Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Alaska.(October 27, 2022): In this photo by Alejandro Pena, soldiers with the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division recover a parachute during the sling load training portion of the U.S. Army’s Pathfinder qualifications course hosted by Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Alaska. The Army’s Pathfinder School, based at Ft. Benning, Georgia, sends instructors to various units around the world to conduct a three-week intensive course for soldiers who want to be “Always First.”
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Alaska. (October 27, 2022): They drop from the skies ahead of the main force, deep behind enemy lines, risking their lives so their Airborne comrades land where they are supposed to ready to fight. Their motto is “Semper Primus”… Always First, history knows them as the Pathfinders.
The U.S. Army created the Pathfinders at the beginning of World War II after a series of erratic airborne landings in North Africa and Sicily Italy that dropped soldiers over fifty miles from their intended targets. The Army realized it needed highly specialized soldiers to land in enemy territory before main force units to set up drop zones and to guide invading aircraft to their targets.
To accomplish this, the U.S. Army established its first Pathfinder school in England whose graduates were among the first to land in France in the Normandy Invasion. The Pathfinders landed far inland to mark drop zones for their fellow paratroopers and glider borne infantry while the landings took place all along the Normandy coast.
The Pathfinders went on to fight in the South Pacific at Luzon, the Philippines, and saw action in the Korean Conflict as well. Perhaps the greatest use of Pathfinders was in Vietnam. Here they played a crucial role in the Army’s “Air Mobile” concept of usings hundreds of helicopters to ferry troops into combat. Pathfinders from the famed 1st Cavalry Division were usually first on the ground in numerous air assaults throughout the war and it was the 11th Pathfinders Company from the 1st Cav that was the last to leave Vietnam.
Pathfinder students must learn land navigation, how to locate and establish landing zones, assessing wind and other climatic conditions that could affect a landing, and the use of various signaling devices to guide aircraft to their target. Graduates also act as air traffic controllers and must know the capabilities of all aircraft they might work with during an airborne assault.
In 1955, the U.S. Army established its Pathfinder School at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and began sending teams of instructors to conduct three-week training/certification programs at military installations around the world. Today, U.S. Army Pathfinders carry on their proud tradition by living up to their motto… Always First.
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