The 9th Airborne Division of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

was a military deception created in 1944 as part of Fortitude South IIHolt (2005). p. 901. It was initially depicted as being under the direct command of

Fourteenth United States Army Fourteenth United States Army was a fictitious/military deception field army, under the command of John P. Lucas, developed under Operation Quicksilver as a part of the fictitious First United States Army Group. Alleged composition As part of a ...

with its headquarters located in Leicester, Leicestershire in June 1944. In the Pas de Calais landings it and the notional '21st Airborne Division' were to be dropped behind the US XXXVII Corps beachheads. In August 1944 it was notionally transferred to the direct command of

First United States Army Group First United States Army Group (often abbreviated FUSAG) was a fictitious (paper command) Allied Army Group in World War II prior to D-Day, part of Operation Quicksilver, created to deceive the Germans about where the Allies would land in Fr ...

. In the aftermath of Fortitude South, the notional United States 9th and 21st and British 2nd Airborne Divisions and the real United States 17th Airborne Division were used to depict an airborne threat to the

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

- Bremen area in support of Operation Market Garden.Hesketh (1999). p. 306. In November 1944 it was announced that the division had been merged with the 21st Airborne Division to form the 13th Airborne Division, a real unit that was about to be deployed to France.

Composition

In addition to the usual divisional support units the 9th Airborne Division was notionally composed of: *196th Glider Infantry Regiment *199th Glider Infantry Regiment *523rd Parachute Infantry Regiment

Footnotes

References

* Holt, Thaddeus. ''The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War''. Phoenix. 2005. * Hesketh, Roger. ''Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign''. St Ermin's Press. 1999 {{Allied Military Deception in World War II Operation Quicksilver (deception plan) formations