Author: Frank Van Lunteren

Frank Van Lunteren has devoted more than two decades of research to the wartime history of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Birth of a Regiment opens his five-volume campaign study with the unit's formation, training, and operations in Sicily and at Salerno from May 1942 through September 1943. Knox Press issued the volume in 2022. It reconstructs scattered airborne landings and ground actions through interviews, oral histories, archival records, and accounts from opposing forces. Van Lunteren's connection to the subject began after he met a 504th veteran while studying history in Nijmegen. Veterans later encouraged him to write the regiment's full story, and he became an honorary member of the 504th. The remaining volumes follow the regiment through Italy, Operation Market Garden, the Ardennes, Germany, and postwar occupation. Born and raised in Arnhem, Van Lunteren brings local knowledge to the European settings while keeping individual soldiers visible inside a detailed regimental chronology.