It was not chosen to participate in Operation Market Garden, the airborne landings in the Netherlands, as Allied planners believed it had arrived too late and could not be "trained up" in time.

The 17th gained its first Medal of Honor during its time fighting in the Ardennes, and was then withdrawn to Luxembourg to prepare for an assault over the River Rhine.

The German Armed Forces pioneered the use of large-scale airborne formations, first during the invasion of Norway and Denmark and later that year during the assaults on the Netherlands and Belgium in 1940 and later in the Battle of Crete in 1941.

[1] The Allied governments were aware of the success of these operations (but not of the heavy German casualties incurred, particularly during the assault on the Netherlands and the invasion of Crete) and decided to form their own airborne formations.

[3][4] The 17th Airborne Division was activated on 15 April 1943 at Camp Mackall in North Carolina, under the command of the newly promoted Major General William Miley, a veteran of World War I.

[7] As the division trained, a debate developed in the U.S. Army over whether the best use of airborne forces was en masse or as small compact units.

The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division had been deployed by both parachute and glider and had suffered high casualties, leading to a perception that it had failed to achieve many of its objectives.

[9] General Eisenhower had reviewed the airborne role in Operation Husky, and had concluded that large-scale formations were too difficult to control in combat to be practical.

[10] Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces, had similar misgivings: once an airborne supporter, he had been greatly disappointed by their performance in North Africa and, more recently, Sicily.

He persuaded Eisenhower to set up a review board and to withhold judgement on the effectiveness of divisional-sized airborne forces until a large-scale maneuver could be tried in December.

I believe that airborne troops should be reorganized in self-contained units, comprising infantry, artillery, and special services, all about the strength of a regimental combat team [...] To employ at any time and place a whole division would require a dropping over such an extended area that I seriously doubt that a division commander could regain control and operate the scattered forces as one unit."

The objective for the 11th as the attacking force was to capture Knollwood Army Auxiliary Airfield[15] near Fort Bragg in North Carolina, after which the maneuver was named.

The 17th was passed over in favour of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions because it had only recently arrived in the European Theater and was considered to be unprepared logistically as it was still collecting its combat equipment.

On 16 December 1944 the Wehrmacht launched an offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium, breaking through Allied lines and rapidly advancing towards Antwerp.

[26] On Christmas Day, the division was attached to George Patton's U.S. Third Army and ordered to assume a thirty-mile long defensive position that ran along the Meuse River near Charleville.

After it had captured the town of Espeler on 26 January the entire division was withdrawn from the front and transported by truck to Luxembourg, effectively ending its participation in the Ardennes campaign.

The two airborne divisions would be dropped behind German lines, with their objective to land around Wesel and disrupt enemy defences in order to aid the advance of the British Second Army.

[41] Operation Plunder began at 21:00 on 23 March after a week-long aerial bombardment of Luftwaffe airfields and the German transport system, involving more than ten thousand Allied aircraft.

[43] In the first few hours of 24 March, the transport aircraft carrying the two airborne divisions that formed Operation Varsity took off from airbases in England and France and rendezvoused over Brussels, before turning north-east for the Rhine dropping zones.

[46] The actions of the regiment during the initial landing also gained the division its second Medal of Honor, when Private George J. Peters posthumously received the award after charging a German machine gun nest and eliminating it with rifle fire and grenades, allowing his fellow paratroopers to gather their equipment and capture the regiments first objective.

[49] However, despite this inaccuracy the paratroopers swiftly rallied and aided the British glider-borne troops who were landing simultaneously, eliminating several German artillery batteries which were covering the area.

[50] By 14:00, Colonel Coutts reported to the Divisional Headquarters that the 513th had secured all of its objectives, having knocked out two tanks and destroyed two complete regiments of artillery during its assault.

[50] During its attempts to secure its objectives, the regiment also gained a third Medal of Honor for the division when Private First Class Stuart S. Stryker posthumously received the award after leading a charge against a German machine gun nest, creating a distraction to allow the rest of his platoon to capture the fortified position the machine gun was situated in.

[47] The third component of the 17th Airborne Division to take part in the operation was the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment, under the command of Colonel James Pierce.

By the 27th, twelve bridges suitable for heavy armour had been installed over the Rhine and the Allies had fourteen divisions on the east bank of the river which had penetrated up to ten miles.

[53] The division also gained its fourth Medal of Honor in the days following Operation Varsity, when Technical Sergeant Clinton Hedrick of the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment received the award posthumously after aiding in the capture of Lembeck Castle, which had been turned into a fortified position by the Germans.