...Krysta Desper Mr. Connors U.S. History I CPS 10 C 17 January 2013 Band of Brothers In the summer of 1942, young men in Army training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, are given an opportunity to be part of a unique unit of paratroopers. This unit offers $50 dollars a month extra for hazardous duty pay, which draws a lot of the volunteers. These men begin a very rigorous training regimen under Captain Sobel, whom most of the men come to hate. Their training includes basic infantry skills - use and maintenance of various weapons, map reading, and communications. They also practice jumping with parachutes, beginning with towers of varying heights, then to the actual jump from an airplane. The hardest part of their training is a run they must make, up to the top of Mount Currahee, which is an Indian name that means We Stand Alone Together. After several long months of this training, the men of Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, are shipped to Uppottery, England, where they continue their training. They are being prepared for the greatest military maneuver ever undertaken; the D-Day invasion of Normandy. The 506 is to parachute behind the German lines and work their way back towards the beach, to meet the Allies there, and hopefully cut off German supply lines to the front in the process. On June 6, 1944, the invasion comes, after having been postponed for bad weather. The drops do not go well, due to anti-aircraft fire and low visibility, but as the men hit the ground, they...
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...Also a notable entry in this essay is that during the early 1950's the 187th was part of Operation Swarmer which was the largest peacetime Airborne maneuver in history. This peacetime wouldn't last long though. With a growing crisis in the Korean Peninsula, the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment was being thrown back into the mix as an airborne regimental combat...
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...soldiers of the 1st US Army. Most of the American troops who bore the brunt of the attack had either little combat experience or were recovering from previous battles. Aside from catching the Americans off guard, the Germans also used deception to cause havoc among the Americans. The Germans dropped English-speaking soldiers behind the American lines to act as saboteurs. The saboteurs were dispatched in a physiological operation style attack. “Using captured uniforms and Jeeps, the commandos intended to confuse U.S. troops in the zone of attack by giving bad directions, mixing up road signs, killing dispatch riders, cutting phone wires, and would try to generate panic by depicting a hopeless situation to anyone who would listen.” (The History Place, 2010). Five days into fighting, the Germans had inflicted severe damage to a number of American troops. The Germans created a 50-mile deep “bulge” in the American line. Within two weeks, it appeared the Germans might reach as far as the Meuse River. In order to complete their assault to the Meuse River, the Germans would have to push through the Belgian town of Bastogne. By December 21, the Germans had encircled the town. It took a historic effort by the 101st Airborne Division to hold off the German Panzer Corp. The Germans, believing their efforts in Bastogne were enough to cause an American surrender, sent a delegation to negotiate with American command. “But calling themselves the “Battered Bastards of Bastogne,” the 101st...
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...The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces landed and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the entire island, including the three Japanese-controlled airfields (including the South Field and the Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands.[2] This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II. After the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U.S. Army as a staging base and useless to the U.S. Navy as a fleet base.[4] However, Navy Seabees rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s.[5] The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels.[6][7] The Americans on the ground were supported by extensive naval artillery and complete air supremacy over Iwo Jima from the beginning of the battle by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators.[8] Iwo Jima was also the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the American casualties exceeded the Japanese, although Japanese combat deaths numbered three times the number of American deaths...
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