Rendezvous With Destiny; A History of The 101st Airborne Division
Sweetwater, TN: 101st Airborne Division Association Headquarters, c1972. Second Edition [stated]. Enlarged Edition [stated] Date per page v. Hardcover. xxix, [3], 830, [2] pages. Illustrations. Maps. Appendixes (including in part The Honor Roll, Battle Credits, Airborne Songs and Poems, and Abbreviations) DJ has some wear, tears, chips and soiling. DJ as Association sticker on front flap. Book has some edge soiling. Title page as Association sticker in publisher's location. The Active Division Chapter is by Judson J. Conner. Includes over 100 maps and dozens of illustrations. New York Times review: “For sheer adventure few writers of fiction surpass this real-life, name-and-date story of men bound together in a combat outfit.” “The 101st Airborne Division, which was activated on August 16, 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny…” Maj.-Gen. William Lee commanding officer 1942. Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of the 101st Airborne Division, is unique among military histories. Never before has such a detailed study been made of the organization, training and operations of a single division of the United States Army. Each action in which the Division took part has been minutely studied and checked against available operations reports and the memories of the men who were there. From the beaches of Normandy to Hitler’s Berchtesgaden hideaway the 101st Airborne fought their way across Nazi-Occupied Europe to Victory. Leonard A. Rapport was an archivist for the National Archives. Before the war, Northwood worked with Time, Inc. He jumped into Europe with the 101st Airborne Division, and later coauthored the Division's official history, titled "Rendezvous with Destiny." On 30 July 1942, the Army Ground Forces ordered the activation of two airborne divisions not later than 15 August 1942. The 82nd Division, an Organized Reserve division that had been ordered into active military service in March 1942, was ordered to provide cadre to the 101st Division, the other division selected for the project, for all elements except parachute infantry. On 19 August 1942, its first commander, Major General William C. Lee, read out General Order Number 5: The 101st Airborne Division, which was activated on 16 August 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny. The pathfinders of the 101st Airborne Division led the way on D-Day in the night drop before the invasion. They left from RAF North Witham, having trained there with the 82nd Airborne Division. The 101st Airborne Division's objectives were to secure the four causeway exits behind Utah Beach between St Martin-de-Varreville and Pouppeville to ensure the exit route for the 4th Infantry Division from the beach later that morning. The other objectives included destroying a German coastal artillery battery at Saint-Martin-de-Varreville, capturing buildings nearby at Mésières believed used as barracks and a command post for the artillery battery, capturing the Douve River lock at La Barquette (opposite Carentan), capturing two footbridges spanning the Douve at La Porte opposite Brévands, destroying the highway bridges over the Douve at Saint-Côme-du-Mont, and securing the Douve River valley. Their secondary mission was to protect the southern flank of VII Corps. They destroyed two bridges along the Carentan highway and a railroad bridge just west of it. They gained control of La Barquette locks, and established a bridgehead over Douve River which was located northeast of Carentan. In the process, units also disrupted German communications, established roadblocks to hamper the movement of German reinforcements, established a defensive line between the beachhead and Valognes, cleared the area of the drop zones to the unit boundary at Les Forges, and linked up with the 82nd Airborne Division. For the Battle of the Bulge, the 101st left Camp Mourmelon on the afternoon of 18 December, with the order of march the division artillery, division trains, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 506th PIR, 502nd PIR, and 327th Glider Infantry. Much of the convoy was conducted at night in drizzle and sleet, using headlights despite threat of air attack to speed the movement, and at one point the combined column stretched from Bouillon, Belgium, back to Reims. The 101st Airborne was routed to Bastogne, located 107 miles (172 km) away on a 1,463 feet (446 m) high plateau. Despite several determined German attacks, the perimeter held. The German commander, Generalleutnant Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, requested Bastogne's surrender. When General Anthony McAuliffe, now acting commander of the 101st, was told, a frustrated McAuliffe responded, "Nuts!" Condition: Good / Good.
Keywords: 101st Airborne Division, Judson Conner, Screaming Eagles, Normandy, D-Day, Mourmelon, Bastogne, Ruhr Pocket, Cold War, Alsace, Eindhoven, 506th, Battle of the Bulge, Marvie, Longvilly, 501st, Berchtesgaden, Military Occupation
[Book #81888]
Price: $275.00