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Roland Leon Bragg (June 11, 1923 – January 12, 1999) was a United States Army paratrooper during World War II.Bragg was awarded the Silver Star, the United States Army's third-highest military decoration for valor in combat, for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action."
These men together with an older unit called 2 Mobile Watch formed the nucleus of 1 Parachute Battalion at Tempe in Bloemfontein in April 1961. UDF era 2 Mobile Watch Shoulder title. The first paratroopers were Permanent Force men, but soon the training of Citizen Force (similar to the National Guard of the United States) paratroopers commenced.
Currently, this unit specializes in arctic warfare, airborne operations, combined arms, maneuver warfare, and urban warfare. First activated on 25 February 1943, during World War II, it was held in reserve in the United States until June 1944 when it was transferred to the Pacific Theater where it saw combat in the Philippines.
On 19, 1943, Headquarters, Army Ground Forces, authorized the activation of the company as an all-black unit with black officers as well as black enlisted men. All unit members were to be volunteers, with an enlisted cadre to be selected from personnel of the 92nd Infantry Division at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
Less than forty-five days after it was formed, members of the test platoon made their first jump from a Douglas B-18 Bolo bomber over Lawson Field on 16 August 1940. Lieutenant Ryder and Private William N. (Red) King became the first officer and enlisted man to make an official jump as paratroopers in the United States Army.
The advent of World War II ushered in a need for highly mobile units capable of quick insertion within the theater of battle by the Allies.Originally constituted on March 14, 1941, as the 504th Parachute Infantry Battalion (PIB) and activated on October 5, the 509th PIB qualified its first paratroopers at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Like almost all paratrooper units, the 506th was widely scattered during the Mission Albany night drop on the morning of D-Day. The most famous action for the 506th on D-Day was the Brécourt Manor Assault led by 1st Lieutenant Richard Winters .
The unit's motto is "Geronimo," a phrase that has become synonymous with paratroopers and parachutists in general. The motto dates from 1940 and the lead up to World War II. The night before their first attempt to prove the feasibility of a mass jump, some U.S. paratroopers at Fort Benning watched the film Geronimo (1939). While drinking with ...