This was not combat, but it was as close as the Army could make it. The maneuvers held in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana from June 5 to July 15, 1943, combined paratroopers and gliderborne troops in the largest airborne exercise to date.
On June 10, the 506th PIR officially joined the 101st Airborne Division, thus making that date the greatest day the 101st ever had. Adding the 506th noticeably raised the morale of the 101st, at least according to the men of E Company.
The maneuvers, pitting the Red Army against the Blue Army, ranged over a wide area of backwoods hills and mountains. Easy made three jumps. Christenson remembered one of them vividly. It was hot, stifling inside the C-47, and the heated air rising in currents from the hills cause the plane to bob and weave. Cpl. Denver “Bull” Randleman, at the back of the stick and thus farthest from the open door, began vomiting into his helmet. The man in front of him took one look and lost his lunch. The process worked right up the line. Not everyone managed to vomit into his helmet; the floor was awash in vomit, the plane stank. Christenson, at the front, was hanging on, but barely. “My stomach was on the verge of rebellion. . . . ‘Why don’t they turn on the green light? There it is!’ From behind, shouts of ‘Go!’ ‘Go! Goddamn it, Go!’
Out I went into the clean fresh air. I felt as if someone had passed a magic wand over my head and said, ‘Christenson, you feel great.’ And I did.”
The maneuvers featured extended night marches, wading through streams, climbing the far bank, making 3 feet only to slide back 2, stumbling over rocks, stumps, and roots, cutting a swath through matted underbrush and occasionally enjoying fried chicken prepared by Tennessee hill people. The men were tired, filthy, itching all over.
In late July, the maneuvers completed, the 2nd Battalion of the 506th received a commendation from Maj. Gen.
William C. Lee, commander of the 101st, for “splendid aggressive action, sound tactical doctrine, and obviously well trained individuals.” General Lee expressed his confidence that “future tests will reveal further indications of excellent training and leadership.”
Easy moved from Sturgis to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, where there were barracks, hot showers, and other luxuries. But the camp was overflowing, and once again it was the little pup tents for sleeping quarters, the ground for a mattress. It did not last long, as most of the men got ten-day furloughs, and shortly after they reported back, the entire division took trains to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
It was immediately obvious that Bragg was a staging area, as the division prepared to ship overseas. The food was better; there were beds in barracks with hot showers and other improvements. But the real giveaway was a total reoutfitting. The men got new clothes, new weapons, new gear. They spent their days on the firing range, sighting in the rifles and machine-guns.
Where were they going, east or west, the European, Mediterranean, or the Pacific theater? No one knew, rumors flew from platoon to platoon, bets were made.
On weekends, the men went into Fayetteville to “prime the Pump,” at the Town Pump, one of the local bars.
Brawls were frequent. Most were started by the paratroopers, who would pitch into the regular soldiers stationed at Bragg.
They also goaded the glider troops who were part of the 101st.
The glider troops were regular soldiers assigned to the glider regiment. Although they were airborne, they were not volunteers and were treated by the Army as second-class men. They did not receive the $50 per month bonus, they had no special badges, they did not wear boots and bloused trousers. Some of them made up posters showing photographs of crashed and burned gliders, with a caption that read: “Join the glider troops! No flight pay. No jump pay. But never a dull moment!”
A few members of Easy went down to the airfield at Bragg to take a ride on a glider. The experience of landing in one of those plywood crates convinced them jumping with a chute was a better way to land. When General Lee made a glider flight, the landing fractured several of his ribs. “Next time I’ll take a parachute,” he remarked. “We told you so!” the glider troops shouted. (In July 1944, the glidermen finally got the hazardous duty bonus of $50 per month and a special insignia.)