Artifact Friday: 82nd Airborne Compass

As we all know, D-Day, June 6th, 1944, marked the turning point for the war in Europe. To this day, the Storming of Normandy stands as one of the greatest feats of combined arms ever mounted. While the Allied armies were charging the beaches and the combined navies were bombarding the shoreline, three airborne divisions were behind the German lines, wreaking havoc on their vast Atlantic Wall.

These units were the 6th British, the 101st American, and the 82nd American Airborne Divisions. These specially trained soldiers were dropped well in advance of the main landing force and tasked with sabotaging German supply lines and defenses.

A major challenge these units came across was the disorientation of their initial drop. Heavy anti-aircraft fire from the German defenders combined with the low visibility of a nighttime drop caused many of the paratroopers to miss their targets by up to several miles.

This brings us to one of the Airborne’s greatest strengths, navigation. Although all service members are trained in navigation, the Airborne has always been extensively drilled on the subject for eventualities such as being dropped off target by several miles.

In our collection is a tool of navigation, a compass, that belonged to an unknown soldier of the 82nd Airborne. Not only that, but this compass was dropped with its owner into Normandy on that momentous day. Although we do not know who the owner exactly was, we do know that the 82nd, as well as the other two divisions, were able to navigate to each other and form small teams that often consisted of soldiers from different units. These improvised squads stopped German reinforcements and silenced enemy artillery, bringing victory to the Allies on D-Day and ultimately defeating the Third Reich.