Hello ladies and gents this si the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
THE ARMY’S MOST FAMOUS BAND OF SKIING SOLDIERS
The gear may have evolved from 7-foot wooden planks, but today's ski culture owes its creation to the 10th Mountain Division. Fort Drum photo.
The ski troops of the 10th Mountain Division endured incredibly brutal combat in World War II, battling frostbite and hostile alpine environments during their short but violent campaign against German forces in Italy’s Apennine Mountains. Casualties in the winter of 1945 were staggering, but when the ski troops returned home they poured their heart and soul into the newly-evolving ski industry, opening ski resorts, managing ski schools and influencing innovation.
Unlike most of Europe, prior to World War II, the American military had no specialized division of soldiers trained in mountain combat. But after learning of a small unit of Finnish ski troops that held off a powerful regiment of Soviet forces in a 1939 winter battle, Charles “Minnie” Dole wrote to the War Department imploring them to add a mountaineering unit to the U.S. Army. Dole is best known for creating the National Ski Patrol and was well connected in the small ski community that existed in the U.S. President Roosevelt gave Dole the green light and construction of the Camp Hale training facility began in 1942.
Dole was convinced it would be easier to turn skiers into soldiers rather than teaching existing troops to ski. Recruiting from his community in the National Ski Patrol, Dole brought in gold medalists, accomplished mountaineers, and wealthy skiers from all over the country to endure vigorous high-altitude winter training in the remote Colorado mountains between Leadville and Vail.
Veterans of the 10th Mountain Division stand below a sign denoting the 10th Mountain Division Memorial Highway in Colorado. Denver Public Libraries photo.
Seasoned mountaineers like Fred Beckey and twins Jim and Lou Whittaker were brought in to train the medley of eager yet disorganized skiers who had heeded Dole’s call. Dressed in winter camouflage, travelling through the mountains on seven-foot long hickory skis with rifles in hand, the 10th Mountain troops quickly became celebrities—it wasn’t long before this unique and exclusive brotherhood of ski troops had captured the nation’s attention.
In his book The Last Ridge: The Epic Story of America’s First Mountain Soldiers and the Assault on Hitler’s Europe, McKay Jenkins describes how the 10th Mountain became a source of comfort for the anxious and fearful American public. He observed that, “In the hands of the nation’s newspapers and filmmakers, the mountain troops were used to reassure a frightened nation that old-fashioned, even virtuous, soldiering would stand up to the Axis threat.”
“Everyone wanted to join the 10th,” Lou told TGR. “There was a huge risk of getting injured in training or abroad but it was a hell of a lot better than getting shot at on the front lines.”
When the soldiers were finally deployed to Italy’s Apennine Mountains in 1945, they succeeded in capturing a line of Italian ridges in what are considered among the most daring nighttime attacks in military history. Countless bone-chilling nights training in thin Rocky Mountain air served them well when the ski troops scaled the steep, icy face of the east side of Riva Ridge. Taking the Germans by surprise in the middle of the night, they easily gained control over the ridge before conducting another successful assault on Mount Belvedere.
Despite heavy casualties and the harshness of war, the 10th troops came away with an even stronger connection to the mountains, their passion contagious to the rest of the country.
“We never got tired of it,” Lou said. “After we’d be training in the snow all week, we’d go out on the weekends and ski or climb something else just for fun.”
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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