Statistics
The 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team accumulated over 150 combat days during five campaigns on battlefields in Italy, France, Belgium and Germany.
The battalion casualty rate was 81.9 percent. The Team suffered 1,576 casualties and had 247 men killed in action.
PFC Melvin E. Biddle B/1/517th PIR was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroic actions during the Soy-Hotton engagement.
On February 15, 1945, elements of the RCT were assigned to the 13th Airborne Division. The 13th was inactivated in February 1946.
In addition to the one Medal of Honor, troopers of the 517th PRCT earned 6 Distinguished Service Crosses, 131 Silver Stars, 631 Bronze Stars, 1,576 Purple Hearts, 5 Legion of Merits, 4 Soldier's Medals, 2 Air Medals and 17 French Croix de Guerres.
Read more about this topic: 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment (United States)
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“We ask for no statistics of the killed,
For nothing political impinges on
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Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)