Paratroops
Paratroops, soldiers especially trained and equipped to make parachute jumps from airplanes. They form part of airborne units. Airborne troops are also landed by airplane and helicopter. (Gliders were used in World War II but have been replaced by helicopters.)
The usual mission of paratroops is to destroy communications behind the enemy's lines prior to an assault by ground or amphibious forces. Paratroops are also used to seize airfields and to secure vital communications (such as bridges) that advancing ground troops will need. When necessary, they also fight as regular infantry.
Brigadier General William Mitchell was planning use of paratroops at the end of World War I. Between the world wars Russia and Germany experimented with parachute troops. Paratroops were first used successfully in the German attacks on Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Fort Eben Emael, Lige, Belgium, 1940.
The largest successful airborne action was the German capture of Crete, 1941. Germany's losses were so heavy, however, that it never again staged another large parachute attack. The largest Allied action occurred in 1944 when the First Allied Airborne Army of two United States divisions and one British division used 2,800 planes and 1,600 gliders in attacking Arnhem and Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. The attack failed to attain its objectives.