Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/189

PRELUDE TO COMBAT

The Third Army and the Airborne Command executed McNair's recommendation on 15 August 1942. The 82d Infantry Division (less the 327th Infantry, the 321st and 907th Field Artillery Battalions, the 82d Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, and the Military Police Platoon) plus the 504th Parachute Infantry became the 82d Airborne Division. Concurrently, the adjutant general disbanded the 101st Division in the Organized Reserve and reconstituted it in the Army of the United States, activating it as the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. The 502d Parachute Infantry, the 327th Glider Infantry, and the 321st and 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalions were assigned as divisional elements. Shortly thereafter each division was authorized an antiaircraft artillery battalion, an ordnance company, and a military police platoon. The parachute infantry elements did not immediately join their divisions, but by early October 1942 all elements of both divisions assembled at Fort Bragg for training.

On 15 October 1942 the War Department published the first tables of organization for the airborne division (Chart 18). Reflecting the light nature of the unit, the parachute infantry regiment had only .30-caliber machine guns and 60-mm. and 81-mm. mortars besides the individual weapons, and its field artillery battalions used 75-mm. pack howitzers. In the division artillery, however, a new antitank weapon was introduced, the 2.36-inch rocket launcher (the "bazooka"). Transportation equipment ranged from bicycles and handcarts to 2-1/2-ton trucks,