The General and His Daughter: The War Time Letters of General James M. Gavin to His Daughter BarbaraJames Maurice Gavin left for war in April 1943 as a colonel commanding the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division America's first airborne division and the first to fight in World War II. In 1944, Slim JimGavin, as he was known to his troops, at the age of thirty seven became the 82nd's commanding general the youngest Army officer to become a major general since the Civil War. At war's end, this soldier's soldier had become