Army's 11th Airborne adds a brigade to coordinate logistics across Alaska

The Army's 11th Airborne Division activated a sustainment brigade in mid-October at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to coordinate transportation, maintenance and logistical support for a division spread across hundreds of miles of Alaska highway.

The 11th Airborne Division Sustainment Brigade (Arctic) strengthens the division's ability to synchronize sustainment operations across Alaska, the Army said in a release published Friday. Sustainment is the Army's term for keeping troops supplied and their equipment running.

More than 350 miles of highway separate the division's two main posts, JBER and Fort Wainwright. Equipment that starts at JBER can travel more than 450 miles to reach Donnelly Training Area, where soldiers run large-scale combat training, the Army said.

Even the roughly 100-mile drive from Fort Wainwright to Donnelly can take more than three hours in winter, on snow-covered highways with limited visibility and temperatures below minus 40, the Army said.

"Distance doesn't limit our ability to fight. It reinforces the importance of endurance to enable the Division," said Col. George Plys, the brigade's commander.

The activation also reactivated the 106th Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion, renamed the 17th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion as the 17th Division Sustainment Support Battalion and stood up a new 11th Airborne Division Sustainment Troops Battalion. The new brigade joins the division's two infantry brigade combat teams.

The Army names two ways the division moves gear: the Polar Express, an overland transportation operation linking JBER and Fort Wainwright, and the Arctic Aviation Command, whose helicopters carry people, equipment and supplies where missions require them.

The Army reactivated the 11th Airborne Division, which it calls its only Arctic and Pacific airborne division, in June 2022. In early October, the Army announced new reception companies at JBER and Fort Wainwright to receive soldiers moving to the state.

On Nov. 5, paratroopers flew nearly 3,000 miles from JBER and jumped into Hawaii as part of a training rotation that brings together about 10,000 personnel, the Army said. They are to fly back and jump into field training in the Richardson Training Area. The Army says that sequence prepares for a February training rotation at Donnelly, where the 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) will train in temperatures the Army says often drop to 40 below.