Four Stars of Valor: The Combat History of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment in World War II Review

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(More customer reviews)By the time the troops of the 101st Airborne of "Band of Brothers" fame jumped into Normandy on D-Day, the men of the 82nd Airborne Division had already made two combat jumps -- leading the invasion of Sicily and saving the beachhead at Salerno, Italy. Arguably the finest and fiercest regiment of the 82nd was the 505th and Phil Nordyke has compiled an excellent profile of this group of remarkable warriors whose exploits on the field of battle are second to none but who have not received nearly the attention they deserve. Nordyke's work goes a long way toward correcting that. The author does a wonderful job of setting the stage in each chapter as he tracks the regiment from its formation and training in the states, through its deployment to North Africa, and then on to the battlegrounds in Sicily, Italy, Normandy, Holland, the Bulge, on into Germany, and then home. But after getting you onto the scene, he deftly hands the story of each action over to the veterans who tell the real story, in their own words, of what they experienced and what they accomplished. As a relative of one of the heroes of the 505, I too salute Phil Nordyke for this excellent book and recommend it highly to any serious student of the history of WWII. A word of warning, however: come prepared to spend time with this book. The stories told by the hundreds of veterans mentioned in this book are far too rich and compelling to be scanned. They deserve to be savored, and honored.

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Hailing from the big cities and small towns of America, these young men came together to serve their country and the greater good. Preparing for war, they came of age in what arguably became the best parachute infantry regiment to descend upon a Europe beset by World War II. They were the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division (the All Americans), and their story is told here by their official historian Phil Nordyke. Drawing on interviews with surviving veterans and oral history recordings as well as official archives and unpublished written accounts from over 300 veterans of the 505th PIR and their supporting units, Nordyke brings the history of the regiment to life, conveying with remarkable immediacy and power what it was like to be there: to liberate the first town in France; to spearhead the invasion of Sicily in the first American mass combat jump to fight at the forefront of six major campaigns (Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Normandy, Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Germany); to jump into Normandy as the only U.S. parachute regiment with combat experience. This is history as it was lived by the men of the 505th, from their pre-war coming of age in the regiment, through the end of World War II, when they marched in the Victory Parade up Fifth Avenue in New York, to the post-war legacy of having been part of an elite parachute regiment with a record unsurpassed in the annals of combat.

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