Paratroopers in the Pacific?

Did the United States ever use any paratroopers in the Pacific?

Yes in the Philippines and New Guinea the 11th Airbourne was used.

Originally posted by konstantinius Not to my knowledge. Operations in the Pacific consisted of amphibious landings with coordination between Navy and Marines.

Actually, quite a few Army divisions took part in Pacific battles, beginning with the Guadalcanal Campaign in 1942. Some island operations, such as Tarawa and Iwo Jima, were indeed Marine only.

At Okinawa, the penultimate land battle of WWII, the landing force was composed of two Army and two Marine divisions under Army command, Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., whilst a third Marine division demonstrated on the southeast coast.

The Philippines Campaign was Army only.

JT



Edited by jacobtowne - 10-Jan-2007 at 14:58

Dad's LST squadron was in support of the landings at Leyte,  He said there were Marine units involved in the Philipines, just not on a large scale.

Originally posted by Sparten   As for the para ops, the Japanese made several in China as well. And the planned recapture of Singapore was going to use perhaps as many as three airbourne divs (1 and 6 British and 2 Indian).

Yep the Japanese were quite amazed by the German successes during the early years of ww2 with paratroopers. They even had a glider unit i believe to go along with their paratroopers. The battle of Palembang was a fairly large airborne operation for the Japanese in February of 1942. They also jumped into Menado on Celebes Island in January of 1942.



Japanese paratroopers at the Battle of Palembang

I disagree with the statements about US airborne forces on New Guinea.  The parachute drops were to take airfields, and were not carried out over heavily forested areas.

Edited by pikeshot1600 - 13-Jan-2007 at 14:20