# How many planes to drop WWII Airborne Div? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645 "2015-04-27T15:10:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645/1 "2015-04-27T15:10:28Z")
My research shows that the C-53 Skytrooper (paratroop version of the C-47 Dakota) carried 28 men in addition to the crew. One source states that the 101st AB had 12,335 men. This would equal about 440 C-53s. BUT I know that a lot of those men were in Glider regiments, AB artillery battalions, a medical company, etc… which no doubt had different transport needs. And I can’t seem to find that info. So is there an official listing of exactly how many aircraft were used to drop an airborne division on, say, D-Day? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645/2 "2015-04-27T15:46:54Z")
About 300, for an American one and less for a British and could be less if they went in waves. Going by memory. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645/3 "2015-04-27T16:33:29Z")
Looks like roughly between 100-200 planes per infantry regiment, with the support troops being landed by glider. So… in Normandy it was 432 for the 101st, 369 for the 82nd, and in Operation Varsity, it was 541 for the 17th Airborne, at least for the actual paratroopers. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645/4 "2015-04-27T19:40:10Z")
Does that count tow planes for the gliders? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645/5 "2015-04-27T20:18:55Z")
No, that’s just the actual paratroop numbers. The gliders roughly double that, based on the Operation Varsity counts - the total number of planes for the 17th Airborne was something like 908. I may have misread about the 541 though- that was the number of transports for both the British 6th Airborne and the US 17th Airborne, not including the glider towing planes. Here are links to the wikipedia pages for all the US airborne drops in WWII: > **[Allied invasion of Sicily | Airborne landings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Sicily#Airborne_landings)** > > Two American and two British attacks by airborne troops were carried out just after midnight on the night of 9–10 July, as part of the invasion. The American paratroopers consisted largely of Colonel James M. Gavin's 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (expanded into the 505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team with the addition of the 3rd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, along with the 456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, Company 'B' of the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion ... [Mission Albany - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Albany) (101st in Normandy) [Mission Boston - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Boston) (82nd in Normandy) > **[1st Airborne Task Force (Allied)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Airborne_Task_Force_(Allied))** > > The 1st Airborne Task Force was a short-lived Allied airborne unit that was active during World War II created for Operation Dragoon–the invasion of Southern France. Formed in July 1944, under the command of Major General Robert T. Frederick, it took part in the "Dragoon" landings on 15 August 1944, securing the area north-west of the landing beaches, before moving towards the French–Italian border as part of the United States Seventh Army. The unit was disbanded in November 1944. > In the initi... > **[Operation Market Garden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden)** > > 3,600 combined allied aircraft > Luxembourg > The Netherlands > **[Operation Varsity | Battle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Varsity#Battle)** > > Operation Plunder began at 9 pm on the evening of 23 March, and by the early hours of the morning of 24 March Allied ground units had secured a number of crossings on the eastern bank of the Rhine. In the first few hours of the day, the transport aircraft carrying the two airborne divisions that formed Operation Varsity began to take off from airbases in England and France and began to rendezvous over Brussels, before turning northeast for the Rhine dropping zones. The airlift consisted of 54 ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-planes-to-drop-wwii-airborne-div/718645/6 "2015-04-27T21:26:42Z")
Just to note, what exactly constituted an airborne division in WWII is a bit screwy, for example the maneuver elements of the [101st](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101st_Airborne_Division#Units): > [@](#): > > 327th Glider Infantry Regiment > 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, disbanded 1 March 1945 in France; assets to 327th GIR > 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, attached 1 May 1944 – past 9 May 1945 > 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment > 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, assigned 1 March 1945, previously attached 15 September 1943 – 1 March 1945 So the 501st PIR was technically only attached to the 101st, not an organic part of the division even though it was attached for the entire duration of the war. The 506th PIR was in the same boat but became a formal part of the division on 1 March 1945. The [401st GIR](http://www.ww2-airborne.us/units/401/401.html) never actually fought as a separate unit; its two battalions were broken up with one battalion attached to the 327th GIR and the other to the 325th GIR of the 82nd Airborne Division where they made up the ‘third’ battalion in those regiments.