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Arctic Angels
The 11th Airborne Division is back! Embracing the newest evolution of its three incarnations, the 11th once again is purpose-built to meet the shifting challenges facing our country. Originally activated in 1943 as the first airborne division to be built from the ground up, the 11th became Douglas MacArthur s "secret weapon" in the Pacific, conducting multiple airborne assaults while fighting through the Philippines.
As the war ended in September 1945, the soldiers of the 11th Airborne Division Angels" would be recognized for their ability to rapidly organize into a combat-credible, airborne fighting formation that provided key support to the war effort. Retired Lt. Gen. E. M. Flanagan Jr. notes in his personalized history, The Angels: A History of the 11th Airborne Division, that despite being a small division with minimal resources and firepower, they "took on the missions of a full-sized division and proved that heart and courage and training and camaraderie and esprit and loyalty, not only up but down, engender self-confidence and invincibility, making giants of ordinary men."1 The 11th Airborne Division especially distinguished itself in the fierce battles to liberate Manila; during a daring raid by land, sea, and air on Los Banos detention camp to rescue over two thousand Allied civilian internees; and in overseeing postwar Japanese occupation forces until 1949.2
As national security needs shifted after World War II, the division was inactivated in 1958 following a deployment to Germany. During the Vietnam conflict, it was incarnated once again, reactivating from 1963 to 1965 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as the 11th Air Assault Division. The divisions purpose focused on developing the nascent air assault tactics for helicopter operations and subsequently spawned the first units to execute those operations in Vietnam.3
After a fifty-seven-year dormancy, the 11th Airborne Division reactivated in 2022 once again to meet the evolving challenges facing our Nation. The Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, notes that great powers and rising powers fighting for global dominance will set the parameters for future world order.4 Department of Defense and Army leaders at every echelon are focused on maintaining global stability as regional competitors become increasingly aggressive and adversarial. Having a division unit...