In the end, he concluded, “If an immediate attack can be made on parachute troops the second they leave the plane and touch the ground, they are almost powerless to resist.” Through World War II, army planners assumed that one-third of any airborne force setting out would fail to participate effectively in operations.

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The vulnerability of airborne soldiers on landing was further exacerbated by their lack of mobility. Once on the ground, paratroopers were limited to how far and how fast they could move with what they had. This restricted the objectives and missions that could be assigned. Failure to recognize this had dire consequences. Parachutists dropped too far from their target contributed to the failure to quickly capture the bridge at Arnhem in September 1944. German defenders acknowledged that they had time to mobilize their defense and respond to the threat.

Paratroopers lacked firepower. Often airborne forces were dropped behind enemy lines, beyond the range of friendly artillery or naval gunfire. They relied on only what they themselves could bring to the battle. Human capacity ruled out most heavy weapons. Equipment loss and damage during bad drops exacerbated the predicament. “With the planes not slowing up below 125 or 135 miles an hour,” complained one veteran of the Tagaytay Ridge mission in the Philippines in February 1945, “most of us experienced the hardest physical opening shock in our lives. The result of the shock was that most of us lost helmets, packs broke free from web belts, suspenders broke, and in the wind which was 20 to 30 miles an hour…many had hard landings.”

Bruises and scrapes aside, it was the loss of equipment in a bad landing that was most sorely felt. Not surprisingly, paratroopers lamented their vulnerability in the difficult weeks following D-Day in Normandy, “when attacks by enemy infantry and sometimes tanks and self-propelled guns had to be met with an inferior weight of fire power.” A little more than three months later at Arnhem, the 82nd Airborne Division was unable to communicate with headquarters fifteen miles away because both of the outfit’s large radio sets were damaged in the drop.

Resupply also limited what assignments airborne forces could take on. Every airborne operation depended on eventually linking up with ground forces, generally within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Isolated troops could be supplied by airdrops, but resupply drops suffered from all the same parachute limitations as the original drop—and required even greater accuracy.

Despite this constraint, paratroopers have set admirable records by holding out for great lengths of time even when surrounded by superior forces. Large Soviet airborne formations operated behind German lines at Moscow for periods of four to six months during the winter of 1940-41. Allied paratroops held out for eight days in Holland during Operation Market-Garden in September 1944—four times longer than expected. Both cases involved vicious close-quarters combat against superior firepower. In each case, the parachute units were severely mauled and virtually ceased to exist.

The numerous limitations airborne forces face are offset by capabilities that give parachute troops an edge in their distinctive battlefield. The greatest advantage is their strategic mobility. Army planners described them as “highly mobile shock troops [that] can be projected at short notice into an enemy area which might otherwise consider itself immune from attack.” A large number of paratroopers and equipment can be deployed quickly over large distances, regardless of difficult terrain and obstacles.

Moreover, airborne forces are the only troops capable of engaging in combat operations on short notice, without first securing airfields, ports, beaches, or other points of entry. Strategically employed, they can seize ground and fortifications hitherto thought impregnable. On May 10, 1940, a mere fifty-five German parachute engineers rendered ineffective the key Belgian fortress of Eban Emael with its twelve-hundred-man garrison, guarding the strategic Albert Canal.

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