In the years immediately after the war, the US Army assessed the airborne missions to determine whether or not to maintain the airborne divisions during the inevitable demobilization of much of the army. There were serious proposals to abandon airborne divisions in favor of assigning this mission to normal infantry divisions. Many senior US commanders felt that the airborne division structure was seriously flawed, being much too light to conduct prolonged operations after the initial airdrop. They preferred to assign the task to regular infantry divisions, which would receive additional training for the airborne mission. Even Gen. Gavin admitted that airborne operations were still in their infancy and that “we have barely begun to solve the problems of airborne transport and equipment.”
In the event, the army decided to try to correct the organizational flaws in the divisions rather than eliminate them entirely. The underlying problem of the division was the mistaken doctrinal concept that the airborne division would be rapidly extracted from the combat zone a few days after the airborne operation. It was evident from the World War II experience that this precept was unrealistic and that field commanders were not about to relinquish a highly capable light infantry division because of a contrived doctrine. From an organizational standpoint, the senior airborne commanders recommended that the problem could be most readily addressed by re-configuring the airborne divisions like regular infantry divisions, with the full array of supporting troops, instead of the emaciated support structure of the wartime organization. They also recommended that the tables of equipment be modified to permit the substitution of lightweight weapons suitable for air delivery depending on the operational circumstances. So for example, the division would maintain the standard infantry field artillery piece, the 105mm howitzer, but also have a substitute 75mm pack howitzer for airborne operations. There was also general agreement that the distinction between parachute and glider infantry be abandoned and that all infantry be trained for parachute drops.
The glider fell out of favor after the war except where needed for delivering heavy equipment. They were expensive, and wartime experience showed that they were not reusable. Furthermore, they required extremely large air bases to launch on large-scale missions, and they required two highly trained aircrews, the transport tug and glider crew, to carry a single load. Glider missions took up about 50 percent more airspace and flew at speeds 30–40 miles per hour slower than paratroop formations, and so reduced the pace of the airborne assault. The development of larger transport aircraft such as the C-82 permitted the use of pallet loads with large parachutes so that even heavy equipment could be parachuted.
The postwar reassessment also considered the future of airborne operations and their potential role in future wars. There was no consensus on the importance of their future roles. Some commanders hoped that future airborne operations might be large enough to rival the amphibious operations of World War II and have operational rather than mere tactical consequences. Other officers were skeptical that such operations could ever succeed given the need to supply such operations from the air with all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that it implied. Other officers argued that with the advent of atomic weapons, the days of light infantry were numbered and the future was in the heavy mechanized division that could survive on the nuclear battlefield.
Due to the heavy cuts in force structure after World War II, only two of the five airborne divisions raised during the war were preserved. The exemplary combat record of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions made them virtually sacrosanct in all the postwar cuts and Cold War reorganizations. The airborne divisions were further protected by the rise of several of the airborne generals to senior Army commands, notably Ridgway, Taylor and Gavin. Indeed, the rise of “airborne generals” in the 1950s had some curious effects on US Army Cold War reorganization. Recalling the advantages of the five battlegroups made possible by the use of five regiments in the airborne divisions during Operation Neptune, the airborne generals were instrumental in advocating the “Pentomic Division” reorganization of the 1950s that moved away from the US Army’s traditional preference for a triangular organization.
The 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions have remained in the US Army order of battle ever since World War II. By the 1960s, the maturation of the helicopter offered another means of airborne delivery and the 101st was converted to “airmobile,” with the 82nd remaining the army’s sole airborne division up to the present. The airborne divisions survived and prospered for the past half-century due to the versatility and adaptability of this elite force. For nearly four decades, the armies of NATO and the Warsaw Pact were stalemated along the Central European frontier by the threat of uncontrolled nuclear escalation. The airborne divisions shifted their focus to become the masters of the “little wars” that popped up around the globe. With the end of the Cold War, these light-infantry special-warfare capabilities have become all the more relevant.