‘Screaming Eagles’ Fought at Battle of Bulge in 1944

The 101st Airborne, a division with a rich military tradition, has performed peacetime missions ranging from enforcing school desegregation to keeping the peace in the Mideast.

In September, 1957, the 101st was sent to Little Rock, Ark., by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to enforce a court-ordered school desegregation plan.

In recent years, units of the 101st have been designated as part of the Rapid Deployment Force created by the Pentagon to allow the United States to react fast militarily to outbreaks of trouble around the globe.

On Thursday, its peacekeeping service as part of a multinational force in the Mideast brought the division’s worst peacetime disaster in the crash at Gander.

Known as the “Screaming Eagles” from their distinctive shoulder patches featuring a white-plumed eagle, the 101st gained fame in World War II during 33 days of continuous fighting after the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

But its biggest fight of the war came several months later in the Battle of the Bulge, when five German armored divisions surrounded the 101st at Bastogne as part of a last-ditch German counteroffensive.

General’s Succinct Reply to Germans

On Dec. 20, 1944, the German commander issued a surrender ultimatum to the encircled units of the 101st. The division’s acting commander, Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, sent back one of the war’s most famous and succinct messages--”Nuts.” Six days later, the U.S. 4th Armored Division lifted the siege.

The 101st became the Army’s third combat unit in Vietnam when the “Screaming Eagles” arrived at Cam Ranh Bay. It was the last unit to leave the Vietnam combat zone, arriving home on April 6, 1972.

Ft. Campbell, the unit’s home, was established July 16, 1941. The third largest military installation in the nation, it is located astride the Kentucky-Tennessee border, 60 miles northwest of Nashville.

Two-thirds of Ft. Campbell--with a population of 37,000, including 22,000 service personnel--is situated in Tennessee and one-third in Kentucky. But at the request of the World War II-era commander, the Ft. Campbell post office was moved from Tennessee to Kentucky.