This is a multi-part series with additional history being added. For readability we have broken down the story into geographical parts

HISTORY OF THE 505th PARACHUTE INFANTRY REGIMENT

1942 – 1945

“…early on I learned that when I gave the 505 a job to do, it would be done and with little or no direction on my part. I have no doubt that, based on its record, the 505 was the best parachute regiment to come out of World War II.”

– General Matthew B. Ridgway

THE BEGINNING
NORTH AFRICA
SICILY
ITALY
THE UNITED KINGDOM
NORMANDY

Sources
Bradley Biggs, Gavin, A Biography of General James M. Gavin (Hamden, CT: Archon Press, 1980)
Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers: The American Airborne in World War II (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985)
James M. Gavin “Personal Diaries”, James M. Gavin Papers, U. S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.
James M. Gavin, Airborne Warfare (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1947)
James M. Gavin, On To Berlin: Battles of an Airborne Commander, 1943-1946 (New York, NY: The Viking Press, 1978)
James M. Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1958)
Allen Langdon, “Ready”, The History of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, World War II (Indianapolis, IN: Western Newspaper Publishing Co., Inc., 1986)
U.S.A. Airborne 50th Anniversary (Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Company, 1990)