In the night sky over Sicily on July 9/10, 1943, the All Americans of the 82nd Airborne Division made their first airborne assault of World War II. Three others would follow: Salerno, Normandy, and Holland. In total, the division would serve more than three hundred days in combat, a record unmatched by any other American airborne division.

In Sicily the division’s 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) was unexpectedly confronted by the elite Herman Goering Panzer Division with 107 tanks, including 17 of the fearsome Mark VI Tigers. The American paratroopers fought the Germans to a standstill, saving the invasion beaches from an armored Nazi onslaught.

After jumping into the Salerno beachhead to bolster the beleaguered American forces, the All Americans experienced heavy combat in the mountains of Italy. When the division was ordered to redeploy to England to prepare for the invasion of Normandy, the 504th Regimental Combat Team stayed behind to beef up U.S. Fifth Army for the upcoming invasion of Anzio at the specific request of army commander General Mark Clark. A German officer’s diary captured during the fierce fighting at Anzio contained the following passage: “American parachutists— devils in baggy pants—are less than one hundred meters from my outpost line. I can’t sleep at night. They pop up from nowhere and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems the black-hearted devils are everywhere.”

This fierce, valorous spirit characterized the troopers of the 82nd throughout the war. Platoons would take on regiments, as at Ste. Mere-Eglise where 2nd platoon of Company D, 505th PIR, held off three battalions of German infantry supported by self-propelled guns and three regiments of artillery long enough for the company to organize a defense. The following day, battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort ordered a counterattack that was led by Lieutenant Waverly Wray, the executive officer of Company D. With just a single platoon he succeeded in destroying one of the German infantry battalions. And this was just the beginning of the All Americans’ war in France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany. The division’s troopers were part of the airborne spearhead of Operation Market Garden and held the crucial north shoulder of “the Bulge” against seemingly overwhelming Nazi forces.

With 365 historic images and 30 detailed maps, The All Americans in World War II provides a complete photographic history of the 82nd Airborne Division as it fought its way across Sicily, Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany, ultimately serving occupation duty in Berlin before returning to the United States and leading the great New York Victory Parade up Fifth Avenue on January 12, 1946.

Texas Tech graduate Phil Nordyke is a veteran of twenty-six years in the high-tech industry, starting with Texas Instruments and Xerox. After retiring from Cisco Systems, Nordyke documented the World War II history of the 82nd Airborne Division. He lives in McKinney, Texas, with his wife Nancy, and their children Jason, Amy, and Robert. In May 2005 Zenith Press published Nordyke’s first book, All American, All the Way: the Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War IL to wide critical and popular acclaim.