Hailing from the big cities and small towns of America, these young men came together to serve their country and the greater good. They were the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division (the All Americans). Phil Nordyke, their official historian, draws on interviews with surviving veterans and oral history recordings as well as official archives and unpublished written accounts from more than three hundred veterans of the 505th PIR and their supporting units. This is history as it was lived by the men of the 505th, from their prewar 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 postwar legacy of having been part of an elite parachute regiment with a record unsurpassed in the annals of combat.

Author Biography

Phil Nordyke was elected official historian of the 505th Regimental Combat Team (RCT) at the association's annual reunion, held in Colorado Springs in 2003. He is the author of All American, All the Way: The Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II and The All Americans in World War II: A Photographic History of the 82nd Airborne Division at War. He lives in McKinney, Texas, with his wife Nancy.