Alaska's 1-40 Cav made its last cavalry jump June 10 — WWII lineage returns in July

Soldiers from Alaska's 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment made what was likely their last major jump under the cavalry name on June 10, conducting a joint forcible entry at Donnelly Drop Zone near Fort Greely. The operation included live TOW missile fires, 81mm mortars, drone reconnaissance, and multinational crews from the Royal Air Force, Canada, and New Zealand alongside U.S. forces. In July, the unit becomes the 1st Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment — a designation that revives a World War II Pacific Theater lineage.

The reflagging isn't ceremonial. It's part of a broader Army restructuring around the 11th Airborne Division (Arctic), reactivated at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Fort Wainwright in 2022 as part of the Defense Department's renewed emphasis on Arctic operations and Indo-Pacific readiness. The 511th designation carries Pacific weight: the original 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment joined the 11th Airborne Division in 1943 and fought on Leyte and Luzon in 1944 and 1945 — the same theater the modern 11th Airborne is being repositioned to operate across.

"This is as close as you get without being in combat," said Lt. Col. Bryson Shipman, who led the June 10 operation. "Joint forcible entry to seize an airfield, clear a forward landing strip, and then air assault to secure key infrastructure. This mission mirrors what the 11th Airborne Division would be called to execute in a large scale combat operation. The standard we set here is the standard we will be held to when it matters."

The June 10 operation came at the close of RED FLAG-Alaska 26-2, a multinational exercise that ran May 28 to June 12 with about 2,100 service members and roughly 70 to 75 aircraft training across approximately 120,000 square miles of airspace within the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex.

The exercise expansion carries costs some Alaskans bear directly. The Gwich'in Steering Committee, Interior Alaska rural residents, and subsistence users have criticized large exercises for noise, low-flying aircraft, and disruption to wildlife, hunting, and fishing that affect their quality of life in communities near the range complex.

Shipman, who described the unit as having operated as parachute infantry even under the cavalry designation, said the reflagging formalizes what the soldiers were already doing: "Our Paratroopers are already living the mission and setting the standard for what 1-511th Parachute Infantry Regiment will be."