Green On : Jumping into combat with the U.S 82nd Airborne Division 1943-1945
Christian Jennings

Why were the paratroopers of the elite American 82^nd Airborne Division such capable combat soldiers and such successful pioneers of airborne warfare? How did the United States’ original parachute division win a reputation for itself as a battle-capable, maverick and tactically outstanding unit? What was it like to serve in it during World War Two, and how did the 82nd contribute to the final Allied victory?

Green On tells the wartime story of the division in the battle for Europe, seen through the eyes of nine paratroopers from very different backgrounds, from the rank of general down to private soldier, and it is told through their diaries and wartime documents as well as new and existing archive material.

A regimental colonel holds a vital ridge in Sicily against Tiger tanks and German paratroopers, while on the eve of D-Day a young paratroop lieutenant ambushes and kills the Wehrmacht’s most highly-decorated general in France; a divisional intelligence officer is convinced SS panzer units will be waiting for the division when they jump into Holland on Operation Market Garden in September 1944.

A Native American private is decorated for gallantry in the hedgerows of Normandy, while a regimental chaplain parachutes into action with the men, painstakingly documenting the daily operations of the division in 276 separate diaries. When a captain helps liberate a concentration camp, he realizes exactly what he and his colleagues have been fighting for.  

The title of the book comes from the last thing paratroopers see before they leap out of an aircraft as it comes in over the drop-zone: the small green light above the door, telling them it is the moment to jump.

In the last twenty-five years, the history of American paratroop units in the Second World War has become focused on the exploits of the U.S 101^st Airborne Division. These were immortalised by Tom Hanks’ and Steven Spielberg’s highly-acclaimed HBO television series, Band of Brothers, itself based on historian Stephen Ambrose’s best-selling book.

Green On tells the story of the 82^nd Airborne Division, the bigger, older and more experienced unit, whose operations have become eclipsed and overshadowed by their comrades in the 101st. The 82^nd were, simply put, the other Band of Brothers.

Written by an author and foreign correspondent who has witnessed and reported on wars and their aftermaths across fifteen countries for fifteen years, Green On tells the story of combat and fighting as it actually is – the mud, the dirt, the fear, the extraordinary and idiosyncratic human detail, the guns and the waiting, the blood, sadness and heroism.

From the individual human stories of the men who fought, to the tactical and strategic wider picture, the book tells a fast-paced and compelling story of ordinary men at war in one of the conflicts that has defined history.