Talk:Operation Junction City

Name

Was this operation named for any Junction City in particular? – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

It was named for Junction City, Kansas, which is near the 1st Infantry Division's home post Fort Riley. The 1st ID also conducted operations named after Manhattan and Ogden, two other towns near Fort Riley.Intothatdarkness (talk) 18:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I notice the lede now claims it was named after a commanding officer's hometown. Which commanding officer? Neither Seaman nor Palmer were from Kansas. Intothatdarkness 19:28, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Casualty figures

Are casualty figures available for PAVN and RVN forces? Also, does the figure of "1,728 killed" currently listed in the infobox represent only NLF losses or combined NLF/PAVN losses? Thanks, –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Lede paragraph removed

removed the following because it needs a serious edit/re-write to measure up to Wikipedia standards.

The failure to gain surprise lay in discovery of the plans after NVA Colonel Dinh Thi Van managed to place one of her agents in social circles that included ARVN General Cao Van Vien and US General William Westmoreland. That agent further reported one ARVN staff officer's comment of the early phase of the operation: "[The Viet Cong] seem like ghosts. All the six spearheads of our forces have been attacked while we don't know exactly where their main force is. Even in Bau Hai Vung that is considered to be a safe area, we lost one brigade. It's so strange."

~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 21:20, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Conficting information

In the lede it is stated that Operation Junction City was "the largest U.S. airborne operation since Operation Varsity in March 1945". This is accompanied by a kind of limp citation that states, "Retrieved 9 November 2010". In the Operation section of the article it is claimed that "845 paratroopers conducted the only mass jump of the Vietnam War and the largest since Operation Tomahawk of the Korean War", using a GlobalSecurity.org. web page titled "United States Combat Jumps". I have found several instances of incomplete or erroneous information on the GlobalSecurity website in previous research. OK, which is the largest combat jump before Operation Junction City? Operation Varsity or Operation Tomahawk? Can we find a better reference to back up one claim over the other? Cuprum17 (talk) 14:11, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Varsity was a multi-division, massive operation aimed at putting allies forces across the Rhine - that’s one kind of airborne operation - other examples of the type would be the use of paratroopers in Normandy and Operation Market/Garden in Holland. The confusion is likely due to a failure to differentiate between that large-scale use of airborne formations and the more-prevalent use of smaller airborne units for a more limited scope - up to one division but usually smaller, like a RCT or some parts of an airborne division. The last airborne operation of WWII for US forces was the 11th airborne’s combined parachute/glider drop on Appari (or Aparri, I forget) ridge on Luzon, and I’d wager it’s a larger deployment of airborne assets than the airborne operation here, most of the 11th division having participated.

Varsity is often mistakenly named as the last airborne operation of the war but both Operation Herring (Italian paratroopers in the Po Valley) and the Aparri ridge operation in Luzon a few weeks later would be the last in Europe and the Pacific respectively, rather Varsity was the last use of multiple airborne divisions (and I believe the largest) and the difference between the two types of operations is not well understood by those referring to it as such but it was very much an operation distinction (and prolonged debate) during and after the war on the deployment of airborne forces (Divisions vs. Smaller formations, to simplify it perhaps too much).

There were two further airborne operations after the war, in Korea - one was Tomahawk, and the other I can’t find on this website right this minute. Both involved the 187th, formerly a glider infantry unit that belonged to the 11th airborne. In Korea it operated as a separate regimental combat team, not unlike the unit in Junction City. To hazard a guess, both of the Korean drops would be roughly equivalent to this one - with Aparri Ridge during WW2 being a bit larger - and Varsity being larger still - but I believe the claim name-dropping Varsity is likely incorrect. As for how Aparri, Herring, Tomahawk and its sibling op, and Junction City stack up in terms of unit sizes, you’ll have to see how the size of the 187th in Korea, the 11th division in the Aparri op (iirc the only time the 11th jumped as a complete division, so likely larger), and the airborne forces here differ specifically. 2601:87:4400:BEC0:B1E7:FEDF:6164:A6BE (talk) 23:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Taking Airborne narrowly to mean parachute assault, Bernard Rogers' Vietnam Studies Cedar Falls-Junction City A Turning Point (page 101) and John Tolson's Vietnam Studies Airmobility (page 126) each only states that the jump was the first U.S. combat parachute assault since the Korean War. In addition to the one battalion deployed by parachute, 8 battalions were landed by helicopters. Unless there's a source that explicitly states that it was the largest airborne operation since Varsity, Tomahawk or Sukchon/Sunchon, all the page should state is that it was the first (and only) U.S. combat parachute assault since the Korean War and was the largest airmobile operation of the war to that time. Mztourist (talk) 08:46, 8 February 2021 (UTC)