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The story below is an excerpt from our January/February 2018 issue. For the rest of this story and more like it subscribe today, log in to read our digital edition or download our FREE iOS app. Thank you!
Camp Toccoa, a WWII training camp from 1942 until 1944, is now home to a museum, and presents the opportunity for the fit among us to replicate the six-mile run undertaken by recruits hoping to become part of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
In the earliest hours of June 6, 1944, several hundred young men of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, jumped from planes into the darkness over Nazi-occupied France. Mostly lost in the roar of the plane engines was the motto of the 506th that some yelled into the night as they jumped: “Currahee!”
The word would have sounded odd to any enemy who heard it, but the men of the 506th—and other paratrooper regiments—well knew what it meant. The mountain in north Georgia long known by that name had had a part to play in preparing them for that moment.
“Currahee” is thought to be derived from “gurahiyi,” which translates roughly as “stand alone” in the language of the Cherokee, who first made what’s now north Georgia their home. The 1,740-foot mountain does seem to stand alone, mostly because it is a tail end of the Blue Ridge as the chain peters out into the upper Georgia piedmont.
From mid-1942 until 1944, Camp Toccoa, named for the nearby town, was the training base for what began as an experiment, teaching men to jump into combat from airplanes. The rigorous training in combat skills and parachuting was only part of it, however. To combine those skills the troopers had to be absolutely physically fit, and for that the mountain overshadowing the camp became a training ground in its own right.
