515^th Parachute Infantry Regiment

The 515th Parachute Infantry Regiment was the parachute infantry component of the 13th Airborne Division during its overseas period, but it did not enter combat in World War II. The regiment was activated at Fort Benning, Georgia, on May 31, 1943, under Airborne Command. It moved to Camp Mackall, North Carolina, in January 1944 and was assigned to the 13th Airborne Division on March 10, 1944.

Through 1944 the 515th trained as part of a division intended for airborne employment in the European theater. In January 1945 it staged at Camp Shanks, New York, departed the New York Port of Embarkation on January 26, and arrived in France on February 6. By then Allied airborne forces were being organized for possible operations connected with the crossing of the Rhine and the final advance into Germany.

The regiment's expected operational opportunity came with Operation Varsity, the airborne assault east of the Rhine on March 24, 1945. The 13th Airborne Division was available in theater but was not committed because there was insufficient airlift to employ it in addition to the British 6th and U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions. As a result, the 515th did not make a combat jump and did not fight as infantry in the European campaign.

The regiment remained in France with the division after the Rhine crossing and through the end of hostilities in Europe. It received Central Europe campaign credit, returned to the United States in August 1945, moved to Fort Bragg, and was inactivated there on February 25, 1946. Its wartime history is therefore best classified as trained and deployed, but not combat employed. Within the regiment set, it is the clearest example of a parachute infantry regiment prepared for late-war airborne use but left without a combat mission.