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South Vietnam, 1966.
Elite US paratroops jump into action
in the biggest operation of the Vietnam War to date.
Holland, 1944. British and American paratroops fill the skies
in the largest and most ambitious airborne plan ever launched.
Assault from the air is always bold and risky.
No other strategy depends so much
on precise timing and co-ordination of forces.
Every commander knows that this battleplan should be used
only when there is no other option.
The battleplan is Assault From The Air.
Vietnam, 1966.
The Vietcong believe they are gaining ground
in their ongoing guerrilla war against the US military.
They have established key areas in the South
which they use as supply bases and holding areas for their forces.
One of these areas is what the American military has designated as War Zone C.
War Zone C is north-west of the South Vietnamese capital Saigon,
along the border with Cambodia.
lt is the base for the 9th Vietcong Division
and the 101st North Vietnamese Army Regiment.
And it is the location of the political headquarters
of the Communists' Central Office in South Vietnam.
The American commander-in-chief in Vietnam
is General William Westmoreland.
For him, War Zone C is a thorn in his side, and he wants it taken care of.
Westmoreland orders the area commander, General Jonathan ***,
to prepare an operation against the Vietcong forces in the zone.
The operation will be the largest in the Vietnam War to date.
But how can *** insert troops fast enough into War Zone C
to take and hold it before the enemy has time to react?
Europe, September, 1944.
Three months after the D-Day landings,
Allied forces have broken out of Normandy
and pushed across France and into Belgium.
ln the north-east, they face Hitler's Siegfried Line.
The Allied advance is grinding to a halt...
...and a new battleplan is needed to push onward into Germany.
The task falls on General Lewis Brereton and his team of battleplanners.
How can they rekindle the Allied advance,
bypass the German defences
and possibly end the war by Christmas?
Junction City, the American plan to attack War Zone C,
and Market Garden, the Allied plan to open the road to Berlin.
Both groups of battleplanners need to achieve speed and surprise
and each chooses the same risky solution - assault from the air.
Assault from the air is war on a knife edge.
For it to stand a chance of succeeding,
there are specific requirements each of these operations must follow.
Objective - to take and hold a position behind enemy lines
that is inaccessible to conventional ground forces.
lf there is a viable ground-based alternative,
air assault should not be considered.
lntelligence - when landing, airborne troops are especially vulnerable,
so up-to-date, accurate intelligence is vital
on enemy forces waiting on the ground, where they are and how strong they are.
Air control - commanders must achieve control of the air
to protect their forces from enemy aircraft
while they are being transported to the target,
and to neutralise ground defences which might jeopardise their landing.
Speed and surprise -
the essence of any air assault is to arrive at the target without warning,
if possible securing it before the enemy has had time to react
or to mount a proper defence.
Reinforcement - airborne troops are limited logistically in what they carry.
Everything they need, they take with them.
They are lightly armed, so they have to be resupplied and reinforced.
Air assault should only be used
when other forms of warfare cannot achieve the same objectives.
An insertion by air can allow troops to get into areas
otherwise inaccessible by other troops.
lt's therefore a very special type of operations.
Airborne troops are like a special reserve.
They should only be used in very specific circumstances
to take very specific military objectives.
But the battleplan for air assault has two fundamental weaknesses.
Landing - whether they insert by parachute, glider or helicopter,
airborne troops are exposed as they come in to land.
ln this critical phase, they cannot fight back.
They are at the mercy of the defenders.
Time limit - because they are so lightly armed,
there is a time limit within which they have to be reinforced.
That has to be fast. Normally it is 48 hours maximum.
Assault from the air is the last great development in warfare.
lt introduces a third dimension to the battlefield.
lt allows forces to go over the top of the enemy -
what military planners call ''vertical envelopment''.
And it has developed with technology.
From parachutes...
...and gliders
to the delivery of airborne troops by helicopter.
Used correctly, an assault from the skies can achieve stunning results.
But used improperly, it can result in the annihilation of the airborne force.
The idea for mass assault by air
came not in World War Two, but World War One.
ln 1917, Colonel William ''Billy'' Mitchell,
better known for his championing of the use of air power for ground attack,
proposed the capture of Metz in France
by dropping 10,000 men by parachute behind enemy lines.
The man charged with drawing up the plan
was Mitchell's assistant, Major Lewis Brereton.
The idea was ultimately rejected.
But Brereton would not disappear from the theatre of airborne warfare.
The first soldiers to make a successful drop, using a static line,
were a unit of ltalian paratroops on exercises in November 1927.
Within a few years, the Soviet Union would take parachuting to a new level.
Seeking to weld the country together,
Soviet leaders introduced vast schemes of nationwide sporting activities,
including parachuting.
The military application was never far away.
ln 1930, parachute units were included in Red Army manoeuvres
as small ''intruder'' parties.
ln 1935, the Red Army made battalion-sized descents.
ln 1936, it was dropping brigades.
The real architect of assault from the air, however,
is considered to be German Major-General Kurt Student.
ln 1938, when Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering decided to set up
what he called a parachute entry force, the man he turned to was Kurt Student -
a former World War One fighter pilot with five kills to his credit.
By the beginning of World War Two, Student's Fallschirmj?ger,
''parachute hunters'', numbered 4,500 men.
His airborne troops were considered an elite.
Student also developed the concept of troop-carrying gliders.
Student would be responsible for the first major combat air assault ever launched.
And Student would command key elements
of the German defensive forces
when the Allies launched Operation Market Garden three years later,
which, in the irony of war, would set him against the man
who had planned the first ever air assault a quarter of a century before -
Lewis Brereton, now a general.
Assault from the air is war on a knife edge.
The first requirement for a successful assault from the air
is that the war commander must be clear why he is doing it.
What is his objective?
ls assault from the air the only way his goals can be achieved?
This requirement was first shown in the Mediterranean in April 1941.
While the armies of Adolf Hitler occupied most of Europe,
the island of Crete was still firmly in Allied hands.
Taking Crete would give Hitler a key base in the Mediterranean,
but the British Royal Navy dominated the seas of the area.
So there was only one way to get to Crete and seize the island -
assault from the air.
Based on this tactical situation,
Kurt Student ordered his paratroops and glider-borne forces
to land on the island's airfields and the port of Suda.
Reinforcements would be landed by Junkers Ju-52 transports
and, when the port had been seized, by sea.
The plan is what airborne forces call a ''seize and hold'' operation.
Operation Market Garden, 1944.
Allied Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery
consider their options for the next stage of war in Europe.
Three months after D-Day the Allies have broken out
from Normandy and pushed across France, then the advance has faltered.
ln the north-east they are faced by the Siegfried Line.
The strategic plan to restart the advance
by the normally cautious British Field Marshal Montgomery is bold.
He will bypass the Siegfried Line
and sweep into Germany through the back door
while US forces push through the Line.
The key to the plan are the bridges across the southern Dutch waterways.
They must be taken and held.
But these vital bridges are deep behind enemy lines
which means Montgomery only has one way of seizing them -
assault from the air.
Airborne troops will insert by parachute and glider.
They will capture the bridges and lay what the military calls an airborne carpet
along the route which the planned Allied advance will take.
The man who must turn Montgomery's bold vision into a detailed battleplan
is American General Lewis Brereton,
the man who devised the first ever plan for assault from the air.
This operation was the boldest, most audacious airborne operation
of the Second World War, potentially of all time.
Dropping 35,000 troops of three nations behind enemy lines,
some of them 64 miles behind enemy lines,
was a massive undertaking and a remarkable thing to do so late in the war.
But the potential gains were massive.
The aim - to end the war in Europe by Christmas 1944.
lncredibly, Brereton and his airborne commanders
are given just six days to plan and prepare.
This is the battleplan they come up with.
The American 101st Airborne will drop into southern Holland
and take the bridges and choke points between Eindhoven and Grave.
The American 82nd Airborne
will drop ten miles further north and take the bridges
in the area between Grave and Nijmegen.
20 miles further north, the British 1st Airborne Division,
to be joined by the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade,
will seize and hold the most northerly target - the bridges at Arnhem.
Each group will be reinforced by further parachute drops
and glider landings of men and equipment.
And all three groups will be relieved by the tanks of the British 30 Corps,
racing hard and fast from Belgium -
first the 101st, then the 82nd,
and finally the British 1st.
lf all of these elements come together,
the road to Germany and to Berlin will be open.
But for Brereton and his battleplanners, victory is anything but certain.
Operation Junction City, Vietnam, 1967.
Elite members of the US 82nd Airborne Division are briefed
before dropping into the battlezone in their assault from the air.
As General Jonathan *** and his battleplanners
look at how to surround the Vietcong in War Zone C,
there is a tool in their arsenal unavailable in World War Two - the helicopter.
No longer do you have a fixed-wing aircraft
that is highly vulnerable in the air.
Now you have a flexible method of insertion,
a helicopter that can land men and, importantly,
can take them out of the battle zone at very short notice.
The fleet of helicopters bought by the army and Marine Corps
in the late 1950s and early 1960s
sees its first use in combat over the jungles of Vietnam.
This was an environment where the definitive virtue of the helicopter,
its ability to land just about anywhere, was particularly useful.
With the objective to cut off and crush Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces,
General *** and his battleplanners aim to use this new flexibility
alongside more traditional methods.
General ***'s plan is to create a horseshoe -
a massive inverted U around War Zone C.
Prior to Junction City, he will launch two other operations -
Gadsden and Tucson.
They will be part of a deception plan.
They will put into position two of the four units
who will take part in Operation Junction City.
Along the west side of the horseshoe, then the east.
Other elements will be in position to press up from the south on D plus 1.
To achieve maximum surprise on D-Day,
assault from the air will seal off the top of the horseshoe -
eight airmobile landings using helicopters and one parachute drop.
A battalion of the 173rd Airborne Brigade,
part of the 82nd Airborne Division, will go in first by parachute.
lt will establish a secure zone for a parachute drop
of heavier weapons and equipment, planned for 30 minutes after their drop.
Then the battalion will be reinforced by other units of the 173rd,
flown in by helicopter.
Once in position, they will assume an infantry role
to complete the overall objective of Operation Junction City -
eliminate the Vietcong in War Zone C
and set up special forces bases to secure the area.
So in both cases, Junction City and Market Garden,
the battleplanners decide that assault from the air
offers the only or the best chance of success.
And on paper both appear to fulfil the first requirement for the battleplan.
Now they need to put it into action.
Vietnam, 1966.
American General *** arrives at his local headquarters
to finalise the last details of Operation Junction City.
He knows that intelligence is a key requirement of any battleplan.
But in the battleplan for assault from the air,
where troops drop behind the lines, it is even more important.
And he would have studied the role of intelligence
in the first major assault from the air -
Kurt Student's Operation Mercury against Crete.
Operation Mercury involved the landing of over 15,000 men
by glider, parachute and air transport.
Against his forces, Student and his planners estimated
that the Allies had about 5,000 men spread out across the island.
But the intelligence on which Student drew up his battleplan was wrong.
Allied defenders on the island did not number 5,000, but nearer 40,000.
The garrison on Crete had been strengthened
by men evacuated from Greece.
Kurt Student and his planners
had built their battleplan for Operation Mercury
and the assault on Crete on bad intelligence.
They would pay a heavy price for it.
ln Vietnam for Operation Junction City,
little intelligence is available about the area into which the 503rd will drop.
To seek to gather such intelligence might give the game away.
Other units, like those which will man
the east and west sides of the horseshoe,
only do so with a deception smokescreen in place.
Those from the south will only move up after D-Day itself.
So when the 503rd jump, they won't know what will be waiting for them.
ln terms of intelligence for the immediate drop,
the Junction City battleplanners may not have met the requirement.
But they believe that the speed and surprise of their well-equipped forces
will more than compensate for their lack of information.
But what about the intelligence for Operation Market Garden?
After D-Day and the break-out from Normandy,
the Allies expect that German opposition to Market Garden
will be confused and weak.
lf the paratroops can seize their targets,
then 30 Corps should push through light opposition and reach them quickly.
At one stage, they might have been correct,
but Allied indecision about where and how to advance
gives the Germans time to regroup and reinforce.
By an extraordinary coincidence,
one of the commanders of German troops in southern Holland
is Kurt Student,
the architect of assault from the air.
Market Garden is scheduled for September 17th.
Between September 12th and the 17th,
German combat strength in the area is doubled.
Two Waffen-SS Panzer Divisions with their tanks move into the Arnhem area
after their retreat from Normandy.
Although weakened and under strength, they are still a formidable fighting force,
especially against lightly armed airborne troops.
Even today, there is debate over whether
the Allied planners knew they were there.
There are huge myths
that hang around this operation in 1944.
One of them is that the British, in particular,
didn't know that there were SS Panzer Divisions in the area.
New research has shown that they did know that they were there.
They knew exactly what they were up against - a strong armoured formation.
The operation went ahead because the commanders thought it was worthwhile.
Because the gains were potentially so huge,
they were willing to sacrifice some airborne troops
to get the largest gain that any operation can achieve -
the end of the war in Europe.
So in Operation Market Garden, at least in one critical area,
the Allies have good intelligence, but decide to disregard it.
ln Operation Junction City,
the Americans have partly met the second requirement of the battleplan
for assault from the air, but not for their immediate drop zone.
But what about the third requirement - control of the air?
There are two degrees of air control -
air superiority, where you merely have an advantage over the enemy,
and air supremacy, where control is total.
Junction City, 1967.
ln Vietnam, the enemy does not have an air force.
The Americans enjoy air supremacy.
American commanders exploit this advantage in two ways.
The first is in the transport of troops by helicopter.
The second is to support troops on the ground,
to eliminate or reduce opposition around American forces.
ln Operation Junction City,
American planners therefore meet the third requirement
for the battleplan for air assault - control of the air.
Market Garden, 1944.
Three months earlier, to protect the D-Day troops
on the beaches of Normandy,
the Allies have established control of the skies
in an arc over that part of Western Europe.
By September, air supremacy is being extended to the Market Garden area.
The Allies seem to have fulfilled the requirement for control of the air.
Except that air control also means something else -
providing support for ground forces
and eliminating or neutralising enemy positions in the target area.
Senior Allied commanders know of the presence of the two Panzer Divisions
in the Arnhem area...
...so the opportunity exists to use Allied air control to eliminate them
and to support the tanks of 30 Corps linking up from Belgium.
lncredibly, they do not take this opportunity.
The reason for the lack of fighter support in the air
was a decision by the commander of the Troop Carrier Command,
a Major-General Paul Williams,
to ensure that his pilots were kept safe
by the Allied air forces being kept on the ground
during the critical period of both supply and paratroop delivery.
This had a catastrophic effect on the possibilities
of 30 Corps reaching the airborne troops
and the airborne troops surviving very difficult conditions on the ground.
So, in Market Garden, the Allies appear to have met the requirement
for air control.
Then, amazingly, they fail to use it for air support.
For the battleplanners of Junction City and Market Garden,
the planning and preparation is over.
The time has come to attack.
Vietnam, 1966,
and Holland, 1944.
lt is only when their troops jump
that the commanders will see how their plans meet the next requirement
in the battleplan for air assault - speed and surprise.
Again Operation Mercury in Crete
showed the importance of speed and surprise.
Early morning, May 1941.
The sky above Crete began to fill with incoming planes and gliders.
As they descended from the skies,
Student's men began to take the first of many losses.
Defenders fired right into the flimsy canvas and wood gliders.
Paratroops were shot dead while they were still in the air.
At Retimo airfield, 1,500 German paratroops
were reduced to 1,000 in just one hour.
At Heraklion, transport aircraft carrying airborne troops came in singly
and were easy targets.
Many were shot down in flames with their airborne troops still inside them.
By late afternoon of day one,
nearly 40% of Atudent's assault force was dead, wounded or taken prisoner.
The German assault troops were falling victim to a fundamental weakness
of the battleplan for air assault - vulnerability on landing.
Student's planners began to consider aborting the operation.
ln Operation Junction City, Vietnam,
first to go will be the paratroops of the 173rd Brigade.
845 men will take part in the jump.
They will be led by their brigade commander, General John Deane.
Commander of the actual assault task force
is Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Sigholtz.
They collect and check their chutes...
...and file into their C-137 transports.
Then the aircraft roll down the runway at Bien Hoa and climb into the sky.
08:55 - they are five minutes from the drop.
09:00 hours.
The 173rd is over the DZ - the drop zone.
General Deane moves to the right door, Lieutenant-Colonel Sigholtz to the left.
Then they go.
They are at the danger point of air assault - landing.
They need speed and surprise, but not just for themselves.
The next wave, a heavy equipment drop, is already airborne.
lts ETA is 25 minutes away
and the paratroops aren't even on the ground.
Operation Market Garden, 22 years earlier.
Everything depends on seizing and holding the bridges from day one.
But even before it starts, Market Garden faces a number of problems.
There are insufficient transport aircraft to carry the Allied airborne army in one lift,
so the landings will be spread over three days.
Already speed and surprise are in jeopardy.
Because of fear of the flak around the key bridge at Arnhem,
drop zones for the British 1st Airborne Division
are up to 8 miles from the target.
Speed and surprise have been compromised for security.
So once they have landed, a spearhead force of armed jeeps
will make straight for the bridge.
September 17th, 1944, early afternoon.
The Screaming Eagles, the US 101st, encounter heavy flak.
But they manage to land.
Glider pilots and the pilots of the Dakotas bringing them in
risk everything to get the men on the ground.
Four Dakota pilots pay with their lives.
The 101st move off and take their first targets.
The All Americans of the 82nd land
and begin to battle their way toward their objectives.
The unsung heroes of Operation Market Garden
are the two American Airborne Divisions that land near Nijmegen and Eindhoven.
These are the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions
that do a very good job of making an effective landing,
of consolidating their positions and of taking their objectives.
Near Arnhem, the gliders and airborne troops of the British 1st Division land,
but speed and surprise are lost as they take time to move off.
The gliders carrying the armed jeeps
which will make the dash for the Arnhem bridges are damaged on landing.
And the jeeps have to be extracted from the wreckage.
The delay gives the Germans vital time to organise.
One mile into the eight mile dash to the bridge, the jeeps are ambushed.
The spearhead attack is lost.
The airborne troops set out on foot to cover the eight miles to their targets.
They meet opposition from snipers, then armoured cars.
Their first objective, the railway bridge, is blown as 2 Para begin to cross it.
But they continue on towards the main objectives.
At first, Operation Market Garden meets the surprise requirement for air assault,
and overcomes the weakest part, the landing,
but then it totally throws away these accomplishments
by failing to move quickly.
And what the men on the ground do not know
is that the battleplan is in more jeopardy than even their worst nightmares.
ln the wreckage of a glider, the Germans find the body of an Allied officer.
He has broken every rule of field security.
He is carrying with him a full set of operation orders
and marked maps for Operation Market Garden,
with drop zones, timings and objectives.
The general to whom the plans are handed
is none other than the architect of air assault itself - Kurt Student.
The Allied battleplan has fallen into the hands of the enemy.
The Germans organise their defences
and their attacks.
By evening, the American 101st reach their first objective, the Son bridge.
But it is blown as they prepare to take it.
Within 36 hours, combat engineers have replaced it.
The 82nd are still fighting forward.
At Arnhem, men of the 2nd Parachute Battalion, with elements of the 3rd,
battle their way to the northern end of their target, the road bridge.
They have achieved the first objective in the battleplan.
They have seized part of the bridge.
But the Germans still control the southern end.
Market Garden has failed to meet the key airborne requirement
of speed and surprise.
But amazingly, because of the men on the ground,
the Americans and the British,
it is actually partway to achieving its objective and succeeding.
All now depends on the next requirement.
Reinforcement. Airborne troops are limited in what they carry.
Everything they need, they take with them.
They are lightly armed. They have to be resupplied and reinforced.
Because they are so lightly armed and they have so little in the way of supplies,
airborne forces cannot sustain themselves for long.
They have to be quickly relieved by more powerful forces coming by land or sea.
ln World War Two, the rule of thumb for such relief was 48 hours.
The importance of this final requirement also became clear in Crete in May 1941.
Having lost nearly 40% of their airborne assault force on the first day,
Kurt Student's men were in desperate need of reinforcement.
But the airfields to bring in fresh troops and supplies had still not been captured.
Suddenly, the fog of war saved Student's battleplan.
Overnight, the Allied defenders on the dominating position
above Maleme airfield,
known as Point 107, pulled back unexpectedly.
When Student's men assaulted the position, it was virtually undefended.
The next morning, with his men still fighting to secure Maleme airfield,
he sent in reinforcements.
The airfield was a battleground.
The Ju-52s came in with burning planes littering the airfield
and exploding shells all around them.
One plane even landed on top of the wreck of another.
Still, however, they landed.
Airborne troops jumped from them,
manhandled their mortars and heavy machine guns out, and joined the fight.
The Luftwaffe subjected Allied forces to incessant close-support attacks.
Over the next days, Student's men forced Allied troops back,
to be evacuated from the south coast.
The Germans had won the first ever major assault from the air.
Crucially, their rapid reinforcement and control of the air
had overcome their failures of intelligence and speed and surprise.
September 18th, 1944. Day two of Operation Market Garden.
The airborne troops, British and American,
are behind enemy lines and totally surrounded.
The American 101st are being counterattacked.
They beat off the Germans, hold on to their original objectives
and even advance and take Eindhoven.
At Nijmegen, the 82nd, also under fierce counterattack,
battle their way into the town centre.
But the bridge is still firmly in German hands.
At the northern end of the bridge at Arnhem,
men of the British 1st Airborne are holding on.
The survival of all three units
now depends on reinforcement by the tanks of 30 Corps.
Tragically, the reinforcement requirement
of the Market Garden battleplan has been poorly planned.
The tanks are on their way to relieve the airborne units,
but the route they will take is along a single road,
across open countryside, often on top of embankments.
They are exposed on the flanks and are targeted by well-hidden enemy positions.
As lead tanks are knocked out, the single route is blocked.
The airborne portion was very well done
but insufficient thought was given to how to link up to the relief.
To put a force as large as 30 Corps on a single road was the height of folly.
Having taken heavy losses, the first tanks of 30 Corps reach the 101st
at the bridge north of Eindhoven on September 19th, a day behind schedule.
On the same day, gliders manage to get in artillery to the 82nd,
which enables them to fight on.
But at Arnhem, much-needed supplies dropped by the RAF
fall directly into German hands.
As the second wave comes in, the Germans wait at the landing zones,
detailed in the plans that they have captured.
ln the chaos, the surviving reinforcements are cut off,
far from the bridge.
The morning of the next day, September 20th,
the 82nd at Grave are finally reached by tanks of 30 Corps.
They then try to battle their way through to the Nijmegen bridge,
but are beaten back.
At Arnhem, the British airborne troops are out of food
and almost out of ammunition.
But incredibly, like the 82nd and the 101st, they hold on.
The battleplan is still achievable.
On the afternoon of September 20th, the fourth day of the operation,
the American paratroops paddle across the River Waal at Nijmegen
under heavy fire in assault boats.
They seize the northern ends of both the rail and road bridges
as the tanks of 30 Corps cross from the south, but it is too late.
On the morning of the 21st, an attempt by 30 Corps to push on
is halted by Panzers four miles from Arnhem.
Low on ammunition and with no infantry support, the situation is grim.
At almost the same moment, without reinforcement,
the British paratroops at the bridge are finally overrun
by German Waffen-SS units.
The American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions did a remarkable job
to keep the road open for 30 Corps.
lnterestingly, just as 30 Corps begin to cross Nijmegen Bridge,
across the Waal,
British paratroopers are overwhelmed at Arnhem Bridge.
Had the British 30 Corps managed to cross a few hours earlier,
perhaps the two elements of the operation,
the airborne forces, the Brits at Arnhem,
and 30 Corps having travelled up from Belgium
through Eindhoven and Nijmegen,
could have linked up and the operation could have been a great success.
Other units hold out for several days before many escape across the river
and the remainder surrender.
Operation Market Garden overall has been a costly failure.
As a result, the war in Europe will drag on for months.
ln Vietnam, 22 years later, Operation Junction City is going according to plan.
There is no enemy contact during the jump.
Junction City has passed the speed and surprise requirement.
The operation has also got through the first danger point - the landing.
Within 20 minutes of landing, the parachute battalion of the 173rd Brigade
is on the ground and has set up a defensive perimeter.
Their reinforcements are right behind them.
Just five minutes later, the first equipment drop comes out of the sky.
And shortly thereafter, the airmobile assault comes in by helicopter
with the rest of the 173rd Brigade.
The air assault phase of the Junction City battleplan is completed
when the lightly-armed assault paratroops
receive the rest of their equipment.
The 173rd Brigade then moves on to the next stage of Junction City -
working with the ground forces to clear War Zone C of the Vietcong.
So how did Operations Market Garden and Junction City meet the requirements
for the battleplan for air assault?
Objective - the Allies in Market Garden and the Americans on Junction City
both had a clear objective.
And that objective could only be secured by an assault from the air.
lntelligence - for Market Garden,
the planners had the key piece of intelligence -
the presence of the two SS Panzer Divisions -
but decided to go ahead regardless.
For Junction City, there was no intelligence on the drop zone,
but the assault paratroops of the 173rd faced little opposition.
Air control. Market Garden failed to exploit a key component of air control -
to take out enemy defences.
Junction City enjoyed and exploited full air control.
Speed and surprise.
Market Garden achieved surprise,
but lost speed against the strength and rapid reaction of the defenders.
Junction City achieved both.
Reinforcement.
ln Market Garden, the plans to reinforce went disastrously wrong.
Combined with the failure to act on their intelligence and exploit air control,
the inability of the planners to reinforce all their airborne forces
ensured the failure of the battleplan.
ln Junction City, once the paratroops had landed,
reinforcement was almost immediate.
The air assault phase of the Junction City battleplan was a success.
Within two weeks, the whole of War Zone C had been cleared.
35 years later, the 173rd Airborne were again in the public eye,
this time in Operation lraqi Freedom against Saddam Hussein,
as they dropped into northern lraq to seize the key airfield at Bashur.
Once again they provided the solution to a situation
where assault from the air was the best option.
Assault from the air is still always on the edge
and therefore always needs to be changing.
But as the technology, both of air assault
and of the weapons that can be used against it, change, what of the future?
Armies around the world still invest heavily
in helicopters and heliborne forces.
This is despite a growing consensus among military theorists
that helicopters are far too vulnerable to ground fire,
to the fire of machine guns, RPGs, hand-held anti-aircraft missiles,
to be of too much use over enemy territory.
They are no longer the weapons of war that they once were.
And what about air assault by parachute?
The advantages of the use of parachute troops are still with us.
They will remain probably throughout the 21st century.
The difficulty is they are highly vulnerable when on the ground.
As a result of that, we seem to see the use of parachute troops
being used in a much more specific way.
lt is unlikely that there will ever be mass drops again
like those during World War Two.
lnstead, parachute insertion will be used for specific purposes.
Special forces raiding or releasing hostages.
Elite units seizing a specific target.
As always with assault from the air,
it will continue only to be used when there is no viable alternative.