17th Airborne Division

513th PIR HISTORY

    The 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) was constituted on 26 December 1942 and assigned to the 13th Airborne Division.  It was activated 11 January 1943 at Fort Benning, Georgia and moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina on 1 November 1943 then to Camp Mackall, NC on 15 January 1944.  The 513th PIR transferred to the Tennessee Maneuver Area on 4 March 1944 where the regiment was relieved from assignment to the 13th Airborne and formally assigned to the 17th Airborne Division on 10 March 1944.  The unit immediately relocated to Camp Forrest, Tennessee on 24 March 1944.  The unit staged at Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts 13 August 1944 then departed the Boston Port of Embarkation on 20 August 1944.

    The 513th PIR arrived in England under the command of Colonel James W. Coutts who was formerly the assistant commandant of the Fort Benning Parachute School.  The Regiment was then shuttled to Camp Chisledon, the 17th Airborne Division staging area, on 28 August 1944.  Flight and tactical training continued and night maneuvers were added to the training schedule. When Operation Market Garden was initiated, the 17th Airborne was still in training and was held in strategic reserve.

    The 17th Airborne was still in England when the Germans suddenly attacked Allied positions in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944.  Both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division's were rushed in to help push the German onslaught back.  Between 17 and 23 December, the Germans were halted near St. Vith by the 82nd and at Bastogne by the encircled 101st.  To help reinforce the siege at Bastogne, the entire 17th Airborne Division was finally committed to combat in the European Theater of Operations.  The 513th PIR was attached to Patton's Third U.S. Army and ordered to immediately close in at Mourmelon.  In the ensuing days, the 513th PIR would gain their baptism of fire and enter the history books.

    On 11 February 1945 the 17th Airborne returned to camp in France then back to Belgium on 21 March to prepare for the air assault across the Rhine River.

    Operation Varsity would be the last full scale airborne drop of World War Two and the assignment went to the British 6th Airborne Division and the 17th Airborne Division.  It would be the first combat jump for the 513th PIR and nearly two-thirds of their C-46 aircraft were either damaged or in flames.  The 513th landed in the wrong area in the midst of the heavily fortified town of Hamminklen.  Irregardless, the 513th began conducting frontal assaults on the entrenched German positions as British gliders started to land practically on top of them.  By mid-afternoon on 24 March 1945, the 513th PIR had secured all of its objectives including the capture of 1100 prisoners.  By 1 April, the 513th was positioned 50 miles east of the Rhine. 

    The war in Europe finally ended on 7 May 1945.  The 513th PIR served in the Army of Occupation of Germany from 20 May until 4 July 1945.  The regiment went to France on 15 August and returned to the United States on 14 September 1945 and inactivated at Camp Myles Standish, MA on the same day.