The paratrooper idea had actually been around for much longer. Military aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell had already planned, and was given permission by General John Pershing (The General of the Armies), to drop infantry behind German lines by parachute in 1918 during World War I, but the war ended before the operation could be put into practice. Peace and the Great Depression put a stop on airborne research between the World Wars, and the first paratrooper “test platoon” was only formed in 1940 as a hurried response to Germany’s well-developed Fallschirmjäger.
                                
Teething troubles
One question was frequently debated from the beginnings: should paratroopers be deployed in separate small units, each organized and acting independently, or in large, possibly division-sized forces? Brigadier General William C. Lee, often called the “Father of the U.S. Airborne,” visited Britain in 1942 to learn from their experiences, as they were further ahead in developing their own airborne capability. He learned that the British were planning to use entire divisions, and advised Lieutenant General Lesley McNair (“The Army’s architect”), the chief of staff of General Headquarters, U.S. Army, to do the same. McNair settled on the establishment of two airborne divisions, the 82nd and the 101st.

Early experiences with American airborne operations revealed various problems. During Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa, units suffered from poor navigation, an inoperative radio homing device, being blown off course, being given wrong radio frequencies to the navigational beacon ship, and bad coordination between airborne and amphibious forces. As a result, the majority of the C-47s (The C-47)  ran out of fuel and had to land wherever they could. 
 
The 17th Airborne was activated in April 1943, when the upcoming Allied invasion of Sicily was already in sight, but was not ready in time for Operation Husky. Husky ended with the capture of Sicily, but it was another bitter lesson about the potential problems of airborne operations. American airborne units were scattered far and wide, partially due to deadly friendly fire from U.S. ships that did not expect them to appear overhead and had orders to shoot all aircraft. Once the paratroopers landed, they suffered heavy casualties in the fierce fighting.

That proof came with the Knollwood Maneuver, a mock battle held near Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which was designed to test the capabilities of airborne units. Held in December, the maneuver had two sides. The attacker was the 11th Airborne, reinforced by the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), a part of the 101st Airborne; the defender was the 17th Airborne with a battalion from the 541st PIR. The goal of the attacking force was to launch an airborne attack, capture Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield, and prevent it from being retaken by the defenders. The large-scale maneuver involved 200 C-47s and 234 Waco gliders (The Waco CG-4 Glider), and was a spectacular victory for the attacker. McNair and Marshall were convinced that large airborne forces were viable. Ultimately, it was the victory of the 11th Airborne, and the defeat of the Golden Talons, which ensured survival for all American airborne divisions.

The 17th Airborne goes overseas
After participating in more maneuvers, the 17th Airborne was finally overseas and arrived in Britain in August 1944. It was attached to the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps under the command of Matthew Ridgway (The American War Hero Who Also Saved Korea), who was the commander of all U.S. airborne operations in Europe at the time.
 
The Golden Talons had to sit out Operation Market Garden (Operation Market Garden), as it was still collecting its combat equipment. It finally got a chance to prove itself in combat during the Battle of the Bulge. Eisenhower intended to commit the 17th Airborne alongside the 82nd and the 101st, but unlike the latter two, the Golden Talos were still stationed in England and could not take off for several days due to poor weather. When they finally arrived, they were attached to Patton’s (The Wars of George S. Patton) Third Army. The division suffered nearly 1,000 casualties in three days while trying to hold a ridge to the northwest of Bastogne. It was during this fighting ("The Battle of Dead Man's Ridge") that the division earned its first Medal of Honor. The company of Staff Sergeant Isadore S. Jachman (born in Berlin, Germany), was pinned down and suffering heavy casualties from German small arms, mortar and artillery fire as well as two tanks. Jachman left his cover, dashed across open ground while shot at to pick up a bazooka (The Bazooka) lying next to a dead comrade, than advanced on the two tanks alone while taking fire from both of them. He damaged one and forced both to retire, suffering fatal wounds in the process.

The Golden Talons were moved into theater reserve after the Battle of the Bulge, but were quickly tapped for an ambitious plan, Operation Eclipse. Eclipse called for the 17th and 82nd Divisions, as well as one brigade from the British 6th Airborne Division, to make a daring jump into and around Berlin in broad daylight and capture the capital of the Third Reich. The operation got to such an advanced stage that the divisional commanders had already been briefed, when the whole thing was called off after Eisenhower assured Stalin that the Western Allies would let the Soviet Union capture Berlin. With Eclipse cancelled, the Golden Talons were attached to the effort to cross the Rhine instead.
 
Crossing the Rhine
Operation Plunder, the crossing of the Rhine, was the brainchild of British Field Marshall Montgomery (Montgomery – Part I), and he insisted on having airborne assistance for the amphibious crossings. As with the D-Day landings or Market Garden, the airborne were to land on the far side of the river, capture key points to prevent German troop movements, and hold those points until relieved. Learning from the mistakes of Market Garden, the airborne were to be dropped pretty close to the crossing points, and only once the amphibious forces already established a bridgehead, to minimize the time they would need to hold out for without reinforcements. The airborne part of the operation was codenamed Varsity.
 
The plan originally called for three divisions (two American and one British), but there was only enough transport capacity for two, so the U.S. 13th Airborne Division, which had no combat experience, was dropped from the plan, leaving the 17th and the British 6th Airborne.

Operation Plunder began on the evening of March 23, 1945. The transport aircraft for the airborne took off from Britain and France in the early hours of March 24. The Golden Talons utilized 836 C-47s, 72 larger C-46 Commando transports and over 900 Waco gliders, with the first units landing on German soil at around 10 am. Heavy ground haze and anti-aircraft fire caused many units to mis-jump, but the men rose to the challenge, captured their objectives, and held them until relieved. (A single bridge had to be blown up to prevent recapture by the Germans.) The division suffered 1,346 casualties over five days, and two of the division’s four Medals of Honor were awarded for events on the first day.

Private George J. Peters landed with 10 other men in a field and immediately came under machine gun fire which prevented them from getting free of their parachutes or scrambling for the equipment bags. Peters stood up and launched a one-man charge against the machine gun and the German riflemen supporting it. He was struck and knocked down. He got up and charged on until he was hit and fell again. He kept crawling forward into the enemy fire until he was close enough to hurl grenades at the weapon emplacement while mortally wounded. His sacrifice gave his comrade the reprieve they needed to get battle-ready.