Training camp in Georgia during World War II
Camp Toccoa
(formerly
Camp Toombs
) was a
basic training
camp for
United States Army
paratroopers
during
World War II
, located five miles (8 km) west of
Toccoa, Georgia
. Among the units to train at the camp was the
506th Infantry Regiment
. The regiment's
Company E
("Easy Company") was portrayed in the 2001
HBO
miniseries
Band of Brothers
.
Construction
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The training camp known as Camp Toombs was conceived in 1938. The
Georgia National Guard
and the
Works Projects Administration
(WPA) began construction on 17 January 1940, with the site being dedicated on 14 December 1940. Initially it was known as Camp Toombs, after
Confederate
Civil War
General
Robert Toombs
. But
Colonel
Robert Sink
, commander of the
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
, one of the first units to train there, did not like the name. He thought it would prompt
superstitions
among the arriving young recruits, that after traveling down Route
13
passed the Toccoa
Casket
Company they would be arriving at Camp "Tombs". Sink persuaded the
War Department
to change the name to Camp Toccoa.
[1]
Wartime operations
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The U.S. Army took over the site in 1942 when it had few buildings or permanent structures, and most personnel had to be housed in tents. Permanent barracks only became available after the first trainees had begun to arrive.
Jump training
was initially done at the nearby
Toccoa municipal airport
. But following a training accident, the airport was considered to have a runway too short for safe
C-39
and
C-47
take off and landings. All further jump training was relocated to
Fort Benning
, Georgia. As Camp Toccoa lacked a rifle range, trainees were marched thirty miles (50 km) to
Clemson Agricultural College
, a military school in South Carolina, to practice at the college's shooting range.
All paratrooper trainees were required to regularly run up
Currahee Mountain
(
elev.
1,735 feet (529 m)), which overlooked Camp Toccoa. This arduous task was memorialized in the HBO series,
Band of Brothers
, with the shout "three miles (5 km) up, three miles down." Members of the
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
refer to themselves as "Currahees" (it is anglicized name derived from the
Cherokee
word
gurahiyi
, which may mean "standing alone").
[2]
Currahee Mountain is on the insignia of the 506th regiment in recognition of the peak's importance in the formation of the regiment.
[3]
Notable units that underwent training at Camp Toccoa were:
In 1943, comedian
Bob Hope
visited Camp Toccoa.
[4]
He told the recruits, "You guys are so rugged, you look like
Wheaties
with legs."
[5]
After the
defeat of Japan
, the US Army handed Camp Toccoa back to state control in 1946.
Post war use
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In the late 1940s, it became a satellite camp of
Georgia State Prison
, which primarily housed young offenders. However, after repeated escapes, the unit was moved to a
new facility
at
Alto, Georgia
in the 1950s. Part of the site was eventually occupied by the Patterson Pump Company which makes industrial, flood, fire, and HVAC pumps.
Preservation
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In 2012 an organization, Camp Toccoa at Currahee, a not-for profit foundation, was formed to celebrate the lives and contributions of the Airborne paratroopers who trained at Camp Toccoa at Currahee Mountain during World War II. A plan was set forth to restore the facilities at the camp site.
[6]
The only original remaining building from WWII was the training camp's mess hall.
In commemoration of all the paratrooper trainees that ran the same route, the
Colonel Robert F. Sink
memorial trail follows Currahee Mountain Road from the site of former Camp Toccoa to the summit of Currahee Mountain.
[7]
The start of the trail is marked by a commemorative plaque dedicating the trail to "Col. Bob" Sink from the Five-O-Sinks (
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
Association). The trail is currently the venue for the
Annual Currahee Challenge
, a three- and six-mile race on the mountain that occurs in the fall.
[8]
References
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External links
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]