The memoirs presented herein reflect the 60-year-old recollections of the veterans of Hq1 or their survivors and comrades. Many of these memoirs have been augmented with information from comrades, personal records, and information obtained from the 508th PIR records available in the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
Much of the information contributed by the Hq1 widows and relatives was derived from their understanding of the veteran’s stories, or of the information conveyed to them by his comrades, and in a few instances from their personal records.
A few of these recollections may contain what might appear to be exaggerations. These incidents, events or tales could be the products of 80-year-old minds. We have not contested them, and we hope you will not.
Many of the available Hq1 men eagerly contributed their memoirs for the album. However, some of the Hq1 men or their survivors prompted by privacy or modesty did not contribute information for the album.
A few survivors said that loved ones had seldom or ever talked about their wartime experience - priceless information has been lost forever.
Unfortunately, some Hq1 men or their survivors could not be located.
Nevertheless, we believe that we have assembled enough Information to provide a reasonably comprehensive profile of the type men that served as paratroopers in Hq1 during WW II.
The character of Hq1 changed
several times during the short life of the company from 1942 to 1946. In
early 1943, the company lost several good men when they were selected to
cadre airborne units being activated. However, the saddest and largest Hq1 losses were combat losses - men killed or seriously disabled had to be replaced, and when the replacements became casualties, they had to be replaced. Accordingly, 5 groups of outstanding officers and men served in Hq1 as replacements for:
| 
