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He started methodically, reading all there was to read on his new subject—which did not take long. Then he applied himself to the fundamentals of parachuting and gliding. His first jump came off without incident; his first glider ride characteristically ended in a rousing wreck, from which he jumped clear, ending up bruised in body and dignity, but professionally impressed with the way the ungainly box kite could put down a whole squad, jeep or gun in one place.
By the luck of the draw and the schedules, the 82nd was the first airborne divi sion to go overseas and into action. Ridgway and his outfit became the test case for the whole airborne program. Elements of the division went first to North Africa, and the entire division was first committed in Sicily, July 1943.
That show, for the airborne people, was something like giving a command performance with a symphony orchestra of well-trained musicians, none of whom had been introduced to each other or had ever played in public before. Liaison between air, ground and sea forces was faulty. In one of the war's most tragic errors, U.S. antiaircraft guns blasted down a covey of troop-laden planes like fat ducks. Because of this, the scheduled glider runs were hastily called off. Other transport pilots missed landmarks and sowed their hapless paratroops up & down the coast, miles from their objectives. In consequence, the parachutists came down in so many places that the alarmed Germans thought they were being hit with a fantastically large skyborne force, and milled around in such indecision that the surface invasion was greatly facilitated.
For a time after Sicily the Army was about ready to scrap the airborne divisions; even some of its most progressive commanders feared that a division was too unwieldy a unit to jump and glide. Ridgway and the other airborne men had to summon all their powers of tact and persuasion. In the end they prevailed, and the divisions survived to undergo the test of D-day in Normandy.
On that historic morning three airborne divisions — the 82nd, 101st and British 6th — spearheaded the great invasion, took their objectives, helped secure the all-important beachhead. That ended the arguments. Eisenhower went ahead and organized the First Allied Airborne Army, naming Ridgway to head the XVIII Corps.
Airborne's next show was the Arnhem drop, a bold effort to turn the German defenses on the lower Rhine. That gamble failed gallantly when the British ist Airborne, key division of the offensive, was badly cut up and finally forced to retire. Whatever the true explanation, nothing will ever persuade airborne men that the failure was not caused primarily by overcautious use of Field Marshal Montgomery's armor, which never broke through to relieve the beleaguered British division.