Ready at a Moment's Notice: The Heroism of the 82nd Airborne Division in Nazi Controlled Italy

The Allied campaign in Italy during World War II is a theater of battle that has not been written about or studied as much as other World War II operations like the western European theater or the Eastern Front. However, this campaign still played an important role in the war effort, and the soldiers who participated in these battles deserve to have their stories told. This is especially true for the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army. To explain, even among scholars of the Italian Campaign, the 82nd Airborne has not always received the recognition it deserves. This paper will change that by describing the important contributions of the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne to the Italian Campaign. Specifically, this paper will highlight the 82nd’s capture of strategic objectives near Gela, Sicily, its support of the 5th Army’s offensive and its role in stopping several German counterattacks.