, forming, and airborne carpet over which the British Second Army would roll on the way to Germany.

By weather standards for that time of year, September 17, 1944, proved to be good day for flying. Under clear skies, bombers and troop transports rose from Britain, flew across the English Channel and over Belgium and Holland, now relatively clear of German fighter planes. It would be the fourth and final World War II combat drop for the All Americans. Their objective: Capture and hold the key bridges at Grave and Nijmegen as well as some subsidiary bridges over a canal to the east of Grave.

The 82d successfully dropped and assembled at the Maas River Bridge at Grave and secured the structure within an hour.

Before dark, brigadier General Gavin, who became 82d commander on August 28, led his men in bloody fighting in the Nijmegen region, secured the approach to the bridge at Nijmegen, the second longest span in Holland, and heavily fortified by the enemy.

On the night of September 19, British and American Allied leaders mapped their strategy for taking the bridge. However, at the same time, a German Panzer Grenadier division was being ferried to Nijmegen to bolster the vital span.

On September 20, the 3-504th Regiment performed the death-defying feat of reaching the enemy held bridge by boating across the fast flowing Waal River. The first wave of paratroopers who launched in the assault boats lost half of their members to the fierce enemy gunfire and the raging river. But 200 men charged ashore, smashing the Germans and opening the way to the Rhine River at Arnhem. It was in extraordinary action, one of the most valiant of the war.

When the British Second Army’s commander, Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey, greeted Brigadier General Gavin in the battle zone, he said, “I am proud to meet the commander of the greatest division in the world today.” It was an assessment shared by many other British officers who was the 82d in action in Holland, where about 800 All Americans were killed.

While serving in Holland, a second 82d Airborne trooper gained the Medal of Honor. Private Towle of Cleveland, Ohio, Company C, 504th Infantry, earned that distinction in combat near Oosterhout, Holland, on September 21, 1945. Armed with a rocket launcher, he single handedly, without orders moved into an exposed position, and broke up a German counterattack force of 100 infantrymen, two tanks and half-track. He was finally stopped by a fatal wound from a mortar shell.

Battle of the Bulge

In November, the 82d moved out to Holland in order to rest and refit. However, while many of the troopers were catching their breath in France, Adolph Hitler was planning a final desperate offensive through the Ardennes Forest aimed at capturing the key Belgian seaport of Antwerp. Once that offensive began, the 82d Airborne Division again was ordered into combat on December 17, 1944 in the battle of the Bulge.

In bitter cold and snow, the 82d fought against tanks, assault guns, and motorized infantry, blunting field Marshal Karl R. Von Rundstedt’s northern salient in Germany’s last big push. That put the U.S. Army in good position for major attacks inside Germany. By February 17, 1945, Jim Gavin and his airborne troopers were in Germany.

Of the 82d’s performance in Belgium, Major General Gavin wrote in his official report:

“Men fought, at times, with only rifles, grenades and knives against German armor. They fought with only light weapons in waist deep snow, in blizzards, in near zero temperature and in areas where heavy forestation and almost total lack of roads presented problems which only men of stout hearts and iron determination could overcome. The Battle of Bulge also proved again that planes and material are important but most important essential of all in a fighting heart, a will to win.”

Belgium was site of a particularly remarkable action, which, on January 29, 1945, earned a Medal of Honor for a third All American in World War II, First Sergeant Leonard Funk, of Braddock Township, Pennsylvania, and Company C, 508th Infantry. After Leading his unit in capturing 80 Germans, First Sergeant Funk, walking around a building into their midst, had a machine pistol thrust into his stomach by a German Officer. Pretending to comply wit the demand to surrender, he slowly un-slung his Thompson sub machine gun and with lighting fast action riddled the officer and led his men resisting the enemy, 21 of whom were killed in the process.

Central European Campaign

After regrouping in Sissonne, France, following the Ardennes Campaign, the 82d again was ordered into action on March 30, 1945, with orders to move to the area of Bonn, Germany, and the Rhine River. In early April, the All Americans conducted a successful assault river crossing at the Rhine north of Cologne, throwing back the numerous counterattacks by the enemy.

At the end of April, the paratroopers repeated their performance in moving out northeast from Cologne to cross the Elbe River, in the final attack of the war.

On May 12, 1945, the 82d received the unconditional surrender of the 21st Germany Army 146,000 men at Ludwigstlust.

After the Allies victory on May 7, 1945 V.E. Day with Germany’s unconditional surrender, and in July, the 82d was sent to patrol the American sector of Berlin. There, the division got its nickname of “American’s Guard of Honor” when General George Patton told them, “In all my years in the Army, and of all the honor guards I have ever seen, the 82d honor guard is undoubtedly the best.”

The 82d wound up being one of the most highly decorated U.S. Army divisions in the war. The 82d paratroopers earned three Medals’ of Honor, 79 Distinguished Services Crosses, 894 Silver Stars, 2,478 Bronze Stars, numerous foreign decorations.

After twenty years overseas and 442 days in combat, the most by any airborne division the 82d returned to the United States January 3, 1946, to a roaring reception in New York City. But there was a somber side to the war’s conclusion: The 82d’s casualty count showed 3,228 dead, 106 missing and 12604 wounded.